Assistive Technology and Applied Mathematics Foundations for Supporting Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in STEM Higher Education: A Literature Review

Abstract

Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) remain underrepresented in postsecondary STEM programs, and assistive technologies rarely address their mathematics learning from an engineering or applied-mathematics perspective. This review synthesizes 45 sources on assistive technology, adaptive algorithms, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and evidence-based mathematics instruction for students with IDD. Following an integrative review methodology, sources retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ERIC, PubMed, and Google Scholar were organized into six themes: postsecondary access, UDL in mathematics, evidence-based/technology-supported interventions, AI-driven adaptive learning, low-cost IoT devices, and computational thinking/robotics. Special-education instructional science for this population is comparatively mature, while engineering-grounded, postsecondary-specific tools remain scarce. Interdisciplinary collaboration between special education and engineering is recommended.