Educational Alternatives, Volume 23, 2025

Abstract: Students with special educational needs (SEN) are among those who can face barriers to full participation in education and are sometimes perceived as achieving less academically than their peers. One of their weaknesses, is cognitive difficulties which demand the need for different learning strategies. From a teaching perspective, images form part of impactful stimuli which can make processing and retention of information in young SEN students easier. It is on this basis that Occupational Therapists (OTs) have an unwavering role as educational stakeholders in view to leverage SEN students’ strengths and guiding in their educational challenges. The outcome attributes towards equity and cultivate environments conducive for these students to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. OTs are better equipped to transfer appropriate knowledge to SEN students using image-based tools. Yet very few studies have been undertaken in this particular area in the Mauritian context and is still an open topic for discussions. To that end, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of 17 image-based knowledge transfer tools used by OTs with SEN students in Mauritius with objectives firstly to identify the mostly used image-based KT tools and secondly to rate their effectiveness. Data was collected through a survey using a closed-ended questionnaire which was personally administered to 55 OTs and the data was analyzed using statistical software namely IBM SPSS Statistics 26 and Microsoft Excel 2019. Results demonstrated that out of the 17 image-based KT tools, picture was rated having the highest usage and considered as the most effective KT tools used by Mauritian OTs. The other image-based tools mentioned are also being reflected on their effectiveness as KT tools. Graphs were rated least effective by respondents. Further studies on image-based KT tools are recommended specifically for each disability falling under the SEN category.