In 1983, Dr. Howard Gardner published his book Frames of Mind which detailed his theory of multiple intelligences. This multimodal theory of intelligence is perhaps worth considering when establishing the design space of available communication modalities for assistive enabled on-line systems. One of the characteristics of disabled and disadvantaged students is that they normally have challenges with at least one of the five senses.
Most people rely heavily on their linguistic intelligence for communication and learning.
Fortunately, networked multimedia technology gives us many tools to deal with the various alternate learning possibilities. As has already been identified, the linguistic intelligence is considered the primary learning mode in western education. Traditional western education tends to deal well with both of these intelligences which have been considered the basic modalities of education since the ancient schools of Greece. Those who possess exceptional musical intelligence but a deficit of linguistic intelligence are often considered idiot savants and given exceptional support in their musical genius to the exclusion of general education or treated as special education students for the purpose of general education. As an example, applications such as HyperStudio allow teachers to teach conventional lessons to those with high musical intelligence.