Debate & Autism
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Gabriel Esquivel

Special education researcher · Debate educator · Applied AI

I'm an education researcher focused on how AI tools can work alongside evidence-based practices to reduce educational disparities for students with disabilities. My research practice grew out of eight years of competitive debate, developed through six years at a debate education startup in Taiwan, and is now grounded in formal training at the University of Kansas. I prepare English-language learners in grades 2–12 to compete against native speakers at international debate tournaments — and I build the measurement tools my classroom needs and does not yet have.

Taipei, Taiwan · email in the footer

Classes I teach

Policy Debate

The deep end: a year-long topic, evidence-heavy research, and two-on-two rounds where students build and defend a plan against every angle of attack. The format behind the open-source briefs below.

Public Forum Debate

Monthly topics drawn from live public controversy, judged for persuasion of an intelligent non-specialist — the format that teaches students to be understood, not just correct.

Political Gamification

An experimental curriculum where students role-play political avatars through debates and strategy games. Pre/post surveys and a self-reflection rubric measure anxiety, evidence usage, rule adherence, and whether students can explain what bias is and why people write evidence.

Smart Debate

Public Forum cut in half for elementary-school students — shorter speeches, same structure, so the youngest debaters get the real format at a size they can carry.

Debate Social Skills

Debate as a social-skills intervention, connected to my research adapting the ASCS-2 Autism assessment for measuring social skills in a debate context.

Education

MS, Special Education — University of Kansas, expected Fall 2026
BA, Economics — University of Kansas, 2017–2020 (recruited to debate on scholarship)

Debate record

Students coached

A note on language

This site follows the KU Department of Special Education's person-first convention — “a student with autism,” not “an autistic student” — while respecting that many people in the Autism community prefer identity-first language (“autistic”) because they consider Autism integral to who they are, not a limitation. Where this site quotes or describes people who state that preference, their preference wins. “Neurotypical” is used instead of “normal,” because the opposite of normal is strange, and nobody here is strange.

McKeithan, G. K., & Mann, L. B. (2025). Module 0: Getting started — Language matters. Lecture presented in SPED 760. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, Special Education Department. · See also: Research and Training Center on Independent Living. Guidelines: How to write and report about people with disabilities (8th ed.). University of Kansas. · For the identity-first counterpoint: Sinclair, J. Why I dislike “person first” language.