Foundations of Assistive Technology: Week 1 Damian Gordon.

Foundations of Assistive Technology:

Week 1

Damian Gordon

What’s it about?

This module aims to develop the student’s ability to understand the issues associated with innovation in AT-based problem solving and enhance key transferable communication skills.

What’s it about?

On completion of the module the student will have gained experience with a range of AT devices that will help them solve problems in the field of AT

Learning Outcomes

Describe the social and legal imperatives with regard to Assistive Technology

Appreciate the environmental constraints of people with disability

Describe the various technologies and specialised interfaces to assist people with disability

Learning Outcomes

Show an awareness of various disabilities that impact the Human Computer Interface

Explain the accessibility of software Implement software interfaces with

improved accessibility Design and develop inclusive Web sites

Assessment

Continuous assessment will comprise 40% of the marks for this module. An end of module examination will comprise the remaining 60%.

Syllabus

Disability Awareness– Overview of different conditions. Analysis of

requirements imposed by these conditions. Social, Legal and Economic Models of Disability, Service Delivery Models.

Syllabus

Technical Overview– Relevant Technologies. Product Review.

Software Support Systems. Hardware Overview. Specialized Interfaces. Augmentative Alternative Communication: Switch Access: Voice Recognition: Text to Speech Computer Vision, Environmental Control and Independent Living

Syllabus

Specialized Interface design– Analysis of Requirements. Technical Constraints.

Design Issues. Design For All. Challenging the HCI user Model.

Syllabus

Inclusive IT – Access issues, Matching Person and

Technologies, Frameworks,

Syllabus

The Education Paradigm – Connecting to Learn, Education and Technology,

Learning Styles, Individual Education Plans

Background

Disability is both a common personal experience and a global phenomenon, with widespread economic, cultural and political implications for society as a whole.

Estimates suggest that there are around 50 million disabled people in the EU and 500 million worldwide. Estimated at 18% of the whole population by 2020.

Disability Theory

Focus on the social exclusion and oppression of disabled people. The barriers are embedded in policies and practices based on the individualistic, medicalised approach to disability. The removal of such obstacles by changing the way society is organised (Barnes, 1998)

“Rights not Charity”

Politicisation of Disability

In the 1970’s, disabled individuals and groups began to self-organise to resist exclusion form employment and enforced poverty. Also publication of sociological texts, e.g.:

The Sociology of Physical Disability and Rehabilitation – Gary Albrecht (editor) 1976,

The Meaning of Disability – Mildred Blaxter (1976).None of the studies attempted to question its ideological underpinnings: what has been called the “individual”, “medical” or “personal tragedy” model of disability.

Disability Movements

American Independent Living Movement Swedish Self Advocacy Movement Union of the Physically Impaired Against

Segregation, UK (UPIAS) Liberation Network of People with

Disabilities, UK Who else?

Challenging the Authority of the Medical Definition of Disability

Medical model – disability is a physical or mental impairment or a biological deficit” or “flaw” that limits what disabled people can do. This means that the “flaw” segregates those labelled form social participation.

ABNORMALITY OR MALADAPTION

Confinement, denial of human rights and oppressive practices of care (Barnes, 1990)

Social Model of Disability

A key turning point in the development of the social model of disability in Britain was the definition developed at a meeting of the Union of the Physically Impaired Segregation (UPIAS) in 1976:

Disability is something imposed on top of our impairment by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society.

Impairment is a lacking part or all of a limb, organ or mechanism of the body; and disability as the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments……(1976: 14)

Social Model of Disability

A focus on economic, environmental and cultural barriers encountered by people viewed by others as having some form of impairment. These include inaccessible:

Education Working Environments Information and Communication Systems Inadequate Disability benefits, Inaccessible transport, etc………

Inclusion in works of Pieter Bruegel (1520 – 69)

The Battle between Carnival and Lent depicts many of the human elements of the medieval social order. This painting gives us a view of the European feudal landscape with gambolling figures, lame beggars set unremarkably within the larger, symbolic mise-en-scene (Gleeson 1999: 62)

The Cripples

International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, or

ICIDH (WHO 1980)

A new paradigm (an example or conceptual framework) of disability, offering what it calls "a framework for understanding the dimensions of disablement and functioning at three different levels: body, person and society."

ICIDH Terminology

Impairment – Any temporary or permanent loss or abnormality of a body structure or function, whether physiological or psychological.

Disability – A restriction or inability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being, mostly resulting from impairment.

Handicap - This is a result of an impairment or disability that limits or prevents the fulfilment of one or several roles regarded as normal, depending on age, sex, and social and cultural factors.

www.who.int/icidh

Example

A child who has lost an eye following an accident will be impaired but may not be disabled, and will be able to participate fully in school and family activities. If a career as an airline pilot, police officer or professional tennis player had been anticipated, then this may be seen as a personal disadvantage or handicap.

Modifications to Classification

Impairment

Impairment

Disability

Activity

Handicap

Participation

WHO 2001

What is Assistive Technology?

“Any product, instrument, equipment or technical system used by a disabled or elderly person, made specially or existing on the market, aimed to prevent, compensate, relieve or neutralise the deficiency, the inability or the handicap.”International ISO-9999 Standard

Finding the Right Fit

Assistive technology or Enabling Technology is sometimes referred to as "work-around" technology. The "fit" of technology solutions with the individual's circumstances must be carefully judged - low technology solutions are often more effective and easily integrated into a person's lifestyle.

Design for All

Design for All (DfA) – design practices will have to change as a result of new challenges to meet the ever growing needs of an aging population. There is also a need for sustainable development that is more inclusive for diverse user groups.

DfA methods and tools should be part of the professional toolkit of all designers. This toolkit should include understanding of the cross-cultural nature to ensure that environments, products or services designed for people support inclusion of all citizens to society See EU e-Accessibility

[http://www.e-accessibility.org].

AT is a Very Broad Area

Daily Living aids, Mobility Aids, Vocational Technology, Environmental Technology

(ECU) Recreational Technology,

Communication Technology (AAC)

Seating and positioning aids,

Transportation Technology (POW)

Characteristics of AT

Low to high tech, Hard or soft tech, Minimal to maximal, Augment or replace, General or specific, Commercial or custom

Low Tech to High Tech

“low-tech" - non-electronic devices, such as widened pencil grips, velcro fasteners, or book holders.

"medium-tech" devices are more complicated but are used by those with some degree of independent functioning. e.g. adaptive computer peripherals - tracker balls, joy sticks, keyboards, etc.

"high-tech" devices are more sophisticated communication and environmental control systems. Considerable specialist support and training is necessary.

Members of a Dream AT team

AT User (Client) Family/ caregiver The Funder The AT Advisor The Supplier The Engineer Others depending on context

Personal Characteristics when considering the introduction of AT

Physical, Cognitive, Cultural, Experience, Age, Gender

Belbin’s Team Roles

In Meredith Belbin's 1981 book Management Teams she suggested nine types of person in a team.

Team Building Challenge

Try a "concept combination" - take two concepts or objects and combine them in some novel way.

As a team, the point is just to see what you can come up with - What can you come up with from the combination of a chair and a microwave? Perhaps an easy-chair that has a cooler and microwave and television built in. Or microwaveable "couch potatoes" ; a potato snack in the shape of a couch.