RE: Reference for Intellectual Disability and Computers

Hi All,



I added this reference to our Research Sources page at https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/cognitive-a11y-tf/wiki/Research_sources .



If you would send me other research sources, I will add them to that page.



John

John Rochford
UMass Medical School/E.K. Shriver Center
Director, INDEX Program
Instructor, Family Medicine & Community Health
http://www.DisabilityInfo.org
Twitter: @ClearHelper



-----Original Message-----
From: Katherine Deibel [mailto:katherine.deibel@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 11:52 AM
To: public-cognitive-a11y-tf
Subject: Reference for Intellectual Disability and Computers



Making the computer accessible to mentally retarded adults Gretchen L. Robertson and Deborah Hix Communications of the ACM Volume 45 Issue 4, April 2002 Pages 171-183 ACM New York, NY, USA



Abstract:

Little research has been conducted on how to teach computer skills to developmentally disabled adults. A head counselor at a home for mentally retarded adults, who served as the inspiration for this article, was an enthusiastic personal computer user who tried to share computer instruction with home residents. Efforts at using commercial applications designed for young children were unsuccessful. Residents briefly watched the counselor use the applications, then lost interest.

Staff members had neither the time nor the user interface background to investigate which applications and user interaction design factors might make computers accessible to home residents. In this article, we describe our empirical investigation of computer use among moderately developmentally disabled individuals. We investigated the input devices preferred, and the user interaction design issues to be considered when designing or selecting applications for this population.





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Kate Deibel, PhD



URL:      http://staff.washington.edu/deibel



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"To make a difference, one must subtract one number from another."