Self-Conscious or Self-Confident? A Diary Study Conceptualizing the Social Accessibility of Assistive Technology

Feeling valued: the interplay of assistive technology and identity

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to explore the impact of AT in identity for students with disabilities in higher education and if/how this changes over time.

METHODS

Using a longitudinal qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students with disabilities (n = 13) in higher education in Ireland on two occasions during an academic year. A trajectory approach to longitudinal analysis was employed. This involved the use of matrices and identification of a through line for the study, which connects participant change over time.

RESULTS

The through line identified was feeling valued, which was central in the negotiation of identity over time across three themes: feelings of autonomy and competence; claiming disability; and feeling like you belong as a student. AT impacted experiences across the three themes which subsequently promoted or undermined students' sense of value. Reciprocally, feeling valued influenced use and perceptions of AT. Factors specific to a higher education context were also identified which influenced meanings attached to AT over time.

CONCLUSION

Creating an environment where students feel valued is key in promoting use of and positive perceptions of AT. This should form an integral part of AT and disability policy in higher education.

Applying ”designerly framing” to understand assisted feeding as social aesthetic bodily experiences

What could it mean to take a designerly perspective of a robotic eating aid to get a more holistic understanding of meals as social and embodied experiences? In this paper we provide a new perspective of bodily experiences of assisted feeding. We apply ”designerly framing” in the context of meals and Human Robot Interaction (HRI) and contribute with insights for researchers with backgrounds other than design into how ”designerly framing” can foreground social and aesthetic use. The study focuses on experiences of assisted feeding of five people with impairments in their arms or hands. All of the subjects have long-term experience of meal assistance, and four also have experience of using a robotic eating aid. The data collection comprises seven interview sessions held in peoples homes, a functional analysis of the meal experience, and a workshop held at a design agency. The ”designerly framing” is also supported by a theoretical framework describing different types of use to open the meal as a design space. This complements and extends existing knowledge on acceptance and abandonment of assistive technology and assistive robotics for the meal.

Assistive technologies, educational engagement and psychosocial outcomes among students with disabilities in higher education

PURPOSE

Increasing numbers of students with disabilities are accessing higher education each year, yet little is known about their assistive technology (AT) needs and its influence on relevant outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine met/unmet AT needs on educational engagement, academic self-efficacy and well-being and the impact of AT use in the areas of competence, adaptability and self-esteem for students with disabilities in higher education in Ireland.

METHODS

One hundred and eleven students with disabilities completed a cross-sectional online survey comprising the College Learning Effectiveness Inventory, the Student Course Engagement Questionnaire, the Self-Efficacy for Learning Form Abridged, the Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale, and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale.

RESULTS

AT use was found to have a positive psychosocial impact in the areas of competence, adaptability and self-esteem. Those whose AT needs were fully met scored significantly higher on academic self-efficacy, well-being, and on 4 of the 10 educational engagement subscales compared to those who had unmet AT needs. Met/unmet AT needs were not predictive of educational engagement.

CONCLUSION

These findings highlight the importance of AT from both educational engagement and psychosocial perspectives for students with a wide variety of disability diagnoses. The wide-reaching benefits of AT must be considered by governmental departments when making funding allocations to disability services within higher education institutions. Implications for rehabilitationStudents with disabilities can face many additional challenges within the higher education environment.Findings from this research show that access to appropriate assistive technology can support students' educational engagement, increase well-being and academic self-efficacy and have a positive impact in the areas of competence, adaptability and self-esteem.Disability and Assistive Technology Officers in higher education should be cognizant of both the educational and psychological benefits of assistive technology across diverse students with various disability diagnoses.Policy makers should consider the wide-reaching benefits of assistive technology when making funding allocations to higher education institutions.

Conceptualizing disability accommodation device acceptance by workgroups through a sociomaterial lens

Purpose

The provision of accommodation devices is said to aid organizational inclusion of employees with a disability. However, devices that are meant to enable might only partially facilitate productivity, independence, and social inclusion if these devices are not accepted by the user's workgroup. The authors outline a conceptual model of accommodation device acceptance through a sociomaterial lens to suggest conditions influencing workgroup device acceptance.

Design/methodology/approach

To build the model, the authors draw upon the sociomateriality and disability literature to frame accommodation devices as experienced in ongoing interactions, representing the goals, feelings, and interpretations of specific workgroups. The authors also unpack attributes of devices—instrumentality, aesthetics, and symbolism—and propose how each of these can pattern social conduct to influence device acceptance. The authors then draw upon the disability literature to identify attributes of workgroups that can be expected to amplify or diminish the effect of device attributes on device acceptance in that workgroup.

Findings

The conceptualization, which the authors illustrate with examples particular to visual impairment, presents implications for who and what serves as a gatekeeper to accommodation device acceptance and thereby workgroup inclusion.

Originality/value

Prior research has focused on conditions under which devices are requested by users or made available by organizations, undergirded by the assumption that devices are well-specified once provided and that they operate relatively predictably when used in various workgroups. The authors focus instead on what happens after the device is provided and highlight the complex and dynamic interaction between an accommodation device and the workgroup, which influences device and user acceptance.

Sixteen Years since the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: What Have We Learned since Then?

Persons with disabilities have historically been subjected to discrimination and exclusion, placing them in dangerous situations of social vulnerability. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, passed on the 13th of December 2006, was an important legislative landmark for valuing the rights of this population group. This study involved a bibliometric analysis of 1024 research articles published in Scopus on the social, workplace, educational, and financial inclusion of persons with disabilities since the Convention. The results show an increase in scientific production, and there is also a great deal of multi-disciplinarity, which has led to important breakthroughs for the all-encompassing inclusion of this section of the population. The most productive journals, authors, institutions, and countries, as well as the international cooperation networks, are presented here. The review concludes by setting out the main themes and trends in the research.

Connecting perceived effectiveness of app evolution to app engagement: a technology identity perspective

Purpose

This paper extends the current literature on app engagement to identify dynamic factors that affect app engagement and the value-creation pathway that connect these factors with app engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 299 app users to test the proposed research model.

Findings

The study found that the perceived effectiveness of evolution content and that of evolution speed impose both individual and joint positive effects on app identity, which serves as the mediation mechanism that connects these dynamic factors with app engagement.

Originality/value

This study takes the user perspective to explore how user perceptions of the effectiveness of app evolution content and speed, which represent unique user experiences in the app context, cultivate app engagement by enhancing app identity. Specifically, this study reveals the intertwined relationship among perceived effectiveness of app evolution, app identity, and app engagement.

Design of a wearable vibrotactile stimulation device for individuals with upper-limb hemiparesis and spasticity

Vibratory stimulation may improve post-stroke symptoms such as spasticity; however, current studies are limited by the large, clinic-based apparatus used to apply this stimulation. A wearable device could provide vibratory stimulation in a mobile form, enabling further study of this technique. An initial device, the vibrotactile stimulation (VTS) Glove, was deployed in an eight-week clinical study in which sixteen individuals with stroke used the device for several hours daily. Participants reported wearing the glove during activities such as church, social events, and dining out. However, 69% of participants struggled to extend or insert their fingers to don the device. In a follow-up study, eight individuals with stroke evaluated new VTS device prototypes in a three-round iterative design study with the aims of creating the next generation of VTS devices and understanding features that influence interaction with a wearable device by individuals with impaired upper-limb function. Interviews and interaction tasks were used to define actionable design revisions between each round of evaluation. Our analysis identified six new themes from participants regarding device designs: hand supination is challenging, separate finger attachments inhibit fit and use, fingers may be flexed or open, fabric coverage impacts comfort, a reduced concern for social comfort, and the affected hand is infrequently used. Straps that wrap around the arm and fixtures on the anterior arm were other challenging features. We discuss potential accommodations for these challenges, as well as social comfort. New VTS device designs are presented and were donned in an average time of 48 seconds.

Reading-Assistance Tools Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Computing Professionals in the U.S.: Their Reading Experiences, Interests and Perceptions of Social Accessibility

Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) software aims to automatically rewrite complex text to make it simpler to read. Prior research has explored the use of ATS as a reading assistance technology, identifying benefits from providing these technologies to different groups of users, including Deaf and Hard-of-hearing (DHH) adults. However, little work has investigated the interests and requirements of specific groups of potential users of this technology. Considering prior work establishing that computing professionals often need to read about new technologies in order to stay current in their profession, in this study, we investigated the reading experiences and interests of DHH individuals with work experience in the computing industry in ATS-based reading assistance tools, as well as their perspective on the social accessibility of those tools. Through a survey and two sets of interviews, we found that these users read relatively often, especially in support of their work, and were interested in tools to assist them with complicated texts; but misperceptions arising from public use of these tools may conflict with participants’ desired image in a professional context. This empirical contribution motivates further research into ATS-based reading assistance tools for these users, prioritizing which reading activities users are most interested in seeing application of this technology, and highlighting design considerations for creating ATS tools for DHH adults, including considerations for social accessibility.

"When They See a Wheelchair, They've Not Even Seen Me"-Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya

Disability stigma in many low- and middle-income countries represents one of the most pervasive barriers preventing people with disabilities from accessing equal rights and opportunities, including the uptake of available assistive technology (AT). Previous studies have rarely examined how disability stigma may be shaped through factors endemic to social interactions, including how the use of assistive technology itself may precipitate or alleviate disability stigma. Through two strands of work, we address this gap. Via a series of focus groups with Kenyans without disabilities (Study 1) and secondary data analysis of consultations with Kenyans with disabilities and their allies (Study 2), we identify shared and divergent understandings of what shapes disability stigma and discrimination. Specifically, Kenyans with and without disabilities were cognizant of how religious/spiritual interpretations of disability, conceptions of impairments as “different” from the norm, and social stereotypes about (dis)ability shaped the experience of stigma and discrimination. Moreover, both groups highlighted assistive technology as an influential factor that served to identify or “mark” someone as having a disability. However, whereas participants without disabilities saw assistive technology purely as an enabler to overcome stigma, participants with disabilities also noted that, in some cases, use of assistive technologies would attract stigma from others.

Dignity, Autonomy, and Style of Company: Dimensions Older Adults Consider for Robot Companions

Research into companion robots for older adults, including those who are socially isolated and lonely, continues to grow. Although some insight into older adults' preferences for various robotic types and functionality is emerging, we lack research examining how these robots fulfil or challenge a range of values and aspirations individuals have in later life. This study examines the attitudes and perspectives of 16 older adults (aged 65+) living independently but alone in their own homes, who were interviewed and shown videos depicting three distinctive companion robots: a talking assistant; a roving toylike vehicle; and a robotic dog. This approach illuminated values, preferences, and needs amongst older people that are vital for understanding the potential of companion robots. In comparing the robots, participants expressed concerns about the impact of different companion robots on their abilities and skills, their sense of autonomy and control over their lives, and the maintenance of several kinds of dignity. These results inform user-centered design and use of companion robots for older people living alone and independently.

How Content Authored by People with Dementia Affects Attitudes towards Dementia

Negative attitudes shape experiences with stigmatized conditions such as dementia, from affecting social relationships to influencing willingness to adopt technology. Consequently, attitudinal change has been identified as one lever to improve life for people with stigmatized conditions. Though recognized as a scaleable approach, social media has not been studied in terms of how it should best be designed or deployed to target attitudes and understanding of dementia. Through a mixed methods design with 123 undergraduate college students, we study the effect of being exposed to dementia-related media, including content produced by people with dementia. We selected undergraduate college students as the target of our intervention, as they represent the next generation that will work and interact with individuals with dementia. Our analysis describes changes over the period of two weeks in attitudes and understanding of the condition. The shifts in understanding of dementia that we found in our qualitative analysis were not captured by the instrument we selected to assess understanding of dementia. While small improvements in positive and overall attitudes were seen across all interventions and the control, we observe a different pattern with negative attitudes, where transcriptions of content produced by people with dementia significantly reduced negative attitudes. The discussion presents implications for supporting people with dementia as content producers, doing so in ways that best affect attitudes and understanding by drawing on research on cues and interactive media, and supporting students in changing their perspectives towards people with dementia.

A glimpse into smartphone screen reader use among blind teenagers in rural Nepal

PURPOSE

Access to appropriate assistive technology is a challenge worldwide and especially in low GDP-per-capita countries. Nepal is one example of a country with several coinciding challenges: some claim having a high rate of blindness in the general population, a low-GDP-per capita and some studies claim it has a low literacy rate, especially in rural areas. Without appropriate assistive technology, some disabled youth may not get full access to education.

METHODS

To gain insight into assistive technology use in rural Nepal, five blind teenagers in a mixed secondary school with disabled and non-disabled students in rural Nepal were interviewed about their daily smartphone use.

RESULTS

The results show that all the participants used screen readers on donated smartphones. None of the participants had received formal training in using smartphone screen readers and therefore lacked knowledge about basic and essential operational aspects of the devices as well as misguided expectations about the technology.

CONCLUSIONS

One implication of the findings is that smartphone accessibility features training material needs to be made easily available to schools and all disabled youth worldwide, as smartphones are increasingly becoming available in low-income remote regions with low literacy rates. The built-in accessibility features of smartphones promise disabled youth a non-stigmatizing platform for social participation and access to the information society.Implications for RehabilitationThe built-in accessibility features of smartphones provide disabled youth a non-stigmatizing practical platform for social participation and access to education.Training material on how to use smartphone accessibility features needs to be made easily available to schools and all disabled youth worldwide.

Aesthetics and the perceived stigma of assistive technology for visual impairment

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify factors that influence the perceived stigma of two assistive devices for visual impairment, namely the white cane and smart glasses.Method: Face-to-face semi-structured interviews with eight European students were conducted to probe their experiences and knowledge related to disability, assistive technology, visual impairment, as well as handheld and wearable devices.Results: Close relationships with disabled people seems to have a positive influence on participants perceptions about stigma, disability, and assistive technology. Academic background seems to not have any influence. The aesthetics of assistive devices was observed as an important factor that influences the adoption or abandonment of the device.Conclusion: Device without negative symbolism but with modern aesthetics (smart glasses) were positively accepted by the participants than the device with traditional aesthetics and symbolisms of visual impairment (white cane). Designers should, therefore, consider aesthetics in addition to functionality in order to avoid the perceived stigma, thereby reducing the chances of device abandonment.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONUnderstanding the factors that influence the perceived stigma associated with assistive technology can help designers and developers to reduce assistive technology abandonment and perceived stigma.Designers need to consider both functionality and aesthetics. While functionality is crucial for the users' adaptation, aesthetics is important for the users' positive perceptions.

Tenets for Social Accessibility

Despite years of addressing disability in technology design and advocating user-centered design practices, popular mainstream technologies remain largely inaccessible for people with disabilities. We conducted a design course study investigating how student designers regard disability and explored how designing for multiple disabled and nondisabled users encouraged students to think about accessibility in the design process. Across two university course offerings one year apart, we examined how students focused on a design project while learning user-centered design concepts and techniques, working with people with and without disabilities throughout the project. In addition, we compared how students incorporated disability-focused design approaches within a classroom setting. We found that designing for multiple stakeholders with and without disabilities expanded student understanding of accessible design by demonstrating that people with the same disability could have diverse needs and by aligning such needs with those of nondisabled users. We also found that using approaches targeted toward designing for people with disabilities complemented interactions with users, particularly with regard to managing varying abilities across users, or incorporating social aspects. Our findings contribute to an understanding about how we might incur change in design practice by working with multiple stakeholders with and without disabilities whenever possible. We refined Design for Social Accessibility by incorporating these findings into three tenets emphasizing: (1) design for disability ought to incorporate users with and without disabilities, (2) design should address functional and social factors simultaneously, and (3) design should include tools to spur consideration of social factors in accessible design.

(In)Visibility in Disability and Assistive Technology

In this article, we present a meta-analysis of research examining visibility of disability. In interrogating the issue of visibility and invisibility in the design of assistive technologies, we open a discussion about how perceptions surrounding disability can be probed through an examination of visibility and how these tensions do, and perhaps should, influence assistive technology design and research.

A Personalized Self-Management Rehabilitation System for Stroke Survivors: A Quantitative Gait Analysis Using a Smart Insole

BACKGROUND

In the United Kingdom, stroke is the single largest cause of adult disability and results in a cost to the economy of £8.9 billion per annum. Service needs are currently not being met; therefore, initiatives that focus on patient-centered care that promote long-term self-management for chronic conditions should be at the forefront of service redesign. The use of innovative technologies and the ability to apply these effectively to promote behavior change are paramount in meeting the current challenges.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to gain a deeper insight into the impact of innovative technologies in support of home-based, self-managed rehabilitation for stroke survivors. An intervention of daily walks can assist with improving lower limb motor function, and this can be measured by using technology. This paper focuses on assessing the usage of self-management technologies on poststroke survivors while undergoing rehabilitation at home.

METHODS

A realist evaluation of a personalized self-management rehabilitation system was undertaken in the homes of stroke survivors (N=5) over a period of approximately two months. Context, mechanisms, and outcomes were developed and explored using theories relating to motor recovery. Participants were encouraged to self-manage their daily walking activity; this was achieved through goal setting and motivational feedback. Gait data were collected and analyzed to produce metrics such as speed, heel strikes, and symmetry. This was achieved using a "smart insole" to facilitate measurement of walking activities in a free-living, nonrestrictive environment.

RESULTS

Initial findings indicated that 4 out of 5 participants performed better during the second half of the evaluation. Performance increase was evident through improved heel strikes on participants' affected limb. Additionally, increase in performance in relation to speed was also evident for all 5 participants. A common strategy emerged across all but one participant as symmetry performance was sacrificed in favor of improved heel strikes. This paper evaluates compliance and intensity of use.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggested that 4 out of the 5 participants improved their ability to heel strike on their affected limb. All participants showed improvements in their speed of gait measured in steps per minute with an average increase of 9.8% during the rehabilitation program. Performance in relation to symmetry showed an 8.5% average decline across participants, although 1 participant improved by 4%. Context, mechanism, and outcomes indicated that dual motor learning and compensatory strategies were deployed by the participants.