Involving children in the development of assistive technology devices

Abstract

Purpose. To investigate the implementation of a web-based survey for involving children in the design of assistive technology devices within the primary school environment.

Method. Children were recruited within their normal school environment. They completed tasks within the survey that sought to gather their personal preferences about assistive technology devices. From six primary schools, 257 children (mean age = 9 years and 8 months, SD = 1.51; 123 males, 134 females) including children with cerebral palsy (N = 11), varying levels of deafness (N = 7), global developmental delay (N = 2) and Down's syndrome (N = 1) participated. Observations were taken whilst the children completed the survey tasks.

Results. All children were able to complete the tasks from the survey, although children with disabilities had higher completion times and most required a form of assistance from support assistants and/or sign language interpreters.

Conclusions. The use of the web-based survey provided a novel means with which to involve children with and without disabilities in the design of assistive technology devices within a primary school environment. In order for the survey to be utilised more widely, issues that arose when involving children with disabilities need to be addressed.

Keywords:

• Assistive technology
• children
• disability
• rehabilitation
• internet

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Martin Levesley and Dr. Andrew Weightman, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, UK, for their support and innovation in developing the rehabilitation joystick and establishing space and access to the survey server.