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Research Paper

Enhancing social participation in young people with communication disabilities living in rural Australia: outcomes of a home-based intervention for using social media

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Pages 1576-1590 | Received 20 Dec 2014, Accepted 14 May 2015, Published online: 05 Jun 2015
 

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a home-based intervention using social media to enhance social networks of young people with disabilities and communication difficulties. Method: Eight young people (Mage = 15.4 years) with communication disabilities participated from two rural Australian towns. The intervention provided assistive technology and training to learn social media use. A mixed-method design combined pre- and post-assessments measuring changes in performance, satisfaction with performance, attainment on social media goals, and social network extension, and interviews investigated the way in which the intervention influenced social participation. Results: Participants showed an increase in performance, and satisfaction with performance, on the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure; paired t-tests showed statistical significance at p <0.01. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks revealed a significant increase in the number of online communication partners, p <0.05. The interviews highlighted participants’ and parents’ perceptions of increased social connections, improved communication frequency and nature, and speech intelligibility and literacy as a result of the intervention. Conclusions: The findings suggest that learning to use social media leads to increase in social participation among rural-based young people with communication disabilities. In order to benefit from advantages of learning to use social media in rural areas, parents and service providers need knowledge and skills to integrate assistive technology with the Internet needs of this group.

    Implications for Rehabilitation

  • Young people with communication disabilities living in rural areas of Australia can learn and benefit from using social media such as Skype, e-mail, and Facebook to enhance their social connections.

  • For young people with communication disabilities to benefit from social media, there needs to be more collaboration between home and school with use of assistive technologies, training, and support to learn to use social media.

  • Parents/caregivers living in rural areas need support and training in using social media, knowledge of assistive technologies, and the expectations that these can benefit their children.

  • Disability service providers need knowledge and skills to integrate social media and assistive technology for their clients.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the young people with disabilities and their families for their participation. Thanks are extended to research assistants Kendra Kotz and Rod Merriman who provided the intervention; Lisa Tilbrook and Claire Hutchinson for help with data analysis.

Declaration of interest

This study is funded from a grant offered under the National Disability Research and Development Agenda, jointly implemented by disability representatives from Commonwealth, State, and Territory governments. However, the information and views contained in this research are not intended as a statement of Australian Government or any jurisdictional policy and do not necessarily, or at all, reflect the views held by the Australian Government or jurisdictional government departments. Additional funding was provided by Department for Communities and Social inclusion, South Australian Government.

Supplementary material available online

Appendix.

Notes

4incredimail is a trademark of Perion Network Ltd.

5i-message and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc.

7Text-help and ireadwrite are trademarks of texthelp Ltd

8Word Q and Speak Q are trademarks of Quilsoft Ltd.

9Talking Mats is a trademark of Talking Mats Ltd.

10Picture Communication Symbols and PCS are trademarks of Mayer Johnson, Inc.

1Urban population >100 000; large rural 25 000-99 999; small rural 10 000-24 999 (Australian Federal Government Classification).

2South Australia is a state in the middle-southern area of the continent, home to 1.67 million people in 2013 which is 7.2% of the Australian population [Citation28].

3SpokenPhoto is a trademark of Spoke technologies.

6The authors can be contacted to obtain further details of resources and strategies used in the intervention.

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