Not AvailablePeople with cognitive disabilities may experience challenges in consistently performing daily activities because they skip steps, struggle to track progress, or lack the motivation to complete them. These challenges are often along a range; people need assistive devices customized to their specific needs. However, existing assistive technologies, like prompting systems, lack the capabilities to customize support for diverse needs. With the advent of smart home devices, there are opportunities to design prompting systems that support diverse accessibility and motivational needs, thereby supporting the regular practice of daily activities. To understand design factors for such devices, we interviewed adults with cognitive disabilities, parents, and caregivers. Our participants described their needs for future prompting systems, including structuring tasks, supporting motivation, and introducing community support. This paper presents insights and design suggestions for context-aware assistive technologies that could help people with cognitive disabilities regularly perform everyday activities.
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"It Broadens My Mind": Empowering People with Cognitive Disabilities through Computing Education
Computer science education is widely viewed as a path to empowerment for young people, potentially leading to higher education, careers, and development of computational thinking skills. However, few resources exist for people with cognitive disabilities to learn computer science. In this paper, we document our observations of a successful program in which young adults with cognitive disabilities are trained in computing concepts. Through field observations and interviews, we identify instructional strategies used by this group, accessibility challenges encountered by this group, and how instructors and students leverage peer learning to support technical education. Our findings lead to guidelines for developing tools and curricula to support young adults with cognitive disabilities in learning computer science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10094099
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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