JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

People with motor, visual, and intellectual disabilities may have serious problems in inde-pendently accessing various forms of functional daily occupation

Objective:

The study was aimed at developing and assessing new, low-cost technology-aided programs to help people with motor or visual-motor and intellectual disabilities independently engage in functional forms of occupation and communication.

Methods:

Two programs were set up using a smartphone interfaced with a two-switch device and a tablet interfaced with two pressure sensors, respectively. Single-subject research designs were used to assess (a) the first program with two participants who were blind, had moderate hand control, and were interested in communicating with distant partners through voice messages, and (b) the second program with two participants who possessed functional vision, had no or poor hand control, and were interested in communicating with their partners through video calls. Both pro-grams also supported two forms of occupational engagement, that is, choosing and accessing lei-sure events and listening to brief stories about relevant daily topics and answering questions re-lated to those stories.

Results:

During the baseline (i.e., when only a conventional smartphone or tablet was available), two participants managed sporadic access to leisure or leisure and communication events. The other two participants did not show any independent engagement. During the intervention (i.e., with the technology-aided programs), all participants managed to independently engage in multiple leisure and communication events throughout the sessions and to answer the story-related questions.

Conclusions:

The new programs may represent useful tools for helping people with motor or visual-motor and intellectual disabilities independently access leisure, communication, and other forms of functional engagement.