Surveying Persons with Disabilities: A Source Guide (Version 1)

As a collaborator with the Cornell Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. has been working on a project that identifies the strengths and limitations in existing disability data collection in both content and data collection methodology. The intended outcomes of this project include expanding and synthesizing knowledge of best practices and the extent existing data use those practices, informing the development of data enhancement options, and contributing to a more informed use of existing data. In an effort to provide the public with an up-to-date and easily accessible source of research on the methodological issues associated with surveying persons with disabilities, MPR has prepared a Source Guide of material related to this topic. The Source Guide contains 150 abstracts, summaries, and references, followed by a Subject Index, which cross references the sources from the Reference List under various subjects. The Source Guide is viewed as a “living document,” and will be periodically updated

A Clinical Characterization of Severely and Profoundly Hearing Impaired Adults Attending an Audiology Clinic

Introduction: Although 16% of the adult population have impaired hearing, only about 1% have a severe or profound impairment (pure-tone average over 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz of 70 dB HL or worse in the better hearing ear). With the advent of cochlear implants attention has been focused on the minority with total impairments. Those with lesser impairments within this group have been studied infrequently, their characteristics seldom reported and their most appropriate management remains undetermined. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a clinically useful characterization of a hospital population of severely and profoundly impaired patients. Four principal aims were defined. Firstly to determine the aetiology of the impairment. Secondly to describe the major clinical and audiological features of the group. Thirdly to highlight practical testing and management difficulties. Fourthly to estimate aided disability and residual handicap

The Listening Shift: Evaluating a Communication-Strategies Training Program for Telepractice Nurses Experiencing Hearing Challenges

Workers who wish to remain employed should be supported in doing so, even if they are experiencing age-related disabilities, such as hearing loss. I aimed to better understand the strategies from which workers with hearing loss might benefit, and how they can be supported in adopting these strategies. To collect rich data, I recruited telepractice nurses who rely on listening to make critical decisions about triaging and health care recommendations. My first research question was: What strategies exist for making telephone speech more intelligible for health care providers and patients with hearing challenges? I performed a scoping review following the Joanna Briggs Institute’s protocol. I identified 11 types of strategies, many of which required cooperation from, and disclosure to, providers’ employers, co-workers, and clients. This led me to consider the public narrative workers associated themselves with when they disclosed. Thus, my second research question was: How do Canadian newspapers portray workers with hearing loss? Through a thematic analysis of newspapers articles on this topic, I found they are predominantly portrayed as striving cheerfully both towards functioning normally and towards differentiating themselves and their hearing loss as unique and positive. To further explore how a subset of adults with hearing loss strive to work with a hearing loss, I developed an online communication-strategies training program tailored to nurses with hearing challenges. I then used a multiple case study to answer the following research question: How do nurses with hearing challenges change in terms of their telephone performance and workplace wellbeing in response to participation in an online communication strategies training program? Results suggested that nurses engaged in a problem-solving process before adopting strategies, and that strategy adoption could positively contribute to their performance. Together, the findings from these studies suggest that strategies exist to enhance the performance of workers with hearing loss, but the process of adopting these strategies can be demanding. Organizations should take steps to proactively support their nurses, health-care providers, and potentially other workers with hearing loss in identifying communication strategies and adapting them to their unique context

Surveying Persons with Disabilities: A Source Guide

In 2003, The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) funded a Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC) at Cornell University‘s Employment and Disability Institute (EDI). The goal of the Center is to ―explore the reliability of existing data sources and collection methods and evaluate ways to improve and expand current data collection efforts‖ (EDI 2008). As a collaborator with the StatsRRTC, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR), has been working on a project that identifies the strengths and limitations in existing disability data collection in both content and data collection methodology. The intended outcomes of this project include expanding and synthesizing knowledge of best practices and the extent to which existing data use those practices, informing the development of data enhancement options, and contributing to a more informed use of existing data

Enhanced Accessibility for People with Disabilities Living in Urban Areas

[Excerpt] People with disabilities constitute a significant proportion of the poor in developing countries. If internationally agreed targets on reducing poverty are to be reached, it is critical that specific measures be taken to reduce the societal discrimination and isolation that people with disabilities continue to face. Transport is an important enabler of strategies to fight poverty through enhancing access to education, employment, and social services. This project aims to further the understanding of the mobility and access issues experienced by people with disabilities in developing countries, and to identify specific steps that can be taken to start addressing problems. A major objective of the project is to compile a compendium of guidelines that can be used by government authorities, advocacy groups, and donor/loan agencies to improve the access of people with disabilities to transport and other services in urban areas

Coding Strategies for Cochlear Implants Under Adverse Environments

Cochlear implants are electronic prosthetic devices that restores partial hearing in patients with severe to profound hearing loss. Although most coding strategies have significantly improved the perception of speech in quite listening conditions, there remains limitations on speech perception under adverse environments such as in background noise, reverberation and band-limited channels, and we propose strategies that improve the intelligibility of speech transmitted over the telephone networks, reverberated speech and speech in the presence of background noise. For telephone processed speech, we propose to examine the effects of adding low-frequency and high- frequency information to the band-limited telephone speech. Four listening conditions were designed to simulate the receiving frequency characteristics of telephone handsets. Results indicated improvement in cochlear implant and bimodal listening when telephone speech was augmented with high frequency information and therefore this study provides support for design of algorithms to extend the bandwidth towards higher frequencies. The results also indicated added benefit from hearing aids for bimodal listeners in all four types of listening conditions. Speech understanding in acoustically reverberant environments is always a difficult task for hearing impaired listeners. Reverberated sounds consists of direct sound, early reflections and late reflections. Late reflections are known to be detrimental to speech intelligibility. In this study, we propose a reverberation suppression strategy based on spectral subtraction to suppress the reverberant energies from late reflections. Results from listening tests for two reverberant conditions (RT60 = 0.3s and 1.0s) indicated significant improvement when stimuli was processed with SS strategy. The proposed strategy operates with little to no prior information on the signal and the room characteristics and therefore, can potentially be implemented in real-time CI speech processors. For speech in background noise, we propose a mechanism underlying the contribution of harmonics to the benefit of electroacoustic stimulations in cochlear implants. The proposed strategy is based on harmonic modeling and uses synthesis driven approach to synthesize the harmonics in voiced segments of speech. Based on objective measures, results indicated improvement in speech quality. This study warrants further work into development of algorithms to regenerate harmonics of voiced segments in the presence of noise

Multimodal and ubiquitous computing systems: supporting independent-living older users

We document the rationale and design of a multimodal interface to a pervasive/ubiquitous computing system that supports independent living by older people in their own homes. The Millennium Home system involves fitting a resident’s home with sensors – these sensors can be used to trigger sequences of interaction with the resident to warn them about dangerous events, or to check if they need external help. We draw lessons from the design process and conclude the paper with implications for the design of multimodal interfaces to ubiquitous systems developed for the elderly and in healthcare, as well as for more general ubiquitous computing applications