213 research outputs found

    Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

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    Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

    Voices spoken in the cracks Listening to the literacy experiences of students with intellectual disability in a Maltese Secondary School.

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    Students with intellectual disability in Maltese Secondary schools attend a Core Curriculum Programme for their literacy learning. Yet their voices, locally, were never explored in relation to their literacy curricular experiences. The purpose of this thesis is to listen to a group of students in a mainstream secondary context and gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences, explore the suitability of the literacy curriculum, and identify perceptions of parents and educators as well as approaches that educators utilise which determine the literacy learning experience. The thesis is a qualitative research and uses a case study approach. Individual student interviews provided a platform to narrate their literacy experience, substantiated with in-class overt observations in literacy lessons to understand their realities further. Interviews with parents, Senior Management Team and educators shed light on the context, situated beliefs and perceptions of these stakeholders. The data gathered was analysed and manually coded with the use of a thematic approach. The application of the Social Model of Disability as a theory provided a lens through which the students’ experiences were evaluated. The study utilised literature on the emergence of student voice, engagement within the class environment, and literacy learning and strategies. Findings indicate that students with intellectual disability have communicated their literacy experiences in relation to preferences in language learning, challenges encountered and preferred topics relating to personal interests. These were expressed verbally throughout the student interviews as well as evidenced through their engagement process in literacy lessons. Insights obtained from educators and parental experiences further validated the students’ voices. Parents were pivotal in pointing out disabling barriers such as lack of use of ICT in the class and lack of home-school collaborative practices. Notions of ableism and disabling practices were identified as perpetuating through teaching and learning and the examination process. Ableism was evidently unveiled through situated beliefs and internalised assumptions in educators and senior management team. Strategies observed in the teaching and learning of literacy in the classrooms link directly to Universal Design for Learning and Assessment, and these were interpreted in the context of the students’ experiences. The study addresses gaps in the literature on allowing student voice to guide policy and practice on literacy learning. It also provides more insight into the process used in research to elicit the voices of students with intellectual disability. Recommendations focus primarily on listening to student voices regularly in the classroom, maximising student potential through ICT, and balancing literacy lesson content to provide a holistic literacy experience

    Inclusive Research: Is the Road More or Less Well Travelled?

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    The purpose of this Special Issue on inclusive research is to capture internationally, “How far have we come?” and “Where do we need to go?” Such questions are relevant now that it has been close to two decades since Walmsley and Johnson (2003) first introduced the inclusive research paradigm in their text, Inclusive research with people with learning disabilities: past, present, and futures. Within this Special Issue we have reprinted 18 articles that promote inclusive research as a paradigm that has succeeded in transferring power to people with intellectual disabilities who were once the "researched" to now being and becoming the "researchers". The articles draw upon the work of co-researchers both with and without the lived experience of disability who have adopted inclusive research as a paradigm to redress the exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities as researchers. All the 18 articles have an eye on the future and are sequenced across the following themes: the individual impact of being and becoming an inclusive researcher; building inclusive research relationships as a duo; being part of an inclusive research network; and using inclusive research to push boundaries and facilitate issues of importance identified by people with disabilities. The reprint concludes with two articles where inclusive researchers of long standing reflect on how to continue to walk forward on the road that aided by this reprint will become more well-travelled

    Sibling Bullying and Mental Health in Autistic Adolescents: An Examination of British and Turkish Families

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    Sibling bullying is highly prevalent and associated with a range of mental health difficulties. However, the question of whether this is a direct link or an indirect correlation remains unclear. In addition, families where a child is autistic appear to be at heightened risk for sibling bullying, though this population remains under-researched. Moreover, findings from single-culture research indicate varying rates of sibling bullying across cultures, though, to date, there is no cross-cultural understanding of sibling bullying. Finally, Covid-19 holds the potential to trigger sibling bullying, but there is no research yet examining this issue. To close this knowledge gap, this thesis investigates the dynamics of sibling bullying in families of autistic adolescents from a Western (United Kingdom) and non-Western (Turkey) culture during Covid-19. It uses primary data from parents of 299 British and 171 Turkish autistic adolescents and secondary data from 416 British autistic adolescents. Findings indicate that about two-thirds of autistic adolescents are involved in sibling bullying, with British ones showing slightly higher rates than their Turkish peers. In addition, sibling bullying appears to be indirectly linked to mental health through detrimental social behaviours (British & Turkish) and emotional regulation and self-esteem (British). Also, individual and family-level correlates of sibling bullying vary between British and Turkish cultures. Finally, Covid-19 seems to have had triple impacts on sibling relationships – negative, positive, and no impact – with its negative impact triggering instances of sibling conflict. To conclude, British autistic adolescents are at an increased risk for being involved in sibling bullying than their Turkish peers. Additionally, sibling bullying indirectly leads to mental health difficulties through social and emotional dysfunction, and this indirect link varies across cultures. Also, varying risk factors of sibling bullying across cultures highlight the need for culturally sensitive prevention strategies. Finally, there is an increased need for effective prevention strategies due to the heightened risk of sibling bullying during Covid-19

    Innovative Evidence-Based Assessment and Treatment of Oropharyngeal Dysphagia and Communication Disorders in Infants and Young Children at High Risk of Cerebral Palsy

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    Infants with cerebral palsy (CP) have concomitant feeding and communication disorders with lifelong detrimental consequences, including premature death. Early detection and intervention for these deficits is under-researched. This thesis investigates evidence, current practice, innovative assessment, and novel intervention for these domains. To critically appraise evidence for all interventions for children with CP, a large-scale systematic review was conducted. There is high level evidence to support the use of electrical stimulation alongside oral sensory motor interventions, and Functional Chewing Training. Low positive evidence exists supporting direct intervention for literacy, parent training and augmentative alternative communication for language and communication disorders. An international survey of dysphagia practice revealed lack of alignment with evidence, with few patients receiving gold standard assessments, adaptation over direct treatment, and children receiving less-intensive treatment than adults. Ultrasound and Fibreoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing were piloted as novel instrumental assessments of OPD in infants with CP. These tools show promise for safe early detection of OPD and warrant more research to establish psychometrics. A second systematic review was undertaken to determine evidence for OPD interventions specifically for infants with CP. Results found that neuroplasticity and motor learning-based interventions are most promising. The Baby Intensive Early Active Treatment (BabiEAT) program was then designed to harness plasticity and was tested against standard care in a pilot randomised control trial. Results showed that BabiEAT was feasible and acceptable, and conferred superior gains in feeding and parental quality of life while maintaining health and safety. To limit preventable death and optimise outcomes, speech pathologists must keep abreast of evidence, upskill, and implement new successful approaches

    Analysing and Preventing Self-Issued Voice Commands

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    Rare Respiratory Diseases: A Personal and a Public Health Problem

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    Dear Colleagues, A rare disease, also known as an orphan disease, is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population. Although definitions vary from continent to continent, according to the European Union, rare diseases are those with a prevalence of less than 1 in 2000 people. Rare diseases are, in general, chronic, debilitating diseases, which in many cases threaten patients’ lives. It is estimated that 1–2 million people in the European Union are affected by a rare respiratory disease, which is a public health problem. Due to the low prevalence and severity of many of these diseases, whose symptoms often initially manifest in childhood, combined efforts are needed to improve our knowledge of the pathophysiology of these diseases that will lead to the development of new, more effective treatments. Therefore, since rare respiratory diseases represent an important field in medicine, we propose this Special Issue to promote the dissemination of the latest advances in basic and clinical research in these diseases. Prof. Dr. Francisco Dasí Guest Edito
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