Mobile support for adults with mild learning disabilities during clinical consultations

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that the learning disability (LD) population face significant communication barriers when interacting with health professionals. Such obstacles may be considered as preventable; however, there is a surprising lack of research-based technologies available that intend to promote this communication. We aim to address this issue by investigating the potential use of mobile technologies to support adults with mild LDs during clinical consultations. To achieve this, we interviewed 10 domain experts including government advisors, academics, support workers and General Practitioners. The extracted information was used to develop an initial technology probe, which was evaluated by a subset of the aforementioned experts. The overall contribution of this research is a set of design guidelines for the development of Augmentative and Communicative technologies that target the clinical needs of adults with mild LDs.

Ontology-Driven, Adaptive, Medical Questionnaires for Patients with Mild Learning Disabilities

“…This results in a reduced ability to cope independently and begins before adulthood with a lasting effect on development." LDs can also have a significant impact on an individual's capacity to interact with digital technologies as is discussed in depth in [6,7].…”

“…A more empirical evaluation was not appropriate at this stage due to the lack of available clinical alternative and augmentative communication applications for people with LDs. Previous research such as [6,7] has focused on extracting design requirements from experts, as opposed to target stakeholders; thus, embedding the questionnaire within such technologies could negatively influence the results obtained, if the user interface is inappropriate for the participants needs. Currently, the Medical Questionnaire Ontology is populated with 110 Questions across 9 distinct Questionnaires capturing conditions of the mouth, feet, chest, ears and eyes, as well as the patient's mental wellbeing, toiletry habits, weight trends, and general health.…”

“…In contrast, these symptoms may be embedded in ICS (such as [3][4][5]) that dynamically adjust to a patient's individual medical context, therefore identifying such conditions on a more consistent basis. Furthermore, systems such as [6,7] can present information to people with LDs in the format most suited to their own needs, thus increasing their ability to communicate about their health. As such, adaptive ICS are particularly useful for patients with LDs since the medical conditions and specific needs of this population are heterogeneous and wide-ranging − meaning a 'one-size-fits-all' model is simply unfeasible.…”

“…As such, adaptive ICS are particularly useful for patients with LDs since the medical conditions and specific needs of this population are heterogeneous and wide-ranging − meaning a 'one-size-fits-all' model is simply unfeasible. Consequently, developing a multitude of questionnaires to cater for every possible scenario would be unmanageable and would not scale [6,7].…”

Designing Clinical AAC Tablet Applications with Adults who have Mild Intellectual Disabilities

“…We address this gap by investigating the implementation of tablet applications to promote communication between patients with mild ID and GPs. This was approached from the perspective of patients since their crucial views have been omitted in other studies [14][15][16]. Three user-centered design workshops (UCD), involving ten adults with mild ID, were conducted to decipher the participants requirements for the proposed tablet application, along with their current use of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) technologies.…”