NewLink with Computers

Abstract

The above authors, all from the Department of Adult Education, Nottingham University, have developed computerbased education and training for disabled adults in six centres in the East Midlands. In its service to the students -if not in its resoureingit is a model for others to follow.New information technology offers striking opportunities to many people with disabilities (Ridgeway and McKears, 1985;Hawkridge et al., 1985). The NewLink Project Jotham, 1987;Cooke et al., 1987) attempts to provide educational and training opportunities to disabled adults with a variety of individual needs within a single local information technology resource base with good disabled access. NewLink operates now at six such bases distributed through a region with a total population of over two million. Typically each NewLink centre has been equipped with six to eight BBC microcomputers, plus a small but growing number of more commercially-oriented machines. Each centre has also been provided with a range of hardware aids for those with more severe disabilities and a large library of software and associated training materials.

Wilderness and resistance: illuminating the digital inequalities experienced by adults with learning disabilities between 1970 and 1999

“…When they left school or college, they became the responsibility of either Social Services or the Department of Health, neither of which invested in a national infrastructure of support in the way that education had. Some computer initiatives did exist, but they were rarely sustained over a long period of time (See for example, Horsefield, 1987 andClay et al 1988).…”

“…Microcomputers were introduced into the institutions as part of a drive to use social and living skills 'programs' to teach the residents the social and life skills they would need when they began living more independently (Wain, 1991). Microcomputers were also introduced into social service day centres and similar third sector organisations in order to continue to develop the social, life and literacy skills of people with learning disabilities who were now living in the community (Clay et al 1988).…”