Using Smartphones to Assist People with Down Syndrome in Their Labour Training and Integration: A Case Study

Abstract

This article describes a proposal and case study based on mobile phones and QR Codes to assist individuals with cognitive disabilities in their labour training and integration. This proposal, named AssisT-Task, is a full functional mobile application for Android smartphones and offers step-by-step guidance, establishing a learning method through task sequencing. It has been tested with a group of 10 users and 2 types of labour tasks. Through 7 recorded sessions, we compared the performance and the learning progress with the tool against the traditional assisting method, based on paper instructions. The results show that people with cognitive disabilities learnt and performed better and faster when using AssisT-Task than the traditional method, particularly on tasks that require cognitive effort rather than manual skills. This learning has proved to be essential to obtain an adequate degree of personal autonomy for people with cognitive impairment.

Towards Designing Mobile Apps for Independent Travel

“…Although several studies support travel on public transport [47,67], this issue remains a significant barrier to people with cognitive and intellectual disability [24,68]. Difficulties in wayfinding limit the employability of those with DS, particularly for those who work a considerable distance from home [36]. Common characteristics of reduced working memory ability, attention disorder, poor literacy and decision-making skill can considerably hamper tasks such as managing travel timetables, leading to restrictive public travel [14,38].…”

“…While the range of activities that require support is individual and varied, some particularly common issues for people with DS are planning, self-managing, remembering, and sustaining continuous attention to tasks [55]. Parents and caregivers typically follow a traditional process to teach and train people with DS to perform daily independent activities that involves repeating a task/activity multiple times and monitoring the performance to ensure the goal is achieved [36]. A list of images/texts, textual and oral instructions are the main instructions that are provided by the caregiver during this traditional process.…”

Hands-On Experiences With Assistive Technologies for People With Intellectual Disabilities: Opportunities and Challenges

“…First, an initial prototype of the system was evaluated with people in the midst of rehabilitation for brain injury [32]. After improving the prototype and discussing it with other experts in other domains (special education teachers, job insertion experts and therapists), the improved version was tested with people with IDs who were likely to be recruited for jobs [33]- [35] . These people are usually educated in labour centres, where special education teachers and labour tutors train them in several skills, adapted to their profiles.…”

“…From that experience, the research team decided to test the idea of prompting information to carry out daily life activities through smartphones with other groups that might benefit from it (people with intellectual disabilities, such as Down syndrome, ASDs and other disabilities). Thus, aQRdate was evolved into AssisT-TASK [33]- [35]. This step was supported by experts from different areas, such as labour trainers, therapists, and special education teachers.…”

Road Traffic Monitoring System Based on Mobile Devices and Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons

“…The mobile sensing technologies were used for the development of noise detection [14], social behavior monitoring [15], health monitoring of disabled patients [16], and indoor localization [17,18]. Another example is an accurate and energy-efficient smartphone-based traffic lane detection system for vehicles, which can detect different lane-level landmarks with accuracy above 90% [19].…”