Abandonment and lack of adoption in the first place

1
Abandonment(and lack of adoption in the first
place)

• Why technology designed to help, fails to do so

2
Expectations

• Expectations of the user are too high by either
  or both the caregivers and the user.
• One may need to acknowledge that the users may
  not be as smart as they had dreamed. (H.s mom
  made me take communication wall away because it
  was starting to show that H. didnt know
  everything).

3
Expectations

• Expectations are too low and the user is either
  board by the device and/or doesnt use it because
  it is not useful to them.

4
Expectations

• Doesnt do what you expected it to do.
• Not adaptable enough to meet specific needs.

5
Expectations

• Expectations of the device and what it can do are
  to high by either or both the caregivers and
  users.
• A single device can not meet every sensory,
  cognitive and physical need.
• People (often specialists) get comfortable with
  one thing and try and make it work for all their
  clients. Companies promise the sky.

6
Social Aspects -

• Isolation - because the user can now do something
  independently, they dont get the human contact
  they received before.
• People do not understand the device (e.g.
  difficult voice to understand, complex system
  like Mores code or icons that represent different
  things to different people).

What does this mean to you?
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Social Aspects

• Fear of success
• Things will change and change is scary -
  independence is scary.
• They wont need me anymore
• Fear of failure
• Fear can make users unwilling to give it their
  all
• Fear can make caregivers unwilling to give their
  child are real chance because they cant deal
  with another failure.

8
Social Aspects

• Families are used to the way things are.
• Your replacing what already works (I know what
  they mean, even if no one else can).
• Learned helplessness
• Not all members buy-in
• Doesnt become incorporated into daily life
  because its easier to do it for
  them in the short run.

9
Social Aspects

• Fear that the device will provide their child a
  crutch and they will stop working towards
  self-sufficiency.

10
Social Aspects - Attitude

• Dont believe it will work.
• Feel isolated from the decision making process.
• Cultural differences
• Different cultures have different solutions

11
Social Aspects - Cosmetic

• It makes me/my child look different
• Its not me - Its not really them
  
  
  
  
  

12
Social Aspects - Cultural

• Device uses wrong sex or wrong ethnic group
  icons. Icons are usually designed for people with
  light skin. For a long time there was only one
  voice for communication devices and it was male.
  Now there are more of choices.

13
Social Aspects - Cultural

• Wrong language (e.g. H. learning to use English
  communication device at school, but goes home to
  Spanish speaking family).

14
Difficulties for the Caregiver

• To many, technology is intimidating.
• Not everyone knows (or wants to know) how to use
  it.
• Programming difficulties (e.g. Dynovox or
  Liberator) The more a device can do, and the more
  adaptable it is, the harder it is to program.
• Not enough tech. Support (e.g. Words)

15
Difficulties for the User

• Technology is intimidating - this is particularly
  true for the elderly. Kids jump right in.

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Difficulties for the User

• Difficult to use
• Sensory (cant see it well because of glare)
• Physically (its to hard to hit
  the small buttons)
• Cognitively (I cant
  remember all those representations)

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Difficulties for the User
Motivation to Complete a Task ____________________
____________ Physical Effort Cognitive Effort
Linguistic Effort Learning Effort Memory
Effort Time Load A.T. success
King, 1999
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Difficulties for the User

• There are no instant results. This can lead to
  disillusionment with the device.
• Prevention of errors - users become frustrated if
  all they do is make mistakes at the beginning.
  Many need an errorless teaching approach.

19
Difficulties for the User

• Safety - if something goes wrong there needs to
  be a safety mechanism (e.g panic button on MAPs,
  a way back to the last page on imail so you can
  make the correct choice, or an oops I didnt
  mean to say that on a communication device).

20
Difficulties for the User

• Device does not provide enough feedback. (e.g. I
  cant tell if I pressed the button hard enough -
  I need a sound that lets me know).

21
Difficulties for the User

• Users abilities change
• Their abilities improve
• Their abilities decrease
• Their abilities vary from day to day
• Children get older
• Device no longer age appropriate
• Device no longer fits into the curriculum

22
Difficulties for User

• User with a severe congenital physical disability
  didnt learn cause and effect relationships.
  (e.g. Their movements were never tied to things
  that happened around them so they dont
  understand that they have any power).
• Caregivers didnt teach such children about their
  effects.

23
Difficulties for the User /or the Caregiver

• The device is not intuitive in either how it is
  programmed or how it is used - They use
  unnatural patterns of mapping (King, 1999)

24
Mechanical Difficulties

• Cumbersome to take around (many devices need to
  be big and durable for kids with vision, physical
  or behavioral problems, but this can cause them
  to be heavy. If its not light, theyre not going
  to lug it around).
• Power supply drains to quickly (e.g M. cant
  bring her device anywhere because the batter only
  lasts an hour).

25
Mechanical Difficulties

• Breaks easily so you cant rely on it. You need
  to have back-up system in place. (e.g. E.s
  Dynovox getting erased from a low battery. A.
  just spilled O.J. into her Dynovox and now its
  out for a couple of months being repaired).

26
Mechanical Difficulties

• It does not interface with other technologies
  because either it is to old, to new or a P.C. (in
  this district). (e.g. B.H.s computer has no
  CD-Rom drive so I couldnt give them Boardmaker).

27
Solutions
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Who can help?

• Assistive technology specialists
• Company spokespeople
• Developers
• Community

29
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Dont say this is the one.
• Make sure users and their caregivers are part of
  the decision making process.
• Dont raise expectations to high
• Dont try to solve every problem at once
• Show, dont just tell, families and teachers how
  the technology can be integrated into daily life.

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Assistive Technology Specialists

• Provide on-going training and support to all
  caregivers involved.
• Try to make the device mean less work rather than
  more work for the caregiver

31
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Start with the basics. You may know that a child
  has all the potential in the world but they need
  to understand cause and effect relationships and
  their effect on the
  environment before they can
  reach that potential.
• Start with simple to use devices, even if they
  limit the user to make it less intimidating to
  caregivers and users.

32
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Start simple so results can be seen immediately.
• Make technology show off strengths before it
  shows off weaknesses.
• Provide errorless instruction so the user doesnt
  make mistakes and avoids frustration
• Make sure you set-up a way out if the user makes
  a mistake.

33
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Start slowly so families can adapt and see the
  benefits of change.
• Be patient with caregivers.
• Go slow because change can be scary - let the
  user and his family set the pace.

34
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Make sure the technology is adding to a persons
  life from their perspective and is not merely
  replacing.

35
Assistive Technology Specialists

• Be sensitive to gender and ethnic differences.
  You can now get icons which represent people of
  different backgrounds.
• Talk to families about what sort of icons make
  sense to them.
• Be sensitive to coolness and age
  appropriateness of a device.

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Assistive Technology Specialists

• Make sure the device is going to meet the need
  that the user wants to meet.
• Make sure the device is going to be adaptable to
  work with that user
• Look visual, physical and cognitive loads
  involved - simultaneously!
• Does the device provide enough feedback?

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Assistive Technology Specialists

• Look at things like weight, durability and power
  supply

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Assistive Technology Specialist

• Have several systems in place when things dont
  work or users abilities change from day to day.
• Realize their isnt one lifetime solution.
• Make sure that when your organizing someones
  communication board, Intellikeys overlay or what
  not, you dont use unnatural patterns of
  mapping..

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Assistive Technology Specialist

• Provide feedback to developers

40
Company Representatives

• Dont promise the answer to all their problems.
• Be honest about what the machine can and cant
  do.
• Be there for technical support.
• Dont force a fit just to make a sale. (D.
  became a sales rep. for multiple products to
  avoid this).

41
Company Representatives

• Dont make it look so easy.
• Repair devices quickly.

42
Developers

• Dont try to help all users with all their
  problems in one device.
• Need to be sensitive and think about the
  social/emotional aspects that go into using such
  a device.

43
Developers

• Design it so users can have instant gratification
  and success.
• Design it so users and caregivers cant make
  mistakes when the start.
• Make it intuitive.
• Build in safety mechanisms if a user or
  programmer makes a mistake.

44
Developers

• Be sensitive to cosmetic aspects of devices.
• Design it with multi-cultural icons and voices.
• Design it with male and female icons and voices.
• Design it to be useful in multiple languages.

45
Developers

• Keep programming simple.
• Allow for interface cross-over from other
  systems.
• Make it like regular computer interfaces.
  vs
• Keep it highly customizable.
• Sensory issues
• Cognitive load
• Physical load
• Feedback

46
Developers

• Make it hard to break
• Have a good power supply

47
Developers

• Design it so people in the community can
  understand it.

48
Developers

• Dont impress people by sounding sophisticated.

49
Community

• Become knowledgeable about assistive technology
  and peoples abilities.
• Be helpful
• Be open to different ways of doing things.

50
Questions?

• What does the research say?
• Percentage abandoned
• Average time spent trying
• Number of devices tried
• Do certain devices provide a crutch which reduces
  learning?