working with children with severe motor impairments as design partners
This paper discusses attempts that have been made to team with children with severe motor impairments in the design of technology to help those children express themselves. The project is still new, and the endeavor extremely challenging, but small successes as well as enormous challenges can be reported and discussed. Much can be learned from the literature and practice of alternative and augmentative communication, in which children are asked to assist in the design and implementation of a communication scheme for that child. The challenge is to integrate these approaches with what has been learned when collaborating with typically-developing children in the design of new technology.
children design technology disabilities accessibility