Today’s blog post features the review article titled: Supporting effective alternative access for individuals with physical disabilities: state of the science, emerging technologies, and future research directions. This is part of the AAC journal’s special issue on AAC Research: The Power of Collaboration.
Supporting effective alternative access for individuals with physical disabilities: state of the science, emerging technologies, and future research directions
First, let’s define our terms. Alternative access methods accommodate an individual’s specific physical disability, by adjusting the typical keyboard/mouse/touchscreen interface or using an alternative interface such as head controls, eye trackers, or switches. Ideally, they allow for efficient and comfortable use of any computing device, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
This paper reviews the literature to address two main questions:
- How well do existing access methods meet users’ needs?
- And what is the best way to choose the “right” access method(s) for a given individual?
What we did
We reviewed typing speeds for various access methods across 57 studies, as well as experimental multimodal access methods across 34 papers. We also reviewed 33 papers and resources related to alternative access assessment and service provision.
What we found
The paper includes a lot of specific results from the literature review. But the basic overall gist is this. While today’s alternative access methods can be an impactful means of enabling participation for people with physical disabilities, there is room for improvement, both in the access methods themselves, as well as their associated service provision and support. To identify and implement these improvements, the field needs research and development that is fully inclusive of people with disabilities in all phases of the work.
Read the review article now for free at the AAC journal.
Authors are Heidi Koester, Susan Koch Fager, Jessica Gormley, Erik Jakobs, Kelli Johnsen, and Jon Brumberg. This author team includes an interdisciplinary group of researchers with the RERC on AAC, with backgrounds in speech-language pathology, engineering, and user interface design, as well as an individual who has been using alternative access for the past 15 years.
About this special issue of the AAC Journal
This paper is part of the series from The Future of AAC Research Summit held on May 13-14, 2024, co-hosted by the RERC on AAC and CommunicationFIRST. The Summit brought together a group of 120 AAC users, researchers, federal funding agencies, developers, and service providers.
The summit yielded 21 papers that have now been published in a special issue of the AAC journal. These papers share the lived experiences of people who use AAC, key research results, and future directions. The issue is an historic one with every paper authored or co-authored by someone who uses AAC. And, ALL of the papers are free access.
How can I read these papers?
The entire special issue is now available, with free access to all articles.
Keep an eye out for future posts that will feature particular articles.
And see our previous posts on this special issue:
- Special issue of the AAC journal
- The first word in accessibility is “access” by Patrick Regan
- Alternative ways to access AAC technologies by Pancho Ramirez
- The keyboard to my success by Tim Jin