Inclusive design - assistive technology for people with cerebral palsy

Abstract

The first sentence of the Abstract should follow the word “Abstract.” on the same line. The abstract should be clear, descriptive, self-explanatory and no longer than 200 words. It should also be suitable for publication in abstracting services. Do not include references or formulae in the abstract. This study reports the work of the Inclusive Design research project conducted with a group of children with cerebral palsy Our project has been working with Assistive Technology and has been developing an expanded mouse and a keyboard. Nowadays, we are working as a researcher of Cognitive Ergonomics and of Inclusive Education. The goal of our project is to establish an interdisciplinary study that focus the developing of a research in Ergonomics Design, contributing to improve the assistance to people with special needs. Method: One applied the pedagogical approach, using Vygotsky’s Social-historic Theory that advocates the concept of each individual’s experiences are important to improve them. The development methodology was based on user-centered design. Results: The results showed that as long as the students applied the new technologies they developed superior psychological processes towards social interaction, autonomy, taking part in class activities more efficiently. Also, we verified how important the new technologies in class were, considering the methodologies, objectives full and effective described on this study. This way, we do hope, from the data obtained on this research, to contribute with the ones who believe that the improvement of handicap students’ inclusion in class is a reality.