Francisco Alcantud

Development of symbolic play through the use of virtual reality tools in children with autistic spectrum disorders: two case studies.

Difficulties in understanding symbolism have been documented as characteristic of autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). In general, virtual reality (VR) environments offer a set of potential advantages for educational intervention in ASD. In particular, VR offers the advantage, for teaching pretend play and for understanding imagination, of it being possible to show these imaginary transformations explicitly. This article reports two case studies of children with autism (aged 8:6 and 15:7, both male), examining the effectiveness of using a VR tool specifically designed to work on teaching understanding of pretend play. The results, confirmed by independent observers, showed a significant advance in pretend play abilities after the intervention period in both participants, and a high degree of generalization of the acquired teaching in one of them.

Web accessibility for individuals with cognitive deficits: A comparative study between an existing commercial Web and its cognitively accessible equivalent

Tim Berners-Lee claimed in 2001 that “the power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect”. A considerable amount of work has been done to make the web accessible to those with sensory or motor disability, with an increasing number of government and enterprise intranet webs being “accessible”, and also with some consortiums and groups seriously approaching this commitment. Some authors, such as Harrysson, have already highlighted the need for a cognitively accessible web. However, in spite of good intentions, there has been little work to date that has tackled this task. At least until now, the existing WAI and NI4 recommendations about cognitive disability are extremely difficult (if not impossible) to test, as they are only general recommendations. This article explains an alternative Web that has been constructed and tested on a sample of participants with cognitive disabilities (N = 20) with positive results encouraging us to dedicate more effort to fine tune their requirements regarding specific cognitive deficits and automating the process of creating and testing cognitively accessible web content. This alternative web implies the use of a simplified web browser and an adequate web design. Discussion of the need to have several levels of cognitive accessibility, equivalent (although not identical) content for this collective and the need for testable protocols of accessibility that support these peoples needs is also included. This article finishes with conclusions about the potential impact of accessible pages in the daily life of people suffering from cognitive deficits, outlining the features to be considered within a user profile specification that support cognitive difficulties and with reflections about the suitability of Semantic Web Technologies for future developments in this field.

Usability remote evaluation: METBA system

Usability as well as accessibility is a key aspect in development of human-computer interaction. This paper presents the basis of usability evaluation methodology and reviews the methodology used in empirical studies of usability evaluation for disabled people. Finally, we present a solution (METBA) as a system for managing the information related to evaluation of human behavioral observation contents that is used for the registration and management of the information derived from remote usability evaluation which complements the methodology commonly used in this research area.

Assessing Virtual Reality as a Tool for Support Imagination

One of the major developments of the second year of human life is the emergence of the ability to pretend (Leslie, 1987). Many children with autism use no pretend play or are impoverished in the quality of their play (Baron-Cohen, 1989). The key factor of our Virtual Reality Software in relation to Pretend Play is the possibility to really show the object transformations we propose when pretending. We hope those technics to drive people with autism to a better understanding of pretense and to enable them to develop a play with more quality.

Analysis of research on web usability for people with cognitive disability from 2002 to 2011

We present a review of research over the last decade on web usability for people with cognitive disabilities. Our aim is to know current status on the issue of usability in relation to people with cognitive disabilities to consider the issues they present and future solutions. We proceeded to perform a review in specialized databases of different scientific disciplines. We describe the results and we discuss empirical studies which evaluated usability of websites for people with cognitive disabilities. Conclusions and future lines are presented.

Evaluation of web browsing experience by people with cognitive disability

After a review of research in last 10 years we have seen the low output of work on the usability of the web, with respect to users with cognitive disabilities. This time we intend to explore the problems faced with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities when using the World Wide Web. We conducted a study to assess the Web site navigation experience using the Usability Lab of Access Research Unit, University of Valencia, where we recorded and analyzed the Web-user interaction using the technique of Thought Manifesto and Interview, from a qualitative methodological approach, to thereby detect the problems they have when surfing the Web sites for people with cognitive deficits.

Web accessibility for visual disabled: An expert evaluation of the Inclusite® solution

This study analyzes web accessibility problems for people with visual disability and presents the results of testing a prototype of Inclusite® system, an access solution designed to facilitate web navigation for people with visual disability, consisting of a navigation interface through keyboard and speech synthesis. An expert typhlotechnologist conducts a navigation test in three sessions evaluating the prototype positively and suggesting aspects for improvement. The interface provides web access as a service, the access solution is hosted in the website, so that the user can perform navigation using a different computer (not the own) which does not have his usual technical aids, helping to reduce his dependence and enabling web access from any computer, providing web access for anyone, anywhere and anytime.