Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology

Transcription

Doris Hill - Center for Disability Research and Service: When the partnership began several years ago, between our assistive technology folks and the industrial design faculty, it was innovative in the fact that they came together and worked with individuals with disabilities. The goal was to develop assistive technology with the user as part of the team. As a veteran I thought what a great opportunity, to apply this same kind of model to individuals who may be new to disability, and who may be looking to transition back to different kinds of employment, or even to the university setting and to get a degree. We basically put together a grant for the Auburn University intramural grant program, to not only conceptually design products, which was done in the past, but to fund some of these products, to take them from concept to completion, and for the veteran to be able to walk away with technology that they were instrumental in designing. Jared Rehm - Doctoral Student, Kinesiology: Two years ago I was actually one of the participants, one of the client users for the class. Scott asked me to come on and do that, so as I continued into my graduate studies, I want to work with people with disabilities, so I knew that this would be a class that would help me to learn more about the process of developing technology for people with disabilities, so I decided to take the class. Marshall "Mac" Nelson - Vietnam Veteran, Prosthetic User: I wasn't sure I'd be able to contribute, or if they would be able to do much for me, because I'm so mobile, and I don't use many assistive devices or anything. So, I don't really think about other little things, I've been an amputee so long - since 1967. But once we met and started talking and talked with the students and started to think about the things they identified - or we identified together - it worked out. I had not really thought about the device that we came up with. Like the other vets, I think about all of us are concerned and interested in the quality of life for other vets. When I came back from Vietnam, I don't think there was near that level of concern since the Iraqi war, especially. I think there has been a much greater interest among the vets and from the general population in the quality of life, when we see so many traumatic injuries. Like other vets, I'm interested in doing what I can to help the other returning vets. Rehm: To me personally, it was a really awesome experience to be able to see somebody come and say "this is what I need", "this is where I'm struggling", and to see the development process that the industrial design students have, and their creativity really inspired me to kind of evaluate the way that I do things in own my life as a person with a disability. Hill: I think one of the important things that really came out of this was that the veterans that were involved in this iteration - because we will have another iteration in the spring - they were just as excited at the possibility to help other veterans. Like if we couldn't help them, or they couldn't design something that was specific to their needs, the fact that they were part of the team and could help apply that using universal design to other veterans, really motivated them just as much as their own individual opportunity, so I think that was the biggest outcome.