LiveWire: A Context-Aware, Location-Based Wireless Activity Support System to Facilitate Independence for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities

Wireless Internet access is an emerging technology which is growing rapidly, driven by communication and web-based services which are in great demand by American consumers. These technologies offer tremendous opportunities for increasing the independence of individuals with intellectual disabilities through the provision of personalized, real-time activity supports in a multitude of settings, including at school, in the workplace, at home and the community. While stand-alone prompting systems have proven to have great utility to individuals with intellectual disabilities, widespread adoption has been hampered by a significant barrier. Each of the existing prompting systems must be pre-programmed with the specific set of prompting instructions and copied to a specific device for use by the individual. Thus, a single device will only provide the necessary task support that can be anticipated for a particular individual. In this project, AbleLink Technologies will develop an internet-based system for managing and delivering “on demand” activity prompts to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Task supports presented with pictures, audio, and video prompts will be delivered via wireless networking and presented to individuals with cognitive disabilities via a thin-client Task Player application that can run on a wide variety of desktop and mobile devices. This will enable step-by-step task prompting to be made available to individuals using a consistent interface in any environment that has a wireless internet access point. In Phase I, the applicant will build a prototype system and conduct a pilot study to assess the technical merit and feasibility of this approach for facilitating independence.