Schedule Manager: A Remote Schedule Management and Monitoring System to Support Personal Scheduling by Individuals with Intellectual and Cognitive Disabilities

This project develops and tests the utility of Schedule Manager, a remote schedule management and monitoring prototype designed to use mobile technology to enable real-time, “on-the-fly” changes to an individual’s schedule from remote locations and to monitor adherence to scheduled activities by individuals with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Difficulty with time management is one of the most significant barriers that exist for individuals with intellectual and cognitive disabilities, particularly in situations where there is a need to dynamically change the individual’s personal schedule, such as a changed doctor’s appointment or work schedule. Current systems have several limitations including having to be preprogrammed by a caregiver and the lack of remote access to update the individual’s schedule. This system is developed as an application that can be made available on Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) as well as Android mobile devices. The project culminates in a within-subjects pilot study to test the efficacy of the approach for enabling independent and timely responses to real-time schedule changes as compared to traditional methods of updating schedules.