Assistive Technology

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Assistive Technology

• What is it?
• How do you make it happen?
• How NISH can help

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What is Assistive Technology?

• Ergonomics for All
• Ergonomics need not be limited to the physical
  world
• Equitable Access
• Physical
• Cognitive
• Sensory
• Emotional
• Comfort

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What is Ergonomics?

• The science that seeks to adapt work, working
  conditions or other environment to suit the
  worker.
• From the Greek ergon, meaning "work", and nomos,
  meaning "laws"thus, laws of work

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Think about the work place
Example Industrial Lathe Controls and Typical
Operator
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Ideal Lathe Operator
Ideal Lathe Operator 41/2 Feet Tall, 8 Foot Arm
Span
Should we advertise for an ideal operator or
fix the work station?
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How do you do it?

• The best solutions are often the simplest.
• Check lists
• Picture instructions
• Organizing a work area or cart
• Specialized Training targeted to individual
  abilities
• A special handle
• A stick
• Appropriate height work station
• But sometimes we resort to the complex
• Computer assisted high tech doodads
• Building special tools and adaptations

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Simple Generic Cognitive Examples

• Reading Accommodations
• Provide pictures, symbols, or diagrams
• Voice output or recorded information
• Reading Pen
• Line Guides or highlighter

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More Simple Generic Cognitive Examples

• Writing Accommodations
• Use templates or forms or both
• Include guidance
• Allow verbal or typed responses
• Speech recognition
• Spell checker
• Use a scribe
• Allow ample writing space on forms

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Memory Accommodations

• Teaming
• Checklists
• PDA Schedulers
• Voice Activated recorder
• Provide written Information
• Prompt with verbal cues
• Provide written or pictorial instructions on
  frequently used machines

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Math and Measurement Accommodations

• Large button/display or talking calculator
• Use a counter or ticker
• Use a pre-counted or pre-measured poster or jig
• Use a talking tape measure
• Mark measuring cup with fill to here
• Pre-Measured Units

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Organizational Accommodations

• Minimize clutter
• Color code items or resources
• Use watch alarm or beeper
• Use assembly jigs
• Arrange materials in order of use
• Use task list with numbers or symbols
• Avoid isolated workstations
• Integrate Prompting and feedback into the task
  design

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Providing Emotional Support

• Give positive feedback
• Provide tangible rewards
• Use co-workers as mentors
• Provide job coach
• Create and encourage supportive teams

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Supervisory Accommodations

• Create Standard Operating Procedures for
  Supervisors
• Train supervisors on communication etiquette
• Discuss disciplinary procedures
• Communicate one-on-one
• Deal with problems as they arise
• Keep job coach informed
• Monitor effectiveness of accommodations

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What Will NISH Do For YOU?

• Visit Your facilities and Work Sites to
• Design job interventions
• To make specific jobs accessible to populations.
• For individuals to access specific jobs.
• Help to fund some interventions.
• Help implement partnerships with local
  universities and colleges to design and build
  assistive technology projects to meet CRP needs.
• Work with universities to develop some exciting
  new technologies
• Provide training
• Two day training from NISH Rehabilitation
  engineering partnered with UW Stout
• Entertaining
• Hands on
• Worthwhile
• Two next year.
• 2/26-27 Greenville, SC
• 11/17-18 San Francisco, CA

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We Can Visit Your Facility

• Help you to make your current workforce with
  severe disabilities more productive
• Find ways to help the people with severe
  disabilities that seem unemployable work
  productively on your available jobs
• Help you fund some of the interventions we want
  to try
• Help find College and University partners to help
  you with the same issues
• Most of our work is limited to your JWOD Projects

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Simple Example

• Mike, a janitor had difficulty walking, emptying
  trash doing touch up vacuuming and standing
• Balance and strength issues
• Solutions
• Standard janitorial cart with wide enough wheel
  base to lean on (like a walker)
• Lighter waste paper cans. (the old ones were very
  heavy)
• A hook to hang the handheld vacuum on
• NISH specified and purchased the stuff

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Another Example

• Brett
• CP Severe Tremor
• Difficulty Communicating
• Left arm is the only mobile arm and has 6 range
  of motion.
• Low IQ
• NISH specified and purchased the stuff.

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And one more

• Close trimming of thread with tremor and
  dexterity issues

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We Emphasize Lines of Business

• Reaching the most jobs with limited resources
• Developing interventions to make lines of
  business more universally accessible

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Emphasis Lines of BusinessExample

• Laundry
• Internal Uniform Pilot at PARC in UT
• Uses RFID to Aid Sorting
• When uniform is hung a launder able chip triggers
  and antenna and a picture appears on a screen
  matching a picture where it goes

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Laundry Result

• The small laundry now utilizes people with
  disabilities for nearly 100 of its direct
  labor.
• Before the project almost all of the work was
  done by skilled staff from another project
• PARC Is expanding the laundry to service more
  customers because it now meets their mission.

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Emphasis Line of Business

• Commissary
• Warehousing and order Picking
• UPC Barcodes are scanned. Scanner tells Where to
  put product verbally.
• Day stocking
• Empty shelves are scanned for space
• Warehouse is scanned for stock
• Unit compiles pick list by aisle for day stocking
• Both jobs are
• Faster to complete
• Less error prone
• Accessible to people with cognitive challenges.

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Line of business Custodial

• OS1
• Cleaning Methodology for the Custodial Industry
• Pilot Project _at_ PARC in, UT
• Works very well for people with disabilities
• NISH provides training to check out and or
  implement OS1

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Standardized Processes Accessible Work

• OS1 Contains
• Defined Simplified Procedures
• More accessible to the cognitively challenged
• Ergonomic Equipment
• More accessible to the physically challenged
• Special adaptations can be made for specific
  people
• Measurable Processes
• Easy to tell how you are doing and when
  adjustments may be needed
• Controllable Processes
• Minimize your variables

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(OS1) Focus

• Cleaning for Health
• Focus on Worker Safety
• Treating Cleaning Workers as First Class
  Citizens
• Ergonomic Tools
• Standardized Training
• Simplified Cleaning Methods
• State of the Art Cleaning Tools
• Environmental Stewardship
• Balancing Workloads
• Benchmarking Best Practices
• Tracking Cleaning
• Cleaning as a Team

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Standardized Job Descriptions

• Easy to understand guides and check sheets
• Light Duty
• Vacuuming
• Restroom
• Utility
• Team Approach
• Simplified individual tasks
• Carved

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Standardized Intelligible Training
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Standardized Tools

• Standardized tools
• Tested
• Benchmarked
• Predictable
• Ergonomic
• Can be further modified to meet individual needs

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Color Coding and Good Tools

• Red Color Designates equipment can only be used
  in the bathroom
• The mop bucket is separated into clean and dirty
  water compartments to ensure that the mop is
  always utilizing fresh water during the cleaning
  process.
• The PortionPac containers below are red colored
  so it is for a bathroom. There is also an
  inspection mirror and consumable material log
  sheet.
• Training materials and check sheets for the
  bathroom are also red.

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Color Coding continued

• Red Means Restroom
• PortionPacs simplify measuring

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PARC Results - OS1 Benefits
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NISH Training for OS1

• NISH Training Custodial University 3 Day
  Training on OS1. Offered about 4 times per Year
• Best Practices Next week at the ISSA Conference
  in Orlando. 2 Days of Training Networking.

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Lines of Business Next on the Plate

• Context sensitive portable prompting and feedback
  for Mobile workers.
• PDAS read hidden RFID tags as the worker moves
  from place to place.
• The PDAs are programmed with the workers
  schedule.
• The PDA aware of the time and the place and can
  prompt the worker with, for example
• Where to go next
• That they have spent too long doing one job
• They can also be programmed to call the
  supervisor in the case of an anomaly
• We are planning to team with Wayne State
  University on this important project

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Cognitive interventions a priority

• People with severe intellectual issues are the
  people most often left behind.
• We are looking for better ways to overcome their
  limitations and improve their options and
  earnings.
• We are working on and looking for projects to
  decrease the cognitive loads in Ability One jobs

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University Partnerships

• Very effective way to get creative solutions to
  vexing problems.
• Students do projects (Typically senior design
  projects) with CRP and Individual Assistive
  Technology needs as the focus.
• Give specific people access to specific work
• Make jobs around your facility universally
  accessible and productive

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University Partnership Examples

• Indiana Students developed and built a custom
  walker with a lifting seat for a girl
  transitioning from high school.
• The girl could work productively on a wide
  variety of jobs because she could access more of
  the shop and adjust her own working height
  appropriate to and of the work she needed to do.

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More Partnership Examples

• Indiana Students developed and built a
  Fixture/machine to aid in the stamping of lot /
  quality tags on finished garments.
• The job became accessible to a variety of people
  who could not could not do it

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Intangible Results

• The students who have worked with our CRPS have
  gone on to be active volunteers in other
  organizations after graduation.
• They have become strong advocates for disability
  issues.
• They are more likely as they age and grow in to
  management roles to say yes when people with
  disabilities walk through the door.

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University Partnerships

• NISH provides incentive to universities
• The College Scholar Competition
• Winning team gets 10,000
• Partnering CRP gets Matching check
• Sponsoring college department gets a matching
  check
• Small amounts of Seed Money available to students
  to build their projects
• The Design Engineering Education Division of the
  American Society for Engineering Education in
  partnership with NISH will provide Grants of up
  to 350 to selected student groups to build their
  projects
• Student advice and guidance
• NISH personnel will work with students affiliated
  with CRPs working on Ability one projects
• Call us to have us help you kick off a partnership

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Making it happen

• What is the best way to make sure people get the
  accommodations they deserve?
• Designate a person or group to be responsible for
  accommodations.
• They dont need to design them or build them
• They just need to advocate and follow up
• In my experience this is the biggest common
  denominator for success

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What NISH will do for your AT program

• Work with you to implement Assistive Technology
  in your work place.
• Greater general accessibility
• Help for individuals to get access to work,
  better work or improve their productivity at work
• We can help you decide, design, purchase and or
  implement.
• Work with you to develop a partnership with your
  local college or university.
• Put the creativity, energy and brains of your
  local students to help people work.
• Provide training to help you do it yourself

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Summary
Call US

• Paul Nishman
• [phone]
• pnishman_at_nish.org
• Seattle Office
• Kevin Ryan
• [phone]
• kryan_at_nish.org
• Atlanta Office

Do Some Accommodations