Vocational training for SCI

Commanded by the student's voice, the robot loads a videodisc to begin a lesson in a popular page layout program. In this adapted workplace, students work at their own pace to build desktop publishing skills.

Problem: A person with severe physical disabilites, such as spinal cord injury, faces many obstacles to learning vocational skills in a typical classroom environment.

Approach: Using a self-paced interactive multimedia curriculum in an adapted workplace environment the Vocational Training Facility has enabled sixteen students with severe physical disabilities to learn practical desktop publishing skills. For many this unique learning experience has led to internships and employment making newsletters and slides or designing ads, forms and marketing materials for organizations and companies.

Related Work: This project builds on the developmentand evaluation of the DeVar desktop vocational assistant robot, and it has given rise to the Functional Performance Assessment Tool for tracking rehabilition treatment and progress.

Investigators
• 
  
• Charles Burgar, MD
• Inder Perkash, MD

Collaborators
• 
  
• Machiel Van der Loos, PhD
• Joy Hammel, PhD
• Pam LePage
• Dan Shafer
• Eric Topp
• David Lees
• Star Teachout

For additional information see the 1994 Project Report for this project.

Last updated September 25, 1995