The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines persons with disabilities as ‘those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others’ (https://commission.europa.eu/).
The variety of persons with disabilities is very wide as you can see above from the UN definition. Disabled persons have to have the same opportunities and rights to be part of the society as the no-disabled persons, also in digital environment (Disability Services Act). To make this right possible, the tools of digital media have to be made suitable for different disabilities. So what kind of methods could be used in our work?
Because of the wide area of different disabilities, I wanted to find some examples of tools that can help in basic life in communication and participation. When a person has problems with verbal communication the basic digital equipment, computer, tablet or smartphone can be helpful. As professionals we should be able to guide the clients to the available options. As important as helping the clients to get the equipment they need, is to know how to use them ourselves. Here is some examples of communication systems:
Boardmaker 7.0
Communicator 5
Grid 3
DialoQ -series
GoTalk Now
VidgitGO
TalkTablet PRO Autism, Aphasia
Free apps from Googleplay:
Avaz AAC
Speech assistan AAC
JÄPÄ
In client work we have to meet the people and the best way to do it is in person. But when a person has the kind of disabilities that one can´t move easily from one place to another, we have to use digital interaction. Digital interaction is a good way to make it possible for a disabled person to reach social contacts. In Innokylä webpages you can find an interesting development project about this subject, Digivuorovaikutus osallisuuden tukena asiakastyössä.
Digitalization is present in every day´s work more and more. As professionals, it´s important to keep up with the development so we can do the work with our clients. But today, it´s still a little in client workers own hands to learn the digital world. In a thesis project of Samuli Soininen; Digitalization embedded in work with disabled people, you can find important results for developing the digitalization in work. The personnel need education of the digital tools and they have to have enough those tools. Also the management has to give support for the development. So we could maybe say that digital development is team work between clients, client workers and the management.
At the end of the post I collected the links I used in this post, they are very useful links for client work with disabled persons.
https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/disability/persons-disabilities_en
https://finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/2023/675
https://www.code-q.fi/dialoq/
https://papunet.net/
https://www.vetoavammaisalalle.fi/japa-sovellus-pilotointi/
https://innokyla.fi/fi/toimintamalli/digivuorovaikutus-osallisuuden-tukena-asiakastyossa
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/784923/Soininen_Samuli.pdf?sequence=2
No comments:
Post a Comment