Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Detecting the Hand-Mouthing Behavior of Children with Intellectual Disability Using Kinect Imaging Technology

  Tzu-Wei Wei (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This short paper presents a system that uses Microsoft Kinect depth-sensing technology to automatically detect hand-mouthing behavior in children with severe intellectual disabilities. Hand-mouthing — the repetitive placement of fingers into the mout…

  • intellectual disability
  • stereotypic behavior
  • self-injurious behavior
  • Kinect
  • behavior detection
  • special education
  • assistive technology
  • depth sensing

• Involving Clinical Staff in the Design of a Support Tool to Improve Dental Communication for Patients with Intellectual Disabilities

  Rachel Menzies, Daniel Herron, Lesley Scott, Ruth Freeman, Annalu Waller (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This poster paper describes a design workshop conducted as part of the "Stories at the Dentist" project, which aims to develop a computer-based support tool to help people with intellectual disabilities (ID) better understand dental procedures. Visit…

  • intellectual disability
  • healthcare accessibility
  • communication
  • user-centered design
  • clinical communication
  • social stories
  • dental care

• Motion History to Improve Communication and Switch Access for People with Severe and Multiple Disabilities

  Guang Yang, Mamoru Iwabuchi, Rumi Hirabayashi, Kenryu Nakamura, Kimihiko Taniguchi, Syoudai Sano, Takamitsu Aoki (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents the application of Motion History — a computer vision technique that visualises a user's movement history as a heat map — to support communication and switch access for people with severe and multiple disabilities. The system…

  • severe disabilities
  • multiple disabilities
  • switch access
  • computer vision
  • Kinect
  • communication
  • AAC
  • intellectual disability
  • children

• Making It Simplext: Implementation and Evaluation of a Text Simplification System for Spanish

  Horacio Saggion, Sanja Štajner, Stefan Bott, Simon Mille, Luz Rello, Biljana Drndarevic (2015) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents Simplext, the first comprehensive automatic text simplification (ATS) system for Spanish. The research addresses a fundamental accessibility barrier: textual content written in complex language excludes people with cognitive disab…

  • text simplification
  • natural language processing
  • cognitive accessibility
  • readability
  • Spanish
  • intellectual disability
  • Down syndrome
  • automatic text simplification

• Automatic Task Assistance for People with Cognitive Disabilities in Brushing Teeth - A User Study with the TEBRA System

  Christian Peters, Thomas Hermann, Sven Wachsmuth, Jesse Hoey (2014) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents TEBRA (TEeth BRushing Assistance), an Assistive Technology for Cognition (ATC) system that supports people with moderate cognitive disabilities in brushing their teeth independently. The research addresses a fundamental challenge:…

  • cognitive disability
  • assistive technology
  • activities of daily living
  • dementia
  • intellectual disability
  • autism
  • behavior recognition
  • context awareness
  • task assistance

• Toward a Competency-based Approach to Co-designing Technologies with People with Intellectual Disability

  Andrew A. Bayor, Margot Brereton, Laurianne Sitbon, Bernd Ploderer, Filip Bircanin, Benoit Favre, Stewart Koplick (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper proposes a Competency-based design approach for co-designing technologies with people with intellectual disability, extending Wobbrock et al.'s influential ability-based design framework. While ability-based design focuses on what users "c…

  • intellectual disability
  • co-design
  • participatory design
  • ability-based design
  • cognitive accessibility
  • social media
  • accessible design methodology

• A Support Worker Perspective on Use of New Technologies by People with Intellectual Disabilities

  Saminda Sundeepa Balasuriya, Laurianne Sitbon, Margot Brereton (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This qualitative study examines how support workers and managers at Australian disability community day centres perceive and facilitate technology use by people with intellectual disabilities. The researchers interviewed 15 support workers and 5 mana…

  • intellectual disability
  • support workers
  • technology adoption
  • disability services
  • co-design
  • qualitative research
  • caregivers

• The Design and Prototyping of an App to Teach Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to Empower Them Against Abuse

  Krishna Venkatasubramanian, Tina-Marie Ranalli, Jack Lanoie, Alexander Sinapi, Andrew Laraw Lama, Jeanine Skorinko, Mariah Freark, Nancy Alterio (2023) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents the design and prototyping of "Recognize," a mobile app that empowers adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) to independently learn about abuse. The work addresses a critical problem: people with I/DD are s…

  • intellectual disability
  • developmental disability
  • abuse prevention
  • self-advocacy
  • co-design
  • mobile app
  • e-learning
  • empowerment

• Health Data Visualization Literacy Skills of Young Adults with Down Syndrome and the Barriers to Inference-making

  Rachel Wood, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, Jonathan Lazar (2024) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This exploratory study is the first to examine how young adults with Down Syndrome read and interpret health data visualizations (HDVs). The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with ten participants (ages 16-29) as they viewed six differ…

  • Down Syndrome
  • data visualization
  • health informatics
  • graphicacy
  • cognitive accessibility
  • intellectual disability
  • health literacy
  • inclusive design

• Helping or Hindering: Inclusive Design of Automated Task Prompting for Workers with Cognitive Disabilities

  Gavin R. Philips, Morris Huang, Cathy Bodine (2024) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses the significant employment barriers faced by people with cognitive disabilities (PwCDs) in the United States, where only 28.6% of the approximately 8.8 million working-age adults with cognitive disabilities are employed. Those wh…

  • cognitive disability
  • intellectual disability
  • vocational support
  • employment
  • assistive technology
  • augmented reality
  • prompting systems
  • inclusive design
  • warehouse