Helping students with cognitive, physical, and visual impairments to understand abstract words independently by making learning tangible!
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Background
Background
Understanding language is the foundation of independent communication.
Some children have cognitive, physical, and sensory impairments that make it difficult to learn how to understand language. This decreased language comprehension can further cause children to face difficulties in communicating their needs and expressing themselves. Current teaching methods are confusing, not engaging, and do not promote independence.
We asked ourselves, "How might we promote independent communication of abstract words to cognitively impaired children with visual and physical impairments in an engaging and interactive way?"
Pictured here is Abigail -- a student at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children -- learning techniques for how to use her communication device to express her needs.
Human-Centered Design
Human-Centered Design
Table of Outreach
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Number of Visits to WPSBC | 10
Number of Consulted Users | 18
To date, we have visited the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children (WPSBC) 10 times to explore potential problems, interview experts, and test Tangible Language with students and experts alike. We also conducted several surveys with a variety of professionals to expand our network of experts further.
Through the journey of Tangible Language, we began by asking experts what they believe the students are struggling with. Soon, we realized that we weren't gathering enough to come up with a solution, so we expanded to classroom observation and gained so much from simply watching the day to day lives of the students, confident we could develop something to properly address the problem!
Thereafter, every thought, idea, anything involving the student's use would always put the student in mind first, and we will continue through with that method!
as of 12/15/2022
What Our Device Does
What Our Device Does
Some children with cognitive impairments struggle to conceptualize words simply by hearing them and repeatedly being told what they mean.
We found through observation that the children we worked with are more familiar with some words when they have a motivation or an action associated with that word. With this in mind, we designed Tangible Language to give children an action to associate with each word, in the hopes that this action will help their minds trigger proper recognition of what a word truly means!
Tangible Language is a modular system that contains individual pages in a book-like format. Each page of our book interface consists of a special feature to ultimately make it as interactive and tangible as possible! Whether it be a motor vibrating, a fan spinning, or even a huggable toy, each page is designed to teach one word.
To date, we have created 6 pages, but with thousands of words to learn, Tangible Language can continue to grow!
as of 12/15/2022
Setting Up a Lesson Plan
Setting Up a Lesson Plan
Tangible Words
Tangible Words
Design Goals and Objectives
Design Goals and Objectives
Adaptable
Our device must be adaptable to different learning types (auditory, visual, or tactile).
Engaging
Our device must be engaging such that students are interested in learning.
Easily Understood
Our device needs to be easily learned by both instructors and students.
Easily Set-Up
Our device must have a quick and efficient set-up process compared to current methods.
Durable
Our device must be durable enough to last multiple teaching sessions.
Portable
Our device must be portable such that instructors can easily move and transport it.
Results
Results
After testing with 7 students and 11 instructors across 10 different visits, we confirmed that the device was adaptable into daily lesson plans, easily understandable by both instructors and students due to observed and stated ease of use, and durable after enduring 3 separate prototype testing sessions.
Future Directions
Future Directions
Incorporate Capacitive Touch -- Through prototype testing, we found our buttons required strength or dexterity beyond the capability of many students. Incorporating capacitive touch would minimize the force required to activate the pages’ mechanisms, thereby making the buttons more accessible to children.
Construct More Pages -- We want to increase the number of concepts that Tangible Language can teach to children. We also want to accommodate a larger range of learning types (e.g., auditory, visual, tactile). In order to do this, we would need to construct multiple pages that utilize various different sensory input for every single abstract word we wish to teach.
Qualify Engagement -- While we could visually see positive facial expressions and body movements when children used our prototypes, we could not qualify whether Tangible Language aided in their learning of abstract words. According to professionals at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, it can take anywhere between 1 and 5 years for a student to learn a new word. To qualify our device's level of engagement, we would need to follow students for over a year to see whether they learn new words at a faster rate while using Tangible Language.
Increase Portability and Compactability -- While our pages are robust, they take up a significant amount of space. Depending on the pages, the binder may only be able to fit 2 pages at a time. We need to compact our design and create a housing for the individual pages while they are not placed inside the binder.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Katherine Andrews, Alison Oniboni for excellent outreach!
Special thanks to our professor and mentor, Dr. Joseph Samosky,
our TA Mentors, Bronco York and Moriah Eley,
and all of the Art of Making Staff!
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