AwLD

Adults with Learning Difficulties

A Website Framework for Adults with Learning Disabilities to aid literacy and skills retention. Semester 1 Status Report Karen McCarthy 20004879 Supervisor: David Power BSc(Hons) in Information Technology



Introduction 1 Project Description 2 Goals of the project 5 Intended Audience 5 Literature Review 7 Motivation, relevance, significance of the study 8 Research 8 Interviews 9 Existing Systems 10 Requirements Gathering 11 Methodology 11 System Requirements 13 Prototype 14 Functional Requirements 14 Non-Functional Requirements (these are examples) 15 Operating System & Hardware 16 Software & Tools (these are examples) 16 Live Technological Prototype 16 Conclusion 16 Weekly Activities 17 References 20 Bibliography 21 Plagiarism Declaration 36

Introduction The aim of this project is to create a framework for the development of an online learning platform to facilitate adults with literacy and learning disabilities or difficulties (LD), to use technology for communication, education, skills and fun.

This paper focuses on researching similar studies and reports on the subject of facilitating adults with online learning and the resources currently available to them. On initial analysis resources seem limited, this study hopes to contribute to a gap in literature available. It explores the unique requirements needed by persons with learning difficulties (PwLD) who are adults need and how they differ from ‘normal’ adults, after identifying the lack of online facilities in this area, a framework will be suggested for designing a website to meet their needs. A prototype will be built and tested to provide valuable feedback for future iterations. Project Description In Ireland, using technology for special needs isn’t very common as can be seen by this excited tweeter while at the Special Needs Toy and Equipment Exhibition 2016 in Kildare, “We have a new exhibitor! For the first time we have a technology company!!!!” (SN Toy Exhibition, 2016).

Funding for proprietary software and assistive technology is limited. The Disability Federation of Ireland’s vision for Assistive Technology is “A society where everyone with a disability or disabling condition, and older people, has access to affordable, up to date and appropriate technology that suits their needs.” They also envisage developing a loan library for different ATs, which is commendable but in the meantime many people are without access to ATs and some without mobile devices. Specialised software is available but only for those organisations or people who can afford it.

Most adults with LD live with their families. The ability to communicate and learn independently is increasingly important as demographics are changing and as these adults often live with and depend on elderly parents.
According to CSO 59 people 45-59 years of age have used the Internet in the last 3 months and only 32 people in the aged 60-74 years of age. Parents of PwLD may lack the skills and knowledge to advise their children on mobile phone use. Some adults with special needs can be more vulnerable socially online, according to Caton and Chapman “barriers that stop people with intellectual disability from successfully accessing social media were identified as being: safeguarding concerns, difficulties caused by literacy and communication skills, cyber-language, cyber-etiquette, and accessibility”(Caton and Chapman, 2016). These concerns may prevent PwLD having access to mobile devices.

There are thousands of mobile apps for learning but since mobile device accessibility maybe a problem this project concentrates on a framework that will be delivered through a responsive website; developing an app may come later.

A 2013 study, found that “when digital games were compared to other instruction conditions without digital games, there was a moderate to strong effect in favor of digital games in terms of broad cognitive competencies.” (Clark, Tanner-Smith, and Killingsworth, 2013) also in 2013 a journal published in Nature, the International weekly journal of science, claimed to “provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, of how a custom-designed video game can be used to assess cognitive abilities across the lifespan, evaluate underlying neural mechanisms, and serve as a powerful tool for cognitive enhancement”(Anguera et al., 2013). Practice by doing helps to retain 75% of information according to the learning pyramid (Peak Performance Centre, no date) so game based learning will be incorporated into the website to provide the opportunity for repetition. PwLD often suffer from poor retention and limited attention span so they would benefit these learning modules.

(TILDA) The Irish LongituDinal Study on Ageing, dealing with people over 50 years of age and living in Ireland recently released figures that “show that between 2010 and 2013, the prevalence of dementia among people with Down syndrome who are part of the study had almost doubled from 15.8% to 29.9%.” (RTÉ Commercial Enterprises Ltd, 2015). One of the National Dementia Strategy actions is “to examine the issues arising regarding the assessment of those with Down Syndrome and other types of intellectual disability given the early age of onset of dementia for these groups and the value of establishing a reliable baseline.” (Dept. of Health, 2014). A new study launched in 2015, “The BEADS study (Brain Exercises for Adults with Down syndrome) will investigate the feasibility of using existing brain training games with a cohort of older adults with Down syndrome without dementia“ (Trinity News, 2015) by researchers at Trinity College Dublin.

Outside of schools and education institutes there is a lack of online learning resources for adults with LD. Ireland’s population of PwLD over the age of 35 years is increasing and vulnerable to dementia and could benefit from online learning, brain training and other educational games. This projects will be designed for adults with LD’s self development independent of an organisation, although it can also be used within a class environment.

Benefits of this website: Aids communication (form relationships, get info, reduce isolation.) Place to maintain education and life skill levels through practice and play. Self-esteem, feeling accomplished when completing an exercise Forum to chat with peers

‘The importance of communication is crucial. Anne McDonald (Crossley & McDonald 1982) has said, “Communication falls into the same category as food, drink and shelter: - it is essential for life, and without it life becomes worthless." ‘ (Gates, 2002)

Goals of the project This project aims to discover the information available concerning online websites for adults who have learning or intellectual disabilities as per the target audience, with the intention of building a framework of a website to incorporate activities that help them learn, have fun and keep their brains agile.

Objectives (stages to attaining goals.) Literature review Build Prototype Test Prototype Implement changes Retest Provide a framework one website with learning opportunities for this projects intended audience. Research sources: online, books, thesis, reports, in person (interviews). Build Prototype Design a platform ...

Intended Audience Brief History of Learning Disability. Researching the intended audience has been hampered by the different definition and classifications across countries, policies implemented, and government Acts governing people with learning disabilities.

Once called a Cretin, Imbecile, Idiot, Moron, educable, mentally retarded, and mentally handicapped, the terms used to describe people who were seem as other than ‘normal’ have changed and are still changing. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) strategic plan and classification system aims to standardise these terms. Nowadays, the terms most commonly used are ‘Intellectual disability’, ‘learning disability’ or ‘learning difficulty’. Some argue the difference between ID and LD, for example (Cunningham, 2015) describes ID as being below-average IQ, whereas describes LD describes a weakness in certain academic skills, however as the table below demonstrates it also depends which country you are in.

UK Aus/NZ US/Canada Ireland LD-learning difficulties ID-Intellectual disability mental retarded/retardation GLD-general learning disabilities Moderate LD Moderate/Mild ID mild or educable Mild GLD Severe LD moderate ID moderate/severe or trainable moderate to sever GLD Profound & multiple LD severe ID severe to profound Profound GLD

“Learning disabilities, in the form of intellectual disability and learning disorders, are one of the most common forms of disability in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland; however, there is a lack of terminological consistency in respect to these conditions, which affects the description, diagnosis, treatment and prevalence figures of these conditions.”

“There are more than 1000 million people with disability globally, that is about 15% of the world’s population or one in seven people.” (World Health Organization, 2015). The National Intellectual Disability Database (NIDD) 2015 Annual report by HRB (Health Research Board) show 28,108 registered people with ID in Ireland.

Levels of Intellectual Disability are described as Mild, Moderate, Severe, and Profound. There are in 9,130 registered with mild disability in Ireland, also as per the HRB report by (Doyle and Carew, 2016) young people (aged 16–19 years) who were in an education setting in 2015 are in need of additional services through various pathways. Having a website available that provides for independent learning, can help skills retention within each of these pathways.

Of PwLD 17,872 registered are over 19 years of age and 32.5% have mild disability, so there are approx 5,800 adults with mild disabilities. “Down syndrome is a genetic condition that influences development throughout life. It is one of the most common causes of learning disability.” (Syndrome Education International, 2017). This project focuses on the needs of Down syndrome adults within Ireland but may also suit a wider audience including people with other disabilities, adult and teens with literacy needs around the world.

Organisations offering help: Brothers of Charity ‘Pathfinders’ & Down Syndrome Irl.

Literature Review
Review concepts, theories, and research findings

What are the aims & objectives (of the literature review - what’s the solution?) This research aims to discover the information available (do I need to specify? ) about concerning online websites for adults who have learning disabilities.

Objectives - stages to attaining goals. Review books, online resources, interview key personnel, reports and initiatives within Ireland and the wider community. Analyse the information for relevancy to my project Identify information that can be used to help develop my framework. Motivation, relevance, significance of the study Relevance of the study: .. the need for it? Lack of facilities for adults with LD to learn, communicate and play online. significance of the study: may lead to a functioning website accessible to anyone, promotes independent learning. This research is motivated by witnessing first hand how the Brothers of Charity Pathfinders group interact with the internet during computer class from 2013 to 2016. These are adults between 25 - 50 of mixed gender, most have Down syndrome. After using Microsoft programs such as MS Paint, Word and Powerpoint they were eager to use the internet. Initially using Gmail which was monitored weekly to ensure safety, they went on to use many google products: google chat, google docs and google slides, all accessible through the google app launcher. Then the group signed up to a few online websites that had google account sign-in or really simple registration options. Over the 3 years it has been difficult to find resources for fun, communication and learning appropriate to their needs that is simple to understand yet not infantile in terminology and design. Their favourite web pages are often on different sites but the group finds it hard to remember the website names or navigate them. Of the ten students in class only one is allowed to have a facebook account for security reasons so access to social networks is restricted. Their specific needs highlighted the lack of available resources and led to this project so they can participate online in class and independently outside the classroom.

Research The Disability Act (Government of Ireland, 2005) defines disability as: “A substantial restriction in the capacity of the person to carry on a profession, business or occupation in the Irish State or to participate in social or cultural life in the Irish State by reason of an enduring physical, sensory, mental health or intellectual impairment.” *The UN CRPD was signed by Ireland in 2007 but is still not ratified.

Providing for PwLD is still relatively new in terms of education, studies started with adults (get quote) then was taken up by (AUS-get quote) so most of the resources available now deal with children with special needs. Although there is now a shift to provide services for adults.....

a progressive, step-wise, learning approach modify the teaching approach - visual etc. Visual aids, charts, diagrams etc. provide direct and immediate feedback. Individuals with ID require immediate feedback. This enables them to make a connection between behavior and response. https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/effective-teaching-methods-for-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/ Interviews Tony McSweeney - parent of adult with down syndrome Mary Foskin (phone 21/11/16) - latch on (AU project) co-ordinator, parent of teen with down syndrome & school principal John Upton (Chair DSI) 087 8567429 Margaret Mulligan - Gráinne de Paor - Head of Adult Education & Projects, DSI & Speech & Language Therapist– Caroline ?, Literacy Teacher (not much help...) Tracy Boland - most of their clients are under 70 IQ so mild disabilities. Existing Systems What learning technology resources are available.......

There are many online learning websites and applications available for adults and children, but not specifically for adults with special needs, or intellectual disabilities e.g. Down Syndrome. This study explores the opportunities for PwLD to access online learning for skills acquisition and retention. The tasks and simplicity of some sites designed for children are generally accessible by PwLD however even though they maybe suitable for adults with special needs but the context and design is childish in nature and maybe demeaning to those adults.

Alternatively, the online websites for adult literacy have improved (NALA, writeon.ie, etc.) and have a few online resources but these are limited and often lacking in accessibility features. There are a few adult literacy websites, for example, ‘writeon.ie’

This study researches how PwLD learn best through learning, play and rehearsing skills to help retention.

Online learning options for adult are generally geared towards adults who completed primary or secondary education. Figures from 2011 census show that “16% of people with disabilities aged 15-49 had completed no higher than primary level education, compared with 5% for the general population in this age group.” and “22% with disabilities did not progress beyond lower secondary.” (Disability Federation of Ireland, 2015) Requirements Gathering What the customers want... Site, easy to use, .....

Methodology After considering the requirements, technology, complexity, reliability, time frame and scheduling factors, eliminated the structured approaches; the waterfall, parallel and phased methods. then looked at Extreme Programming as used the Agile model of the software development lifecycle previously. When comparing eXtreme Programming with the Throwaway prototyping it rated poor on unfamiliar technology and complex systems, therefore. the Throwaway prototyping methodology seemed a better fit. On researching further found that the evolutionary prototyping methodology might be better as in theory I the outcome would be a finished product. This methodology is suitable for projects were requirements are uncertain yet it requires frequent testing. An advantage is that the end-users are willing and available to test the system.

Decision: Evolutionary Prototyping

ID Requirements & materials needed Design build, test, feedback, refine .... finalise

Usefulness for waterfall parallel Phased Prototyping RAD-Throwaway Prototyping Agile-Extreme Unclear u/req P P G E E E Unfamiliar tech P P G P E P complexity G G G P E P reliable G G G P E G Short time P G E E G E Sch visibility P P E E G G

P - Poor, G - Good, Excellent.

Risk Description Contingencies Requirements Changes to requirements Time Re-visit Review schedule Skills My previous experience with project building at this level is eight years of out date. For database I used SQL and I used MVC framework with Ruby on Rails without quite understanding what a framework was. Today we have noSQL databases to support big data and bootstrapping among the many frameworks. In order to combat the skills risks, I have scheduled online revision and training in the following: javascript, bootstrapping, and mongo. I have also researched and am testing wireframes and frameworks to discover appropriate options.

Technological Software may not work

System Requirements These are the technologies I will use to develop my prototype and these are the reasons that I choose them….

Functional Requirements Functions Login/profile Track changes Automatic repeat last lesson Forum Accessibility (W3c - WA 14 guidelines - do validity check) Magnify Screen Contrast, Screen Reader, accessible html Subtitled, transcripts Predictive Text labelling of interface elements Compatible with assistive tech Access with mouse alternatives Learning Modules (styles: visual/spatial, aural/auditory, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, social/interpersonal, solitary/intrapersonal) Typing: single letters, word bank, small paragraphs Jigsaw Articulation

user/stakeholder request → feature → use case → business rule functional requirements describe what software is supposed to do. System requirements describe what hardware/OS/middleware software should be run on. u/case Class diagram Interaction diagram DFD Sequence diagram ER diagram

Non-Functional Requirements (these are examples) Security Intuitive User Interface & Accessibility Design Scheme, Font (Dyspraxia type), colour, graphics, navigation, interface Do wireframe validation logos from DFI

Late teens to Adults with special needs have a combination of challenges: Learning Disabilities Poor memory retention Reading and writing difficulties Speech disorders Motor Skills Problems

The user interface needs to be simple, easily understood incorporating accessibility tools. A combination of learning outcomes and awards that can be tracked and recorded for each user. This group of people learn best when simple language is used, instructions kept short if written or subtitled with pictures

Performance & Availability Platform Independent : This framework suggests a browser user interface (BUI) that can run on any browser on the world wide web which is inherently an independent platform

Tools and Technologies Operating System & Hardware Software & Tools (these are examples) Draw.IO Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver Mongodb Github HTML & CSS Parse NoSQL JavaScript Live Technological Prototype This is how I will test my prototype…. Testing Observations Verbal Feedback Online Questionnaire

Conclusion This is my conclusion on stage 1 of the project…. Improving Own Learning and Performance; • Problem Solving; • Working with Others Weekly Activities Week Date Activities Completed 1 No.1 (7th Sept) Began brainstorming Submitted Proposal to Supervisor Began revising HTML, CSS, JS and SQL on khan academy and udemy.

2 No. 2 (14th Sept) Attended project induction day.
Discovered the proposal was due in that day, but can be sent in afterwards.
Enrolled in moodle.

3 No. 3 (21st Sept) Paid my Fees - I’m committed. Scary as hell, memories of constant struggle flood back. Hope it’s better this time round.

4 No. 4 (28th Sept) Got sample proposal from moodle and submitted mine. It’s quite a poor proposal, I need to flesh it out a bit. I’m not sure exactly what technologies I need or how to go about putting this together. Continued with online learning review of basic coding. It’s easy to follow lessons, but I’m still not confident of creating something from scratch.

5 No. 6 (5th Oct) Received an email David Power is my supervisor.

6 12th Oct First Meeting with Supervisor Need to re-write proposal to add more detail I looked at code examples of typing games.

7 19th Oct Researched availability of online learning / gamification for adults with special needs. Redo Project proposal for research. After sending it, I didn’t want to do an only research project - trying to word / phrase things is annoying!! Meeting with Supervisor Reviewed project again. Change to 50/50 research/project.
Create an online learning platform, with login that records progress. GUI - choose appropriate font, colours, graphics Explain and justify all decisions. Identify components needed, then identify technologies that will be used to create them.

8 26th Cancelled Meeting with supervisor - sick. Khan Academy Download Monoul Research GUI for special needs Research educational websites, and alternatives for people with special needs (none for adults!) Research brain training apps/websites

9 2nd Nov Funeral/Mid-term, no meeting/

10 9th Nov Meeting with Supervisor Submit Revised Proposal Research Methodologies & Frameworks Start Semester 1 report

11 16th Nov I'm going through the 3 books, some e-books and bits from 3 theses from the WIT library last week. I also did a course on github and am looking into using mean stack - MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js. Would this be a good option for the prototype? I've complete and one lesson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh0er2pRcq8 I met with the Tony Mac Sweeney (Dad of adult with Down syndrome Waterford yesterday, for an informal interview and got a lead to follow up.

12 2rdt Nov Researched from sources: Centre on Technology & Disability, National Centre on Disability and Education, National Council for Special Education, online library, sciencedirect, NCSE research section. Sign up to and downloaded resources: AAC & AT 13 30th Nov Met with Caroline ? literacy teacher to Brothers Of Charity group & discussed IQ levels. Emailed them with questions. Created questionnaire for Pathfinders group. Worked on Report - sorted references, completed intro and description. Changed the title, removing ‘special education’ as education refers to structured learning with a mediator/teacher. This website is primarily for self-development. A Website Framework for Adults with LD in Literacy 14 7th Dec Adult Ed literacy contact: 051854444..Ana Murphy

11th Dec D-Day - Submit Semester 1 Status Report

Deferred due to mitigating circumstances

1st Jan

9th-13th Jan Presentation

17th Jan

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