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Prototypes
The first prototype of the CALL Smart Wheelchair was built in 1987 with funding from the Scottish Office Education Department and has been used in Westerlea School in Edinburgh since then. A second prototype (fitted with rangefinders to detect obstacles at a distance and slow the chair down) was tested in a local hospital in 1989. Additional funding was then obtained from the Scottish Office Home and Health Department to refine the design and build twelve chairs for evaluation in three schools in Edinburgh and to support the chairs in the schools, evaluate the effects of use, and develop associated curriculum materials. The evaluation was funded by the, then, Scottish Office and the Nuffield Foundation and until December 1993. Evaluation reports are available from the CALL information service.
A complementary project to adapt the design for adult vocational usage, funded by the EC Horizon Initiative, ran through March 1994.
Evaluation
Evaluation of the technical design of the chairs is a small part of the work: more important is the evaluation of the chair's effectiveness in real settings. An equally important task is to develop, evaluate and cost the human and other support services necessary to provide school and clinical professionals with a useful educational and therapeutic tool. The evaluation is therefore formative: it seeks to develop and report on these services by providing them. Measurement techniques include pre and post intervention profiles together with written and video diaries recording number, length, aim(s) and activities tackled in each chair session. Videos are subsequently transcribed for computer analysis.
Use
Within the formative evaluation, ten chairs were used by thirteen children in three schools in Edinburgh: Westerlea School (Scottish Council for Spastics), Graysmill and Oaklands Schools (Lothian Regional Council). Aims and activities for use of the chairs were chosen according to the individual curriculum aims for each child in order to integrate them into the school curriculum. The children ranged in age from six to sixteen years of age; from no reliable communication whatsoever to limited speech; and from single switch users to ordinary proportional joystick users. Speech and language therapists used chairs during therapy sessions, physiotherapists used them as training tools to develop driving skills for ordinary powered chairs, and teaching staff used them as a curriculum resource. The range of uses and users was therefore large in order to test fully the technical design and potential applications.
Results to date indicate that the chairs are extremely powerful motivators: the power and control achieved through even quite limited independent mobility improves assertion, self-confidence and activity across all areas of development. Specific developmental improvements have occurred with control and switch use and quantity, quality and initiation of communication, curiosity and inquisitiveness.s
Please contact the CALL Centre to obtain research and evaluation reports, training materials and other information.
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