At Nottingham Trent University, research student Rachel Folds has been looking at how computer games can be used to help people with a learning disability to master everyday tasks.
She has been working with students from Loughborough College to see how interactive games on the Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect can improve their real-life skills. During one research project, the students visited a local bowling alley and were asked to knock down as many pins as possible with five balls.
For each of the following five weeks, they undertook the same challenge on an Xbox Kinect bowling game. When they returned to the bowling alley in the sixth week, their real-life bowling skills had improved, with average scores increasing by 143%.
Rachel says that learning in this way has many benefits for people with a learning disability: “We’ve found that the students are more motivated towards game-based learning than they are towards traditional learning.”
All of the members of Rachel’s research group have access to one of the consoles in their own homes, which means they can practise away from the classroom setting.
“The games on the Xbox Kinect have different ways of instructing you, such as giving verbal instructions or showing you an animation,” says Rachel. “So it’s not like picking up a textbook, which can be off-putting for some students.” Using sports simulation games also has associated health benefits.
The technology behind games like these is relatively new, so Rachel says that in the future, software could be developed to teach other life skills. “There’s a Kinect program, for example, to teach someone how to bake a cake.”
Access for all
In Northern Ireland, Mencap’s LiveNet project teaches people with a learning disability how to use mainstream technology. The project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund, was set up because of advances in technology and the risk of exclusion of people with a learning disability. “LiveNet helps people with a learning disability to develop their skills, to improve their health and wellbeing and access to advice and information, to connect with their community and achieve their full potential through the use of technology,” says Kieran Quinn, technical support and development officer for the project.
Through LiveNet, participants are taught how to search for information on the internet, how to take photos and upload them to social networking sites, and how to download apps to different devices. “The project also highlights assistive technology – such as easy-to-use mice or large-type keyboards – so that people who have difficulty accessing computers have the chance to use them,” says Kieran.
“Increasingly, people are getting these devices in their home, so it’s almost becoming a peer-mentoring scheme – the people we work with go away and show their mates how to use them.”
Back at The Rix Centre, Nick Whelden says that there are a number of factors that are coming together to make the use of technology more appealing to people with a learning disability. He explains Moore’s law, which describes how the processing power of devices doubles every two years: “So this means that you can do the same amount of processing with a device that’s half the size, uses half the power and costs half as much as it did two years ago. So the devices are generally getting smaller, more portable and cheaper.”
Nick and Dave Howson agree that the line between mainstream and specialist technologies is being blurred, as high-powered devices become part of everyday life. “The use of personal budgets also allows more people to be able to access technologies like this,” says Dave. “It’s an exciting time,” agrees Nick. “People can now download a piece of software onto a friend’s iPad to see if it does something useful for them. If it is useful, rather than waiting for years to go through a local authority or NHS funding process, you can buy something right away and start using it tomorrow.”