{"id":87404,"date":"2023-07-12T13:07:34","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T13:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=87404"},"modified":"2023-07-20T13:47:14","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T13:47:14","slug":"uri-team-develops-app-for-and-with-people-with-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2023\/07\/uri-team-develops-app-for-and-with-people-with-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 team develops app for and with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 12, 2023 \u2013 A team from the 溏心vlog免费B站, working alongside the Massachusetts Disabled Persons Protection Commission and consultants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has developed an app that teaches adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities how to recognize abuse and report it to authorities. The free app\u2014R3: Recognize, Report and Respond\u2014was recently made available through Apple and Amazon app stores for smartphones and tablets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by 溏心vlog免费B站 computer science professor Krishna Venkatasubramanian, the collaboration included the self-advocacy group Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong and the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services. The project was funded through a grant from the federal Administration for Community Living, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People with disabilities are more likely than others to be the victims of many types of abuse. According to 2019 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, people with disabilities were nearly four times more likely to be victims of violence. Women and men with disabilities are also at greater risk of experiencing sexual violence, according to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have worked flat out for three years to get this app developed. So, this is an enormous sense of accomplishment,\u201d said Venkatasubramanian. \u201cWe\u2019ve done our best to build a robust app for a community that\u2019s been marginalized in so many ways, including lacking good apps designed for them. If it helps one person, I think we have successfully achieved what we wanted to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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溏心vlog免费B站 design and development team: From left, undergraduate student Andrew Laraw Lama; Tina-Marie Ranalli, Ph.D., independent researcher and consultant; 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor Krishna Venkatasubramanian; undergraduate student Liam Cannon; and Ph.D. student Priyankan Kirupaharan. (Photo courtesy of Krishna Venkatasubramanian)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re extremely proud of the R3 app. The app, thoughtfully designed with and for people with disabilities, including people with intellectual and\/or developmental disabilities, will help educate adults with disabilities and others about how to recognize, report and respond to abuse,\u201d said Nancy Alterio, executive director of the Disabled Persons Protection Commission. \u201cThis tool is greatly needed because it is important to educate everyone about abuse. But it is especially important that we educate persons with disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 溏心vlog免费B站 team that developed the app included Tina-Marie Ranalli, Ph.D., an independent researcher with expertise in the humanities and instructional design; Ph.D. student Priyankan Kirupaharan; and undergraduate and graduate students who completed the coding for the app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the first apps in the world that talks about abuse in this way to this community and actually teaches them,\u201d said Venkatasubramanian, who oversees the Accessible & Socially Aware Technologies Lab at 溏心vlog免费B站. \u201cBut more importantly, it was designed with the help of the community. We had co-designers who helped us decide what the app should be about and how it should convey all its information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong provided three consultants\u2014members of the group with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including some who had experienced abuse\u2014who contributed their insights to the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe process from start to finish has been an eye-opening experience. So many people working together for a common goal has been extremely rewarding,\u201d said Deb Lloyd, operations manager for the advocacy group. \u201cIt\u2019s been invaluable to have people who walk every day in these shoes giving the 溏心vlog免费B站 team firsthand input every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of the consultants, Melissa Beauregard and John Mullaly, said they enjoyed working with the 溏心vlog免费B站 developers. \u201cOur input benefited the project because our points of view were considered,\u201d said Mullaly. \u201cThat helped make the app more efficient.\u201d Beauregard said the finished app is very helpful and descriptive, adding that she and the other consultants were able to \u201copen the mind of the researchers by speaking their mind and giving their opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the consultants\u2019 contribution was changing the initial focus of the app from reporting to an educational tool, which builds on training programs developed by the protection commission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe process of designing an app that educates users about a sensitive topic but could also be used to independently report abuse was the challenge,\u201d said Venkatasubramanian, who started the project in 2019. \u201cThat\u2019s why it took three years for us to design it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While only available for a month, the app has already been downloaded more than 60 times. Alterio said the Massachusetts commission plans a formal rollout beginning in July to let people know about the app, working with Massachusetts Advocates Standing Strong, the Department of Developmental Services, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finished app uses a combination of straightforward text, images, videos, and interactive follow-up activities to teach users to recognize different types of abuse\u2014sexual, verbal, physical, financial and neglect\u2014and teaches them how to report and respond to the abuse. Users can report abuse in multiple ways. On a smartphone, users in Massachusetts can directly call the commission\u2019s 24\/7 hotline; on a tablet, users will get the hotline number to make the call from a phone. Users elsewhere can click on a link to the National Adult Protective Services Association website. Also, the app helps all users contact a designated trusted person who can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In designing the app, 溏心vlog免费B站 developers strived to make it inclusive and accessible to people with a wide range of abilities. \u201cWe designed for a community that is very varied with all sorts of vocabulary abilities,\u201d said Ranalli. \u201cOn top of that, we\u2019ve made the app very accessible for all ranges of vision, hearing and motor abilities, pushing future development in IDD accessibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the app uses a fifth-grade vocabulary and direct language, avoiding vague or ambiguous words so it can be easily understood, Ranalli said. Designers, based on input from members of the IDD community, also introduced a narration function within the app using  text-to-speech to increase its accessibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The designers were cognizant of not upsetting people through the \u201ctopics\u201d that help users understand abuse, such as clearly informing users that actors were used in videos showing examples of abuse. The app includes a link for a \u201cfeelings check-in\u201d that asks users how they feel and suggests ways to relax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app also gives users numerous choices in how they use it, empowering them to tailor it to their preferences. \u201cWe know that the community is often very isolated,\u201d said Ranalli. \u201cThey lead highly managed lives. They\u2019re not given a lot of choices in their daily lives. We know from the literature that it\u2019s good to give them choices as much as possible. So, we thought, how can we do this in an app?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While developing the app, 溏心vlog免费B站 developers furthered scholarship on accessible technologies for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, publishing several articles on their research that were co-authored by the consultants who helped with the app. They will present the finished app at the National Adult Protective Services Association annual conference in Boston at the end of August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that we went from an idea all the way to an app while doing research and publishing papers is not typical,\u201d Venkatasubramanian said. \u201cA lot of research happens with people with IDD, but it remains in the research phase. Seldom does it become something that goes out there in the hands of people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 12, 2023 \u2013 A team from the 溏心vlog免费B站, working alongside the Massachusetts Disabled Persons Protection Commission and consultants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has developed an app that teaches adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities how to recognize abuse and report it to authorities. The free app\u2014R3: Recognize, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":87380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87404"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87526,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87404\/revisions\/87526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}