Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
Volume 8, Number 3, 2003
Meeting the Needs of Your Audience: A Word from the Director
Making Materials Useful for People with Cognitive Disabilities
Interview with Tia Nelis, Self-Advocate
OHSU Center on Self-Determination
Web Accessibility for People with Cognitive Disabilities: Universal Design Principles At Work!
Taking Steps: The Center on Human Policy's Work to Enhance Accessibility
Selected Resources for Modifying Materials for People with Cognitive Disabilities
→ Who's in the News
NIDRR Grantee and Staff Recognition
Members of the NCDDR staff are on the lookout for popular and disability media pieces that present research funded by NIDRR. In this issue, we share items from
Who's in the News is a feature of The Research Exchange that shares some of the stories about NIDRR grantees and their research that have appeared in national media sources. Staff members will talk with grantees and media representatives about the origin and evolution of the stories, and their interactions with media representatives. Sharing this may be helpful to other grantees who would like to establish relationships with journalists and work with them to make information about their research available to the public.
Please let us know when an item representing your NIDRR-funded project appears in the media. Call us, 1-800-266-1832, or send email to ncddr@sedl.org and the item will be reviewed for Who's in the News. You may also use an online form: http://www.ncddr.org/forms/submitnews.html
An article featuring the NIDRR-funded project Improving the Healthcare Encounter for Persons Who Have Developmental Disabilities appeared in the February 2003 issue of the AAMC Reporter, a monthly publication of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). "Innovations in Medical Education: Communicating In Other Ways" was the second installment of a series on groundbreaking developments in medical education curricula, and described the project's work in developing training programs that help medical schools prepare their students to serve patients who have developmental disabilities. Principal Investigator is Kenneth Robey, Ph.D., Director of the Matheny Institute for Research in Developmental Disabilities at the Matheny School and Hospital, Peapack, NJ.
Third-year medical students from the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) visit Matheny for a full day to work with the facility's medically complex patients, many of whom communicate nonverbally. CD-ROMs will be sent to all AAMC-member medical schools to share the students' experiences and to offer ways to help medical students nationwide communicate better with similar patients. A grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research supported development of the CD-ROMs. For more information, contact Dr. Robey: research@matheny.org
Innovations in Medical Education: Communicating In Other Ways
http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/feb03/innovations.htm
The
New York Times quoted Dr. Maria Schultheis in an article by Abby Ellin on April 17, 2003 entitled "Driving Along a Virtual Road to Recovery." Dr. Schultheis is Principal Investigator of the NIDRR-funded Field-Initiated Project, The Use of Virtual Reality Technology for Driving Assessment Following Acquired Brain Injury.
A Clinical Research Scientist at the Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research Education Corporation, Dr. Schultheis commented on the use of computerized simulation for virtual reality therapy. She was contacted for the article through a colleague who knew of her work. The reporter contacted the colleague in search of researchers in this area. When reporter Ellin first contacted Schultheis, the discussion was broadly about her research with Virtual Reality and driving assessment, however, in the end the journalist focused the article on using VR for driving phobia. For more information, contact Dr. Schultheis at mschultheis@kmrrec.org
"Driving Along a Virtual Road to Recovery" is available for purchase through The New York Times archives:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E1FFC3D5E0C748DDDAD0894DB404482
On July 7, 2003, USA Today featured the University at Buffalo's RERC on Technology Transfer (T2 RERC) in an article by In-Sung Yoo, "Technology's Helping Hand." The article highlighted the universally-designed "Lids Off™ Jar Opener" that was co-developed by the T2 RERC and is now being marketed by Black and Decker. T2 RERC Project Director and Principal Investigator Joe Lane, and Project Administrator James Leahy, are quoted in the article.
Leahy worked with the editor for over four months to develop an article for the Tech section of USA Today. He floated various topic areas, story lines, slants and a great deal of information to the editor. When Journalist Yoo was assigned to the story in late March, he interviewed people at Black and Decker and others, and the article took a Universal Design slant. The article discusses the principles of Universal Design presented by the RERC on Universal Design at North Carolina State University and briefly describes NIDRR's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) program. For more information, contact
Jim Leahy at jimleahy@acsu.buffalo.edu or Joe Lane at joelane@acsu.buffalo.edu
"Technology's Helping Hand"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-07-06-design_x.htm
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