Dr. Mick Donegan The ACE Centre, Oxford, UK
email: donegan (at) ace-centre (dot) org (dot) uk
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Abstract
Over the last four years, under the COGAIN project, as Co-ordinator of the 'User Requirements' element of COGAIN,
I had a chance to meet many people with severe disabilities who tried to control technology
successfully using gaze control. As the project has progressed, more and more evidence
of the potential benefits of eye control technology have emerged, including reduced effort,
increased speed and enhanced quality of life. In this tutorial,
I will provide video case studies of some of the disabled people that my COGAIN colleagues
and I have worked with (eg. cerebral palsy, ALS/MND, locked-in syndrome, etc.) to illustrate
the remarkable new ways in which they can communicate and control their environment - simply by looking at a screen.
There will also be time allowed for any questions people wish to ask.
Dr. Mick Donegan
The ACE Centre, Oxford, UK
email: donegan (at) ace-centre (dot) org (dot) uk
Dr Mick Donegan is a teacher and an Assistive Technology specialist who has extensive experience in assessing, teaching, training, and supporting people with complex communication difficulties. Part of his time is spent at The ACE Centre, Oxford, UK, which focuses on supporting young people with complex communication difficulties. He went to The ACE Centre following his responsibility as IT Co-ordinator and Deputy Head Teacher at Wilson Stuart Special School, one of the largest schools for physically disabled children in the UK. As well as working at ACE, he is also a Senior Research Fellow at The Digital Media Institute, University of East London. He has recently founded a charity that uses technology to enhance access to games and creative self-expression for people with a wide range of disabilities, called 'SpecialEffect'. Mick's particular technology and disability-related interests/passions include Speech Recognition, Access to Video Games and Leisure Software, Gaze Controlled Technology and Remote Support Technology - areas in which he has specialised over an extended period of time. He has been involved in several highly regarded and influential projects, such as the UK Government sponsored BECTa Speech Recognition Project (completed 2000), Telenet (completed 2002) which examined the use of remote support technology for people with severe disabilities and 'DECO' (completed 2006) a joint project with the Physics Department of Cambridge University to make 'Dasher' 'eye control friendly'. He has published widely and won many awards for his work. In 2006 he was awarded a PhD for a longitudinal study investigating the conditions for success in using assistive technology for people with physical disabilities in mainstream education.
