Cognable

About

I provide research and development consultancy, with particular focus on applications of Internet, assistive technologies and new media by and for people with Intellectual Disabilities.

I have worked in this field as a freelance consultant since 2002, previously having been a teacher and teacher-trainer specialist in SEN, AT and ICT for a further ten years.

Recent Activity

• Developing a switch accessible grid-based communication board maker for Android and iOS devices. PhotoVOCA is in the iOS App Store @ £10.99 using flite based TTS - we're currently adding VoiceWare/NeoSpeech commercial voices and will release the previous flite TTS build as a free App later this month. The Android version of PhotoVOCA is finished, all but for final testing, and will be £5.99 initially, hopefully free eventually.
• Rix Centre : Rix Centre Website.
  Currently working with the Rix Centre on a number of projects including:
  • Just finished a Nominet Trust funded project evaluating free head and eye tracking software as mouse replacements.
  • W2ID: A pan-European project examining open-source and cost-free solutions to social networking and self-advocacy by people with intellectual disabilities.
  • closing a 2 year project with Action for Kids to develop accessible interviewing and survey tools for use with people who have severe communication difficulties.
  • development of a network of wikis created by hundreds of folk with ID
• Inclusive New Media Design : INMD Project Website.
  Consultant Researcher on this 2 year AHRC funded research based at Leeds University. The project is looking into the barriers to accessible practice in commercial web design and has a particular focus on the needs of Web users with an ID
  
• Trans-Active : Trans-Active Website.
  Developed the Trans-active Passport (ePortfolio) application, which won the Guardian Award for e-Involvement in 2002 - now offline as of June 2011, but a pretty good run nonetheless.
• Conferences and Publications
  • 2004: International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-based Systems
    Accessibility through Personalisation for People with Cognitive Disabilities - a Presentation of work in progress on 'Project @pple'
  • 2005: CSUN Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities
    Individual difference and the World Wide Web: developing an online learning environment for learning disability communities in Project @PPLe
  • 2008: CSUN Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities
    Multimedia Advocacy for People with Intellectual Disabilities – Models of Best Practice
  • 2009: ICTA International Conference of Information and Communication Technologies and Accessibility
    Intellectual disability and e-accessibility: Raising awareness of web accessibility's invisible community. Proceedings in ICTA, Edited by Jemni, ISBN 987-9973-37-516-2.
  • 2009: ICTA International Conference of Information and Communication Technologies and Accessibility
    Intellectual disability and e-accessibility: Raising awareness of web accessibility's invisible community.
  • 2010: Chapter on INMD in Designing for the 21st Century: Volume 2, Tom Inns, Gower Press. ISBN 1409402401.
  • 2011: Journal Article Can the Web Be Made Accessible for People with Intellectual Disabilities? in The Information Society, Volume 27, Issue 1. Routledge. ISSN: 1087-6537
  • 2012 [Forthcoming]: Co-Authored Chapter in Understanding Creative Users of ICTs , Edited by Herold, Sawhney and Fortunati. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-69747-7.
• Other Techish Activities.
  • Developing a Free text-to-speech plugin for use with WordPress and Drupal
  • Failing to face up to rewriting my 2001 homepage properly - SEN Teacher which has just passed the 73 million pageviews mark.