title: Engaging People with Aphasia in Design of Rehabilitation Through Participatory Design: A Way to Learn what They Really Want.
abstract: Research literature on participatory design in relation to people with communicative and cognitive disabilities often focuses on the challenges of communication among the participants. This paper presents a case study involving people suffering from communication disabilities after a brain injury (aphasia) early in a design process of an avatar-mediated virtual learning environment for rehabilitation. The example demonstrates how providing time and space and supporting the communication with well-suited tools and artefact opens for firth-hand domain knowledge of living with aphasia. The results demonstrate that participatory design methods might result in much more than just being a step in the design process. In this specific case, it turns out to be a tool to engage, involve, and empower people with communication disabilities to interact and communicate. The paper argues, that participatory design is a way for designers to gain insights into what people with aphasia really want and, consequently, might also be a key to redesign rehabilitation for people with communication disabilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University.
authors.forename: Ulla
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Konnerup
mesh_terms: D001037:Aphasia; D003142:Communication; D003147:Communication Disorders; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning