Creative technological aids for the learning-disabled child: an interdisciplinary project.

Abstract

An interdisciplinary team of engineering students and occupational therapists have developed prototype electromechanical toys to enhance adaptive learning performance of developmentally disabled children. This paper describes the Creative Technological Aids (CTA) project undertaken under the joint auspices of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Kennedy Memorial Hospital occupational therapy department. Four prototype CTA devices were evaluated in clinical and community settings and preliminary results show that these devices are highly motivational in teaching eye-hand coordination and perceptual-motor skills.