Persons with Multiple Disabilities Access Stimulation and Contact the Caregiver via Microswitch and VOCA Technology

Abstract

We assessed whether eight persons (children and adolescents) with multipledisabilities would succeed in combining the use of a microswitch and aVOCA. The microswitch served to gain direct access to selected environmentalstimuli and the VOCA served to contact the caregiver and obtainher social attention or mediation toward other forms of stimulation. Thestudy also included a social validation assessment of the aforementionedmicroswitch-VOCA combination. Data showed that participants couldlearn to use the microswitch and the VOCA profitably. The social validationassessment showed that 64 university psychology students and 64 postgraduateclinical trainees employed as raters favored the combination ofmicroswitch and VOCA over the microswitch and the VOCA alone.

Keywords

• Stimulation
• Caregiver contact
• Multiple disabilities