autism research | CARIAD

CARIAD invites everybody to SHOWCASE OF SOMABILITY AND RECENT CARIAD PROJECTS at the WMC on the 11th of November

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Wendy

This celebratory event will showcase Somability, an accessible software application, created by designers from Cardiff Metropolitan University and Cariad Interactive in partnership with Rhondda Cynon Taf Skills for Independence day care service and Artis Community. The project uses game technologies to capture movement and generate beautiful, graphic imagery. A compelling preview of Somability will be performed by adults with profound and multiple disabilities and their support workers on the Glanfa Stage. This will be followed by an explanation of the project, panel discussion and an opportunity for the audience to join in and explore the software. There will opportunity to see other recent work being undertaken at CARIAD, to meet participants, researchers, organisations, charities and businesses improving people’s lives through the arts.

For more information on Somability and other CARIAD projects see:

www.cariadinteractive.com/somability/ and www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/cariad

CELEBRATION SHOWCASING SOMABILITY AND RECENT CARIAD PROJECTS

WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE – GLANFA STAGE

11^th of November 2014, 13:00 – 15:00

Order of event:

13:00 Introduction, led by Wendy Keay-Bright, with input Rhondda Cynon Taf Skills for Independence
13.20 Short Sharing of Somability with Artis Community
13:40 Introduction to CARIAD centre and CARIAD student projects
13.50 Panel discussion
14:00 Open (mic) free expression with Touch Trust for peers, families, friends and visitors to try Somability
14:20 Short Plenary discussion with RCT, Cariad, Artis Community and Touch Trust
14:30 Networking and chance to view other CARIAD projects

The event will be open to the public and in a public space.

Please send all enquires and RSVP to lmclaughlin@cardiffmet.ac.uk

CARIAD attends Creative Minds Conference

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Wendy

CARIAD’s Leah and Wendy were delighted to attend the Creative Minds conference in @Bristol today. The day was packed with thought provoking and challenging talks, interactive activities and sharing of new ideas relating to arts and disability. The event showcased the work of leading arts organisations, educators, businesses and charities, specialising in working with people with learning difficulties. These included Disability Arts Cymru, Outside In, Carousel, OpenStoryTellers, Magpie, DanceVoice, Turning Tides and many many more check out the Creative Minds website for full listings, www.creativemindsproject.org.uk.

There was lots of debate, including issues of quality in the arts working with people with learning difficulties, and balancing corporate sponsorship and expectations with pure creativity in art making. The day also showcased the work of local artists with disabilities, new research and funding opportunities. CARIAD discussed many of their latest projects and discussed many new collaborations and potential projects! Thanks for the invite Creative Minds – cant wait to see the films and outcomes from the day and looking forward to working with you in future!

New CEWN funding success

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Wendy

Delighted to announce that Leah has been successful in her latest funding bid to work with special need teachers from Exeter House School and AnalysisPro! ProEngagementCoding will be developing new work and templates from our first collaboration with the project ProFoundCoding. The group will be seeking to extend their reach by designing a series of templates and to begin evaluations of the templates in action, a call for some volunteers will be going out soon!

First performance of Somability held at Millennium Centre

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Wendy

Thank you very much Digital Innovation week for hosting the first live performance of Somability in action. It was a wonderful event and opportunity to showcase our service users performing with Somability. The biggest thanks of all go to Cath, her staff and the service users at Gladys Resource Centre Aberdare, who put on a wonderful show demonstrating some of their newly learned choreography and gestural movements as a part of working with Artis Community, well done Artis Community you are certainly making movement irresistible!

Thanks also to Eluned Parrott AM for stopping by to have a look at the project development thus far, lovely to see you and to have your support. Wendy and Mareck from CARIADinteractive also gave a talk about (co)-creation, giving us all some insights into inclusive and participatory design. Filmmaker Dan was also on site, he has been awarded funding from Cardiff Met to make a film for Somability.

Nice to meet you Dan and looking forward to the end result! Finally thank you to Steven from the BBC for organising the event, coming to see the performances in Aberdare, and making us all feel a part of Digital Innovation Week, I hope the rest of the week’s antics go well!

Daniel Marshall awarded his BA designing for children with Autism

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Wendy

Congratulations to Daniel Marshall who was awarded his BA this year in Product Design at Cardiff Met. Daniel has been working to design for children with Autism to facilitate interaction between parents and children. Daniel undertook extensive research into autism for the project and this has really shown in the final outcome. His work was shown at this years degree shows at Cardiff Met. Visitors who came really liked the product, took photos and enquired about the design process. Daniel reports that children throughout the exhibition were constantly wanting to interact with the toy! We wish Daniel all the best in his future studies and career. Well done Daniel! You can contact Daniel about his work at daniel.marshall31@btinternet.com.

Video tagging project a success

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Wendy

Thanks to everybody involved in our recent SIP success, exploring performance analysis tools to help teachers capture and evidence engagement in special needs schools. We have developed two templates for you all to use and test out, as well as some helpful tips and hints for storing and managing your video files. You can find all the details on the brand new project website here.

http://videocodingasd.wordpress.com/. Please take a look around and tell us what you think?!?

Thank you Anthony Rhys and Gesture Based PLC (Professional learning community) at Trinity Fields School

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Wendy

A big thank you to the Anthony Rhys and the Gesture Based PLC (Professional Learning Community) for providing some feedback on the Alpha versions of Somability last week at Trinity Fields School http://www.trinityfieldsschoolandresourcecentre.co.uk/. As always the day was a great success with teachers, carers and professionals coming together to share evidence, discuss new technologies and provide a genuine support networked group for educators working within special needs http://gesturesen.wikispaces.com/. If Anthony’s movements are anything to go by, Somability will provide fantastic exercise for all those using it! 🙂

Looking forward to catching up in the new term! 🙂

SOMABILITY developing workshops a Gladys resource centre Aberdare, with Eluned Parrott AM

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Wendy

We have had an amazing two days with Cath and the team at Gladys Resource centre, Aberdare. We have been developing with the carers and service users, fine tuning the final applications, ready for release soon! It is always such a wonderful experience working with such a committed team. CARIADInteractive http://cariadinteractive.com/ have been working around the clock bringing the original ideas the carers provided at the paper prototyping workshops to life. The first day was a huge success and we got a glimpse of what the final install in the centre will look like.

On day two we visited the local community hall for an interactive performance with a small group. We caught up with Wendy York from Artis Community and Eluned Parrott AM who came along to see some of our projects and the ways they take shape. It was a very special day and we were just thrilled to be a part of the service user’s engagements, they really were making movements irresistible! Thank you again to Eluned for making the trip and giving the project support. Watch this space 

CARIAD visits Exeter House School to discuss potentials for video tagging

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Wendy

Thank you Andrew from Exeter House School http://www.exeterhouseschool.co.uk/ for hosting such an eventful day yesterday: exploring the possibilities of video tagging to capture Intensive Interaction sessions with young people with learning difficulties. Leah from CARIAD and Jon Moore from Analysis Pro http://www.analysispro.net/ had an eventful first meeting at Salisbury yesterday. We looked at some videos of ‘Intensive Interaction’ with the lovely Dawn all the way from St Luke’s Foundation School, Hertfordshire http://www.stlukes.herts.sch.uk/tv_radio/index.html showing us the amazing work they are doing capturing evidence of their intensive Interactions with young people with learning difficulties. Lee from IT and Rachel another teacher from Exeter House completed our group.

We started by discussing some of the problems encountered particularly with evidencing children’s engagement and communication. The focus was on the Intensive Interaction sessions, a widely used model to encourage communication and one that has had incredible results. We also learned about some research into capturing these Intensive Interaction sessions using video, and the strategies and recommendations the teachers have developed. This ranged from the angle of the camera to the size of the frame. We learned that the focus is always on the face in Intensive Interactions and that it has been argued that video can capture nuances and idiosyncratic details within these sessions more effectively than other measurement models.

Then we discussed some of the problems with capturing the sessions. Many many issues were discussed from technical problems (for example not enough room to store HD data on school servers), to aesthetic and communicative features of video (for example a bird’s eye view coupled with a close up, narrative within the clips, and a sense of the environment with less than perfect filming)to much more conceptual and challenging problems (for example subjective interpretations of behaviours, how much detail and history of the child is needed to make a claim for improvement)…and this was just the morning!

Later Jon took the floor and gave a very brief overview of some of the software tools and packages he has been developing in partnerships for his entire career. Originally used for sports analysis we discussed some of the potentials of adapting some of the strategies, tools and software to begin to code and manage some of the video from the Intensive Interactions. To pick out key moments, file information and use it to build up layers of metadata of rich and dynamic visual evidence of the children’s engagement. Looking forward to the next stages!

First workshops of Somability are underway!

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Wendy

CARIAD’s Wendy and Leah and partner from CARIAD Interactive Joel Gethin Lewis had the warmest of welcomes and most productive of workshops at Learning Curve Gadlys, Independent Living Resource Centre in Aberdare this morning. This will be teams’ new home for the coming months working in partnership with the staff at the centre to develop a brand new set of applications, making movement irresistible for people with learning difficulties.

We are always a bit nervous going into a new centre for the first time to meet our new stakeholders. We want to give them the best possible introduction to the projects to create a supportive and dynamic workshop environment so that we can really understand and learn from the people who work closest with our end users, so the pressure was on!

After some slightly perplexed looks when CARIAD Interactive demonstrated the ‘Top Hat Smile Detector’, the group took to the paper-prototyping knowledge exchange workshop with ease, and of course smiles!
It was a true delight to capture some of the prototype ideas from the group, to listen intently to their expertise and to really get a sense of the community, the fantastic work each individual achieves on a daily basis and to be immersed in their world. Within only a few hours our group identified several key areas in designing for users with various levels of mobility.

The most significant outcome of the day was bringing on board such an engaging and involved group who (in the space of a morning) took complete ownership of this project and have integrated Somability firmly into their resource centre and local community. Looking forward to our next visit to feedback some early prototypes!