A proposal for e-Inclusion call 5 – 2005 F. Gramatica, Don Gnocchi Foundation, Italy ALSO IN COLLABORATION WITH THE ITALIAN MINISTRY OF WELFARE PHASE II E-Inclusion infoday – Brussels, April 19th, 2005

2 The core consortium Don Gnocchi Foundation (project co-ordinator) Don Gnocchi Foundation is a chain of 25 research hospitals in Italy (more than 3000 beds) employing about 5000 operators, devoted to neuroscience, ageing, disability and rehabilitation, on research, clinics and education sides. Don Gnocchi Foundation holds a SME spin-off ICT company (Don Gnocchi Sistemi srl), also interested in supporting project exploitation phase. Fondazione Italiana Accenture (technical support) Fondazione Italiana Accenture is a nonprofit organization whose objectives are to promote the most significant experiences and highest caliber knowledge on innovation as part of a vision where innovation is seen as an intrinsic benefit for mankind.

3 The goals of the proposal We do not start from scratch: “NavigAbile 1” already exists ( It is the result of a nonprofit project, providing an innovative way to access web content to children and youths affected by motor and communicational disabilities. NavigAbile 1 is a software service architecture and a dedicated website grouping useful communication services for specific types of disabilities On the base of NavigAbile 1 success, we propose an e-Inclusion project aimed at extending the phase 1 potentialities. A fairly large amount of research activity is needed to achieve the following goals. A social goal: to extend the final user types, by including innovative and traditional psychological profiles concerning adult disable and elderly people A technical goal: to extend the potential number of accessible websites, studying an automatic “site translation” into navigable versions A scientific goal : to validate the final product as a rehabilitation tool for communication capabilities in people with disabilities

4 What people can do with NavigAbile today A person with disability… He logs on the website Helped by an operator, he creates his/her profile (customized interface), according to the kind of disability So, his/her account is created and available from each internet access point He can browse the accessible version of available sites Subjects with damaged language area can communicate with near operators or – via or electronic board – with remote friends, by composing the messages via ideographic Bliss symbols or PCS icons A web provider… … wanting to make his own website accessible should: Split the information contained in the website in two or more complexity levels Transform the website by tagging the text complexity levels in the html code in a NavigAbile recognizable way If possible, tag the words having a corresponding icon, so that the system itself will show the icons instead of the text The tests and trial phase lasted successfully (usability, utilisation rate, communication improvement) for a period of 5 months, and involved 10 youths, each with his aide, at Fondazione Don Gnocchi, and 6 youths with their 3 teachers in another school

5 What people should do with NavigAbile tomorrow A person with disability… Could do all that he/her does today Could have a more deeply customized own profile He can browse the accessible version of all sites the automatic translator will be able to process Subjects with damaged language area can communicate with a larger set of symbols, and thus along longer periods of time. This foster language, attentive and memory capabilities (NavigAbile as a self-manageable rehabilitation tool) An electronic board/forum will be accessible, devoted to specific occupational/ professional categories (e.g.: university students, etc) for exchanging experiences and specific contents A web provider… Will have a dramatically lower workload to make their own sites accessible, thank to automatic translator His/Her family/caregiver… Will be involved in a NavigAbile families network, with a forum / electronic board included in the SW Thank to improved symbolic SW capability, a larger “communication band” will be available from/to assisted subjects, giving a higher success rate After a suitable training, the family/caregivers will be able to improve the communication exercise continuity at home – in a more relaxed and natural way, so improving rehabilitation effects Some killer application for caregivers will be available (e.g.: link to a palmtop/GPS system giving accessible sites list for wheelchairs in some cities, etc.) A database containing training units / contents will be available for teachers and operators for disability

6 Methods and required expertise Methods Neuropsychology Use of a larger (and newly introduced) ideograms Design of new ergonomic electronic boards for sentence composition Use of more sophisticated cognitive profiling methods for users Appraisal, usability and satisfaction questionnaires ICT New multimodal web interfaces (mobile/wireless devices, web TV, etc.) Use/ development of text complexity indexes Neural networks for text pattern recognition … (we are looking for partners and ideas!) Expertise required from potential partners Neuropsychology of language and motor/imagery associated aspects Sociology of family relationship network Pedagogy applied to educational unit production for disabled people Strong knowledge in information management systems (automatic hypertext generation, passage retrieval, automatic segmentation, text categorization)