Grant: College & Community Social Innovation Fund

During COVID-19 when online interaction became the norm, both faculty at Centennial College and colleagues at Surrey Place and Community Living Toronto identified challenges with engaging with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities remotely, which has impacted their ability for support. This experience is indicative of a larger issue in software that is designed for a general user but is inaccessible to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This project proposes to utilize artificial intelligence technology and an ability-based and user-centered design approach to develop an online learning platform for individuals with developmental disabilities that simulates environments where common digital literacy skills are used. We will achieve this objective by first launching a research and design hub focused on software and technologies for accessibility, autonomy and research (STAAR). At the STAAR hub we will apply a co-development framework and have a particular emphasis on the applications of artificial intelligence in software development for people with disabilities. Developers who use AI often design for the majority, and the datasets used to train AI often exclude or underrepresent disabled people. A focus of the hub will be to provide a forum for the development of accessible software through the collaborative engagement of people with disabilities and their supporters, software engineers, and staff from our partner organizations Community Living Toronto and Surrey Place. A group of individuals with IDD who have organized under the name Community Living Toronto Innovators will be advising and contributing to the project throughout the entire research process. The outputs of this project include a platform for gaining digital literacy skills, a best practices manual for co-development workshops involving software developers and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and a short film about the initiative. The project is novel for its reliance on the participation of people with IDD in software development and for its creative application of artificial intelligence for accessible software. The project will benefit people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by both providing an opportunity to participate in valued social roles and by creating a learning platform to support them in improving their digital literacy and that will ultimately support their autonomy and self-determination.