We are excited to officially launch the Work, Accommodations, and Technology (WAT) Survey! Many people with physical disabilities have been instrumental in making this survey possible. From participating in individual interviews to reviewing content and supporting our test-retest reliability study, their expertise and feedback have helped shape a stronger, more meaningful survey. We are beyond appreciative of their invaluable contributions.

Now, we invite you to take the next step by completing the survey yourself.

Your participation will help us better understand how workplace experiences, accommodations, and assistive technology (AT) influence employment outcomes for adults with physical disabilities. The findings will contribute to improving workplace policies, practices, and training that support equitable employment opportunities.

Please help us expand our reach. We encourage you to share this survey with friends, colleagues, family members, and professional networks through email, text messages, newsletters, and listservs. To help protect the integrity of the research and prevent AI-generated responses from affecting the data, please do not share the survey on social media platforms.

Who Can Participate?

To participate, individuals must:

• Be 18 years of age or older
• Have a physical, motor, or ambulatory disability
• Be able to read and understand English or Spanish at approximately an 8th-grade level
• Have worked within the last five years
• Currently reside in the United States

Why Participate?

We are seeking to understand the employment experiences of individuals who are employed full-time, part-time, self-employed, or working in contingent positions. Your experiences can help identify effective workplace supports and guide future improvements in employment practices.

Compensation

Participants who complete the survey will receive a $10 electronic gift card.

Your voice can help shape future employment policies and improve the implementation of workplace accommodations and assistive technology. Every response brings us closer to creating more inclusive and supportive workplaces.

Questions? Contact Salimah LaForce at salimah@cacp.gatech.edu.

This research is funded under grant #90RTEM0010-01-00 from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), a center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Are you a person with a physical disability who uses or previously used voice input/control technology? Or are you a person who recommends or trains people to use voice input/control technology? Help others learn from your experience.

Researchers at Georgia Tech. are conducting a study to understand how employees with physical disabilities use voice input, speech-to-text, and voice control technologies as workplace accommodations.

• How have you used it as an accommodation? 
• Are you still using it?
• Do you have tips for success or warnings about potential barriers?
• What additional supports are needed for successful use?

We would love to learn about your experiences using or helping others use this technology.  Please consider spending about 15 minutes participating in our online survey.  Then join us in June for a webinar to learn how your experiences compared to others in the study … and perhaps learn a new trick for using this technology effectively!

To take the survey, visit the link below: 

The Games study team at Emory and Georgia Tech is seeking older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) for a new study looking at the impact of online games on feelings of social connection.

We have partnered with Oneclick, a company that has an online video chat platform designed especially for older adults, to redesign familiar games (like Uno and Connect 4) to be played online. Now we need to test those out!

Study participation will last up to 6 months. This includes playing online games with a friend or family member multiple times per week for 3 months. Participants will receive a weekly, 5-minute phone call from our study team to discuss social activities, including playing online games. They will also be asked to complete a series of questionnaires 3-5 times throughout the study. Participants will be compensated for their time, up to $75.

Sound fun? Want to learn more?

Email games.study@emory.edu

ACCESS-PD includes four research projects that explore different factors that impact employment success. Each of the projects will make use of a common, omnibus survey that will enable the projects to leverage their data sets.

R1. Longitudinal Study: The Impact of AT & Accommodations on Employment

Project Director: Salimah LaForce

This project will conduct a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of AT and workplace accommodations on the employment outcomes of people with physical disabilities in traditional and contingent employment work arrangements.

Research Opportunity: The impact of assistive technologies and accommodations on the non-traditional employment outcomes of people with physical/motor disabilities from Minoritized Populations

We are recruiting Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people with physical/motor disabilities to share their experiences with non-traditional jobs (e.g., freelance, contract, temporary, etc.). We want to understand how assistive technology and/or accommodations impact employment outcomes for minoritized populations. We will interview participants over Zoom or by telephone. The interview will be scheduled at a time that is convenient for you and will take approximately 90 minutes. You will receive $50 as compensation for your time.   

Who can participate? To participate in the study, you must be:   

• 18 years of age or older
• Be fluent in English or be an ASL-user   
• Have an upper and/or lower body physical motor disability  
• Use assistive technology and/or accommodations for work  
• Be employed in a nontraditional job(s)  
• Currently work in the U.S.  

To be considered, please complete the screening questionnaire. We use this screening tool to ensure that we have a group of diverse participants.   

Work ACCESS

Most workplace accommodations are determined by employers and/or the employees themselves. Unfortunately, these groups lack information about the full range of accommodation options that are available, and lack information about what options work best in which situations. 

Thanks to funding from NIDLRR, the researchers at CIDI have developed a tool to assist with this process. Click the button below to take this tool for a test drive. 

Continuum of Assistive Technology Mastery (CATM)

The CATM is an instrument developed to chart an individual’s progress toward empowered use of their assistive technology. Take a test drive by clicking the button below!