Articles will highlight recurring themes - successes and failures - these people found in both acquiring and incorporating assistive devices into their lives, and the resources they found most helpful in this process.
Who is it for?
SCI PILOT's target audience includes an estimated 11,000 North Americans with quadriplegia, and the 600 organizations that provide them with services. It is designed to "fill in the information gap" between injury and return to daily life, and to provide a "virtual peer support" network.
What's the process involved?
Interviewees are selected to represent a wide range of characteristics: varying in age, sex, age at onset, level of injury, work life before and after onset, and their respective use of assistive technology. Interviews are being carried out in a total of six cities, (one in Canada and five in the US) over the two years of the current project. The ongoing development and publication of SCI PILOT occurs between interview trips.
How do we do it?
"Qualitative" (non-statistical based) methods of research are used to get as accurate, in depth and individually tailored a story in each consumer experience as possible. This is to ensure that SCI PILOT is shaped by the needs and interests of its target audience.
Summaries and written descriptions of each consumer experience are evaluated by an independent Content Review Team and by the interviewees themselves during the production of each draft of SCI PILOT.
What's the time frame for production?
SCI PILOT is being released three times over the two years of the current project. Each version builds on the insights of new consumers and service providers who have used an earlier draft of the resource.
What is it's future?
SCI PILOT is designed to become an ongoing project, extending beyond the initial two-year period. We plan to revise, update and expand it to include the experiences of people with all kinds of disabilities and more detail on a wider range of assistive devices.
Our ultimate aim is to provide consumers with an informative resource guide that reflects the ever-changing reality of lifestyle possibilities and increased technological innovations in a rapidly growing marketplace.
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