DART
Sahlgrenska University
Hospital is one of Europe's largest hospitals with 15,000
employees. It is situated on several locations in Göteborg on
the West Coast of Sweden. It is the clinical platform for research
at the Faculty of Medicine, Göteborg University.
DART (the 'Computer Resource
Team') was established in 1988 as part of a national effort to
create regional Computer Resource Centres for disabled people in
Sweden. DART is a part of the Regional Children's Habilitation
Unit, in the Section for Neurology, Neuropsychiatry and
Habilitation at the Department of Paediatrics of SU.
DART is partly funded by the county health department in the region
(the west coast of Sweden) and SIH (the National Institute for
Disability Issues in the School). The regional centres are
supported and co-ordinated by the Swedish Handicap Institute.
DART is based on a trans-disciplinary and user oriented approach.
The staff of about 12 people includes speech therapists,
occupational therapists, special teachers, engineers, etc. Services
are provided for disabled people of all ages - with a dominance of
school-aged children - and a wide range of disabilities. The
services include:
- Assessments and
counselling for severely disabled people concerning their needs for
AAC aids, tailored computer systems, etc.
- Courses and education for
users, parents, therapists, teachers, etc. in the use of relevant
hardware and software.
- Research and development
activities, such as software development; evaluation of hardware,
software and methodologies, case studies, etc.
Based on clinical experience,
special needs software has been developed largely in co-operation
with the ACE Centre in the UK, the SIH Centre for Teaching Material
for Disabled in Göteborg, KTH in Stockholm, and others. This
software is now used in Scandinavia and other countries.
The R&D efforts have included rate enhancement tools for Switch
Access to Windows, introduction of Minspeak strategies for
Blissymbol users, writing support functions for dyslectics etc.
The DART Centre has been the co-ordinator and leader of the Comspec
project during its two first initial phases since 1989, with
support from the Nordic Council, NUH, and the Swedish Handicap
Institute. DART was a consortium partner in the previous TIDE
project phase of Comspec (TP 1169), and was the leader of the
specification work package. After the ending of Comspec DART has
initiated and is currently managing the follow-up JavaKomp project,
which has further evaluated and up-dated the Comspec/ComLink
software environment in co-operation with 50P (the associate
partner to DART in this proposal) and others. DART has been a
Swedish representative in the Nordic ARNIT project aiming at
improved Internet access for adults with acquired aphasia. DART is
currently managing the national BlissPost project concerned with
the development and application of E-mail and other Internet
services for Blissymbol users.
Members of the DART Centre have given a number of presentations at
international conferences such as ISAAC, MIE, TIDE, ECART, AAATE
and others.
Subcontracting:
Furuboda,
Address: S-296 86 ÅHUS, Tel.: +46 44 781 46 00, Fax: +46 44
781 46 01.
Furuboda is a leading national education centre for adolescents and
adults, with an emphasis on disabled people. Furuboda is situated
in Skåne in southern Sweden. The centre has thorough
expertise and experience in issues concerning communication and
multiple impairment. Furuboda has also been active in software
development in this area during the last five years. Among the
results are the WinBliss and SymbolMail programs.
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