NIME has recently seen critique emerging around colonisation of music technology, and the need to decolonise digital audio workstations and music software. While commercial DAWs tend to sideline musical styles outside of western norms (and even many inside too), viewing this problem through an historical lens of imperialist legacies misses the influence of a more recent - and often invisible - hegemony that bears significant direct responsibility: The culture of technological development. In this paper we focus on the commercial technological development culture that produces these softwares, to better understand the more latent reasons why music production software ends up supporting some music practices while failing others. By using this lens we can more meaningfully separate the influence of historic cultural colonisation and music tech development culture, in order to better advocate for and implement meaningful change. We will discuss why the meaning of the term “decolonisation” should be carefully examined when addressing the limitations of DAWs, because while larger imperialist legacies continue to have significant impact on our understanding of culture, this can direct attention away from the techno-cultural subset of this hegemony that is actively engaged in making the decisions that shape the software we use. We discuss how the conventions of this techno-cultural hegemony shape the affordances of major DAWs (and thereby musical creativity). We also examine specific factors that impact decision making in developing and evolving typical music software alongside latent social structures, such as competing commercial demands, how standards are shaped, and the impact of those standards. Lastly, we suggest that, while we must continue to discuss the impact of imperialist legacies on the way we make music, understanding the techno-cultural subset of the colonial hegemony and its motives can create a space to advocate for conventions in music software that are more widely inclusive.

Increasingly our knowledge of how to provide effective health care finds itself concerned about how to improve health literacy and increase patient engagement in, and self-management of, their health care experience. For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) addressing these issues requires some innovative solutions. The Westchester Institute for Human Development (WIHD), a university center of excellence in disability education, research and service, is a comprehensive health care provider to over 5,000 adults with IDD. WIHD is committed to ensuring that health information technologies are designed and used in ways that enhance self-determination in health care for people with IDD. As part of its work in developing accessible health information technologies WIHD supported a research project designed to convert an existing US Federal Government survey of a patient’s experience of their health care into an electronic format that enabled direct responses to survey questions by the patient with IDD. This article discusses the research process, findings and success of this accessible patient experience survey technology project and its implications for future technology innovation designed to improve selfdetermination in health care for people with IDD. The survey in question was the US Agency for Health Care Quality and Research Consumer Assessment of Providers and Systems (CAHPSD) patient experience survey.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) identify “speaking for oneself” as a highly salient aspect of self-advocacy and self-determination (SABE, 2011), yet limitations in cognition or language often limit their direct participation in surveys. This study describes a self-administered survey procedure that used supportive software on an iPad to create a survey interface that was easily navigable by respondents with I/DD. A survey based on items from the National Core Indicator (NCI) Adult Consumer Survey (HSRI & NASDDDS, 2001) was developed that included five items on choice-making which have been previously studied by Lakin et al. (2008) and Stancliffe et al. (2011). Cognitively diverse groups of self-advocates were recruited to take the iPad survey at both a national and state self-advocacy conference. The results indicated that the iPad survey platform enabled people with varying degrees of I/DD to respond independently to a self-administered survey with little training or assistance. The resulting iPad-gathered data on the NCI choice items supported the validity of the procedure by conforming to patterns from standard NCI interviews. This self-administered survey technology holds great promise for gathering many types of survey information directly from people with I/DD, allowing them to more actively participate in the design of supports, services, and environments that affect their lives.

Research has suggested that adding cognitive support technologies to the transition planning process enhances student self-determination above and beyond traditional, book or paper-based self-determination curricular materials. However, limited research has examined how teachers perceive the impact of cognitive support technologies on student capacity and opportunity for self-determination. The present study used multivariate analysis of covariance to examine teacher perceptions of student capacity and opportunity for self-determination over time based on group random assignment to a self-determination curricula alone group or a self-determination curricula plus cognitive support technology group. The impact of disability label (learning disability vs. intellectual disability) on educator perceptions was also examined. Findings suggest a complex pattern of differences over time; there was a multivariate effect for the interaction of time, disability, and technology access, but when decomposing these differences at the univariate level, the primary differences were in educator ratings of capacity, not opportunity. Differences based on disability label were also found, with educators rating students with intellectual disability significantly lower in their capacity for self-determination, but not opportunity. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Students and adults with intellectual disability experience multiple barriers to taking tests, assessments, evaluations, questionnaires, and surveys. The literacy demands of common formats for soliciting objective and subjective feedback — particularly written questions and answers — makes typical assessment processes inaccessible to many people with intellectual disability. Alternative approaches are time-consuming, often foster dependency on others, and do not provide opportunities or experiences in self-direction. This manuscript reports a pilot test of the use of a cognitively accessible self-paced testing system for students and adults with intellectual disability. The study employed a standard two-group within-subjects design in which 40 participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities completed assessments using both written and computer-based versions of each of the two surveys designed for use in the study. Results suggested that participants were able to complete a typical assessment with greater accuracy, increased independence, and greater efficiency when using the cognitively accessible computer-based survey compared to traditional written test methods.

This article presents EarSketch, a learning environment that combines computer programming with sample-based music production to create a computational remixing environment for learning introductory computing concepts. EarSketch has been employed in both formal and informal settings, yielding significant positive results in student content knowledge and attitudes toward computing as a discipline, especially in ethnic and gender populations that are currently underrepresented in computing fields. This article describes the rationale and components of EarSketch, the evaluation design, and lessons learned to apply to future environment design and development.

Advances in technology, particularly continued and rapid developments in smart technologies, offer great potential for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to help access and direct their own health care resources. These smart technologies—tablets and touch screen devices with built-in audio and video, as well as a growing number of software applications—offer people with IDD as well as their families and caregivers the ability to access and deliver information when- and wherever a Wi-Fi link or high speed phone network is available. They have features that promote their ease of use and accessibility for people with cognitive, sensory, physical or other functional limitations. They also have features that can deal with the critical issue of achieving effective health literacy among people with IDD, and thus show great promise as a resource in supporting improved health outcomes.

Abstract Applied Cognitive Technologies provide supports that enable people with cognitive disabilities to achieve greater inclusion across virtually all life domains. This article provides a snapshot, as it were, of the state of the field pertaining to critical areas of the newly emerging field of applied cognitive technology, specifically: smartphones/mobile devices, GPS and wayfinding technologies, web access, smart homes/remote monitoring, apps and cloud computing, and social media/social networks. In addition to practical information intended to be of use to people with disabilities and their support systems, recommendations for further research areas are presented throughout the article to encourage other researchers, graduate students, and others interested in furthering the field. A conclusion section discusses the overall state of adoption and further research needs to continue pursuit of the potential of widespread benefit from a field of applied cognitive technology.

Abstract People with intellectual disability often have support needs related to navigating their communities using public transportation. Specialized transportation resources such as paratransit programs or adult service agency transportation are costly and generally non-inclusive. This paper describes a study examining the impact of a GPS-based system called WayFinder operating on mainstream smartphone device on the independent use of public transportation systems by people with intellectual disability. Specifically, the impact of the system on number of training trials for independent navigation of a novel bus route (vs. traditional training procedures) and generalization to another novel route were examined. Additionally, the bus ridership and financial impacts were examined in a city where a provider organization and the public bus system were adopting WayFinder to support people with intellectual disability to access fixed-route bus systems. Implications and recommendations for future research and practice are described.