Title
W.I.S.E. (Wheelchair Integrated Sensory Education)
Overview
This project aims to co-design a multisensory neural technology device in collaboration with children aged 6-12 with varying impairments, including children with severe communication difficulties. Children will interact with our newly developed multisensory device, a six-button box, representing an enlarged braille cell. The device can produce sounds, haptic vibrations, and auditory-haptic vibrations. To interact with the device, users can place their fingertips on the buttons, press them and experience different intensities and patterns of haptic vibrations and sounds. Based on children’s preferences, we aim to haptically “enrich” the device, tailor interactions and use neural measurements to record automatic responses such as the so-called somatosensory Mismatch Negativity (MNN). The MMN occurs in the time range of 100-200 ms and allows the detection of rare sensory stimuli from frequent ones. We aim to test the research hypothesis that frequent device interactions in an engaging way might lead to improved sensory experiences and enhanced neural detection mechanisms for sensory patterns in children with multiple impairments.
Bio
Julia Föcker is a Senior Lecturer at the College of Health and Science, School of Psychology, Sports Science and Wellbeing, University of Lincoln, UK.
Prior to Lincoln, Julia held a postdoctoral position at the University Rochester, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, New York, USA (2010-2012), followed by a three-year-postdoctoral position at the University of Geneva, Switzerland (2012-2015) in the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences. From 2015-2018, Julia worked as an Assistant Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany in the Institute of Clinical Neuropsychology. Her broad research interests focus on co-creating educational technologies with visually impaired and blind children, as well as children with multiple impairments, and exploring their impact on cognitive and neural functions
