When a disabled child is born all the family's expectations need to be reviewed because it is an unexpected situation and needs the family system to be adjusted to the new situation. Due to the meaning that sibling relations acquire during lifetime, changes in health and functioning of a sibling will affect the others. Relations with a disabled sibling will depend on features of disability as w...

AIM To identify consistency and differences in parental perceptions of impact, need for support and 'sense making' in children with a disability, children with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness and children who are technology dependent. METHOD A series of in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with parents from 33 families that included one or more child with disabiliti...

Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices in combination with Environmental Control Systems (ECS) offer remarkable benefits for severely and multiple impaired persons. The authors have developed such a combined ECS and AAC system called AUTONOMY. This system was set up at two validation sites based on EIB Twisted Pair and EIB Power Line installations. An intensive evaluation took...

In this paper, questionnaire survey and data analysis are the main research methods. Its main purpose is to try to answer the question “why are the disabled people willing to participate in sports” and to explore some of the important factors that affect the participation of persons with disabilities. The object of the study is the 83 disabled table tennis players in the national training base....

Assistive robotics are playing a vital role in advancing the quality of life for disable people. There exist wide range of systems that can control and guide autonomous mobile robots. The objective of the control system is to guide an autonomous mobile robot using the movement of eyes by means of EOG signal. The EOG signal is acquired using Ag/AgCl electrodes and this signal is processed by a m...

This paper describes the technical assistance system called AUTONOMY which provides AAC, environmental control, safety and security functionality, access to tele-communication and access to internet services for severely motor and multiple disabled persons. Concept and implementation are outlined and a report about experiences from real life usage is given. In the areas of therapy, training, ed...