A kinect-based vocational task prompting system for individuals with cognitive impairments

Abstract

Difficulties in executing daily living tasks hamper the quality of life of many individuals with cognitive impairments who are otherwise physically mobile. With sufficient and appropriate support on the job, many people with developmental disabilities and cognitive impairments are capable of participating in the world of work to various levels. Kinect is used as assistive technology for individuals with cognitive impairments to achieve the goal of performing task steps independently. In a community-based rehabilitation program under the guidance of three job coaches, a task prompting system called Kinempt was designed to assist four participants involving pre-service food preparation training. The study assessed the effectiveness of Kinempt in terms of precision and recall. A follow-up comparative study then evaluated a baseline method and the system of least prompts against the Kinempt system. Results indicate that for participants with cognitive disabilities, acquisition of job skills may be facilitated by use of Kinempt in conjunction with operant conditioning strategies. Our findings suggest that the image recognition technology may be able to facilitate task prompts needed by people with cognitive impairments. Therefore, the system may be helpful for pre-service training while increasing independence in the process of community integration.