Social Simentor™: An E-learning Assistive Technology Abstract

Vendor. Lucy Baney, President and CEO, Access Technologies Group. Research Team. Leslie Walker Hirsch, Social Development and Sexuality Consultant for individuals with cognitive disabilities; Christine M. Casey, Educational Consultant and Strategic Planner. Of the 30 million people with disabilities in the US, aged 21-64, just a little more than half are employed. Research shows that a significant barrier is their lack of social skills, beginning with exclusion from mainstream classes in school, continuing throughout adulthood, impacting relationships, employment, and integration into the community. Researchers recommend role-play and repetition as the method for acquisition of these social skills. Social Simentor™ provides a unique e-learning product offering interactive scenarios and feedback in a penalty-free, non-judgmental environment. Based on the already patented, unique Simentor® e-learning tool developed by Access Technologies Group, Inc. to teach business interpersonal skills to adults, Social Simentor™ offers instruction and practice to individuals with disabilities that need training in social and interpersonal skills. The inventor of Simentor® and President of Access Technologies Group, Inc., Lucy Baney proposes to work with a national expert in social development of individuals with disabilities to test the transference of skills following use of Social Simentor™. This interactive application teaches key social conventions, including appropriate verbal responses, reacting to body language and facial expression in a wide array of frequently occurring situations. The commercial application of Social Simentor™ is significant as it can meet the learning needs of a wide range of individuals who suffer as a result of inappropriate social skills, and accomplish this without requiring continual direct adult facilitation. The proposed prototype is an interactive application that employs social interactions to teach key social conventions, including appropriate responses, reacting to body language and facial expressions, along with the ability to ask for help in order to facilitate functioning in mainstream society. This proposed collaborative research study will be conducted by two researchers, Leslie Walker Hirsch and Dr. Christine Casey at a residential special education facility. High School Students will use Social Simentor™ to practice interview skills. A live interview experience will then be developed using local business leaders. These individuals will interview the students who have successfully completed their digital studies using Social Simentor™. Students will be rated by the interviewers. A second group of students without the Social Simentor™ experience will also participate in the live interviews. It is anticipated that the group of students with Social Simentor™ experience will score higher on the live interview experience, as a result of their immersive e-learning experience. This study is critical for future development of Social Simentor™. Potential investors have requested proof of transference of e-learning to a real life situation. This study of the application of Social Simentor™ is significant to society as it can address a range of individuals suffering from inappropriate social skills without direct adult facilitation and in an efficient, cost effective manner. This field testing research, conducted as a result of NCTI support, will assist the researchers and vendor in obtaining additional funding in order to extend the scenarios and product functionality, preparing it for commercialization and potential markets of schools, special education facilities, vocational training programs, as well as universal applications with non-disabled populations who demonstrate poor social skills.