HCP-disability: BCSNSG presentation (HTML text)

Title of conference presentation

Wright DJ. 2001 Nursing students with dyslexia: WWW support - an ongoing project. ITIN: The official journal of the British Computer Society's Nursing Specialist Group. 13(1) 18-22.

Winner of the Dame Phyllis Friend Award 2000-2001. Presented at the BSC Nursing Specialist Group 2001 Conference: Sharing the Patient Experience: Informatics and Research in Healthcare Practice.

Tuesday 13 February 2001. Commonwealth Institute, Kensington High Street, London.

Note: due to lack of funding and development time the site described here was not further developed.

The slide text and descriptions

Slide one.
Nursing students with dyslexia: WWW support - an ongoing project.
David J Wright, Department of Mental Health and Learning Disability, University of Sheffield.

Slide two.
Introduction.
Health care professionals have a poor record in supporting individuals with disabilities.
Changes in social policy and legislation.
Government is keen to see healthcare services employ people with disabilities.

Slide three.
Nursing students and financial support.
Students receiving non-mean tested bursary are not entitled to DSA.
These students find support is not accessible.
Support on a national basis is ad-hoc.
Support is often a goodwill gesture -such as this project.

Slide four.
The Dyslexia information Site: a prototype development.
Coordinated with two booklets: Here two graphics are shown of the covers of "A guide for lecturers who support Nursing and midwifery students with dyslexia", and "A guide for nursing and midwifery students with dyslexia".

Slide five.
The Dyslexia information Site: a prototype development - Continued.
Cost of up-date and printing prohibitive.
More economical solution sought.
A web based solution seemed obvious choice giving:
Access to computers on site.
Access to computers via remote access and via local trusts.

Slide six.
The Dyslexia information Site: a prototype development - Continued.
Collaboration with Dept. of Information Studies, Sheffield University -Dr. Miguel Nunes &
Sobhna Katechia (MsC student).
Aims of the project:
Provide readily available specific information for students with dyslexia and tutors who support them.
To develop a theoretical knowledge base on nursing students with dyslexia and how to support them.
To lay the foundations for future university and nation wide support systems.

Slide seven.
The Dyslexia information Site: a prototype development - Continued.
WWW access allows for:
Easy access through a familiar medium.
Gives just in time access.
Allows the user to adjust the interface to their preferences.
Flexibility in reading modes (on-line and off prints).
Relatively low cost in maintenance and up-grading.

Slide eight.
The Dyslexia information Site: a prototype development - Continued.
The home page: A graphic of the home page is shown here. A frame based access with contents on the left and text in the main window.

Slide nine.
The DiS: design issues.
Katechia undertook early development;
DiS Includes:
Structured rather than unstructured elements.
User has fewer options on how information is accessed compared to sites with a semantic net approach (free surfing).

Slide ten.
The DiS: design issues - Continued.
Vertical structure.
One or more levels.
Pages linked tallow information and data to be grouped logically. e.g. Lecturer and Student
guides.

Slide eleven.
The DiS design issues
This slide demonstrates one of the pages with an example of how buttons control students use of navigation in the vertical structure.

Slide twelve.
The DiS: design issues - Continued.
DiS is provided via the University network.
No access restriction, except for lecturers password and user name.

Slide thirteen.
Preliminary evaluation of DiS.
Evaluation was undertaken via the online questionnaire asking about:
Content.
Structure.
Navigation.
Initial responses suggest that the site is a welcome resource for both students and lecturers.

Slide fourteen.
Preliminary evaluation of DiS.
Content:
98% of respondents (n=31): Useful.
90%: information "Just about right".
One student: Good idea to have something like this, when I took six months out to have a tutor to try to correct my dyslexia there was no information available, Keep up the good work.

Slide fifteen.
Preliminary evaluation of DiS - Continued.
Structure:
80% of respondents suggested that the interface was 'pleasant'.
One comment speculated that: black writing on a yellow background would help dyslexic users discriminate between individual words.

Slide sixteen.
Preliminary evaluation of DiS - Continued.
Navigation.
86% of the respondents noted that the site was easy to navigate.

Slide seventeen.
Discussion.
There is an expectation to include previously excluded individuals in the nursing profession.
This will have an impact on clinical practice for those who are not 'disability aware' or have negative or ambivalent attitudes individuals with disability.

Slide eighteen.
Discussion - Continued.
Nurses with disabilities have a positive role to play within health care.
People with disabilities can bring a range of skills to the profession.
e.g. those with dyslexia:
Highly aware of the environment.
Intuitive and insightful.
Think and perceive multi-dimensionally.

Slide nineteen.
Discussion - Continued.
With appropriate support students with dyslexia can and do achieve nursing registration.
It is with this in mind that DiS was developed -it is proving to be a worthwhile resource.

Slide twenty.
Future plans.
To develop a:
University wide resource -currently seeking funding.
national resource.
support system for clinicians who have, or support students with, dyslexia.

Slide twenty-one.
Conclusion.
Social policy and legislation changes gives more access to individuals, with disability, into the nursing services.
There is a need to provide appropriate support -despite lack of funding.
DiS gave Wright, Nunes and Katechia the opportunity to work in a cross professional platform to develop a resource for nurse education.
DiS has evaluated well, but more work needs to be done to make this a national facility.

Slide twenty-two.
Conclusion - Continued.
If educators of nursing students within higher education and clinical practice offer support to students with dyslexia, clinicians themselves require access to knowledge and understanding.

Slide twenty-three.
Nursing students with dyslexia: WWW support - an ongoing project.
David J Wright.
Thank you.

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Title of conference presentation

The slide text and descriptions