CONTACTO: A Social Networking Site for Supported-Employment Interventions for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to determine whether social networks can be used to improve self-management skills in people with Intellectual or Developmental Disability (IDD) given the high rate of acceptance of such tools among them. The proposed methodology applies an employment-based intervention to evaluate whether social network services help improve self-management skills. A fit-for-purpose social networking service is built, and different evaluation mechanisms are applied to determine the degree to which users with IDD could use the tool without assistance. The working hypothesis is that in order to ensure the usability of the implemented tool, users (with and without IDD) should be involved throughout the whole software development cycle, following a co-design methodological approach. Results demonstrate that this methodological approach leads to high satisfaction and motivation rates. In terms of effectiveness and efficiency, results demonstrate that the tool is useful and usable for people with IDD. It can therefore be concluded that social network services built having users with IDD at its center will help improve their self-management skills. The main implication of this research is that when using social network services as a tool to support interventions, special attention should be paid to previously evaluating the usability and motivation rate as a measure of how autonomously the person with IDD can use the tool. Nevertheless, further research is needed to determine the impact that such tools can have on other types of intervention.