Engaging People with Aphasia in Design of Rehabilitation Through Participatory Design: A Way to Learn what They Really Want

Research literature on participatory design in relation to people with communicative and cognitive disabilities often focuses on the challenges of communication among the participants. This paper presents a case study involving people suffering from communication disabilities after a brain injury (aphasia) early in a design process of an avatar-mediated virtual learning environment for rehabilitation. The example demonstrates how providing time and space and supporting the communication with well-suited tools and artefact opens for firth-hand domain knowledge of living with aphasia. The results demonstrate that participatory design methods might result in much more than just being a step in the design process. In this specific case, it turns out to be a tool to engage, involve, and empower people with communication disabilities to interact and communicate. The paper argues, that participatory design is a way for designers to gain insights into what people with aphasia really want and, consequently, might also be a key to redesign rehabilitation for people with communication disabilities.