Objective
This project develops a prototype home-based kitchen management system to help people with impaired intellectual ability to carry out essential activities for daily living.
CHEF seeks to utilise leading edge technology in the fields of behavioural psychology, telematics, sensors and control to contribute to the full integration into society of people with mental handicap. In particular it addresses the fundamental need of such people to be able to cook for themselves in order to sustain an independent lifestyle.
The project seeks to achieve this by providing technology support which can aid decision making tasks, supply memory for the forgetful, and introduce management into the lives of those with few organisational skills. In cases where the disability of the individual requires more complex tasks to be reduced to a simple task, a range of control aid systems are supplied.
New technologies for teaching have the potential to teach in a much more efficient and controlled manner than any human teacher. The Chef integrated system employs a pedagogic strategy built from an understanding of learning and an assessment of the specific needs of each learner. The strategy will determine interactions between user and system. With continual, systematic training in the familiar surroundings of their own home, users can be expected to learn more than would otherwise have been possible. .S 1 An important benefit to the caring profession of the introduction of I.T. based aids into the domestic environment is that a record will be available of such details as clients' diet, general eating habits and time-keeping, and expenditure on food which will impact on the provision of other aspects of care in the community. Technological support could also reduce care requirements, freeing resources for more dependent groups or more complex support needs.
The consortium combines the skills of hardware and software engineers, social scientists, health and social care workers, working with a pilot group of clients to develop a prototype kitchen management system which will demonstrate the validity of this approach to the problem. The test of the validity will be carried out on a control group of clients who will have no prior experience of the prototype system.
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
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BT7 3JH Belfast
United Kingdom