AMANDA HYNAN FINAL THESIS PDF

ten year co-ordinated campaign to try to change this situation which has made
significant progress recently. The National Lottery Funded three year Communication
Matters AAC Evidence Base research project carried out by the University of
Sheffield, Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Manchester Metropolitan
University published their final report in April 2013. The University of Sheffield and
an honorary researcher from the Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation trust carried out
research into the prevalence of need and service provision of AAC within the UK.
They estimated that 0.05% of the population would benefit from powered
communication aids but acknowledge this is likely to be a low estimate in the face of
advancing technology. In terms of equipment provision they found there is a lack of
consistency for service provision across the UK.
Within the current research study a small amount of evidence arose that funding
access equipment was a concern and the fact this was not pursued further by the
author in subsequent interviews was in retrospect an oversight. The Communication
Matters (2013) qualitative research project revealed funding was one of the most
commonly raised issues from within the field of AAC. The Clinical Advisory Group
for Prescribed Services Report (DoH, 2012) suggested that VOCAs should be
nationally commissioned from April 2013 and if this is implemented by the UK
government there may be a considerable increase in the amount of centrally available
information for parents.
5.4.6. Individual skills
Individual skills impacted on whether the internet and online social media could be
accessed as fully as desired as many websites do not accommodate individual
challenges. Some participants identified that social media sites such as Facebook were
difficult to read and understand. Hollier (2012) reported that the internationally
definitive standard for web site accessibility, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) 2.0, requires twelve different criteria under four broad headings of
perceivable, operable, understandable and robust should be applied to all websites. He
cites research carried out by Boudreau (2011) that showed many social media sites
such as Facebook and Twitter fall short of expected standards and concludes that in
practice this means that most social media tools will have some level of accessibility
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