AMANDA HYNAN FINAL THESIS PDF

difficult to judge whether the responses were solely the views of the
participants.
5. Overall, despite the challenges of interviews, they are still believed to ‘bestfit’
the research objectives to gather self-report data of the perceptions and
experiences of using the internet and online social media. An improvement
would have been to have spent more time with the participants to become
familiar with each other’s communication strategies and build rapport. It
would also have allowed follow up of issues which may only have become
clear during transcription. This may have proved impractical though within the
constraints of time pressure within educational settings and the risk of
participants missing valuable educational sessions.
6.4. Potential areas of further study
1. Utilising outcome measures from studies of community participation appears
to show there are important antecedents within the use of the internet and
online social media for improving perceptions of social inclusion. This is an
important finding in terms of the ICF-CY which seeks to understand how
environmental factors impact on the ways in which young people live and
conduct their lives (Lidstrom, 2011). As suggested in the conclusions (section
6.1) future research should look to develop outcome measures which are
specifically orientated to consider the environmental consequences for social
inclusion within virtual communities.
2. An exploration of the internet and online social media use by an older age
group who use AAC within the United Kingdom is recommended, as the
young people within this study had high levels of technical, human and
funding support within their educational settings. Figures within the Ofcom
Consumer Experience Report (2012) illustrate that figures for the use of the
internet within the home for the 15-34 age group are roughly comparable
between people with and without mobility challenges. The figures show less
parity of home internet use by older generations of people with mobility
challenges.
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