RERC: Research Support Task G-2

G-2: Training Activities

Lead Faculty: Elaine Trefler, MEd, OTR, ATP

Participating Faculty: Rory Cooper, PhD; Douglas Hobson, PhD; David Brienza, PhD; Gina Bertocci, PhD; Michael Boninger, MD; Mark Schmeler, MS, OTR; Nigel Shapcott, MS

Objectives
To provide quality graduate-level research training opportunities for approximately 15 students.
To provide continuing education opportunities related to wheelchair technology for a worldwide target audience.

Goals:

Goal 1: Provide quality graduate level training opportunities
The academic research experience begins with a spectrum of required and optional courses designed to give the student grounding in many facets of disability and technology.

Goal 2: Provide continuing education opportunities
Continuing education in assistive technology, and more specifically wheelchair technology, takes many directions and uses a variety of delivery modes. Lectures, conference instructional courses and workshops, focus group sessions, symposia, home study curricula, responses to email inquiries, dissemination of: application guidelines, product design criteria and research findings via publications (professional, public and consumer) and our WWW site, are all vehicles that have been used successfully. Therefore, they will be continued and in some cases expanded.

Workshops and Symposia
The RERC and RST co-sponsor the International Seating Symposium (ISS), which is hosted every second year by the University of Pittsburgh. Approximately 800 people attend from all over the world. There are over 80 commercial exhibitors and papers cover all aspects of clinical intervention and research in seating and wheeled mobility. Attendees at this premier conference include rehabilitation professionals, rehabilitation technology suppliers, and consumers. The exhibit hall is open to the public and local consumer organizations are invited to participate. Although research is presented and proceedings are published, the main focus of the ISS is to share state-of-the-art practice principles and applications.
Providing Safer Access to Transportation for Seating and Mobility Users is a workshop that has been offered as an instructional course at conferences at least twice annually for the past three years. New information and related standards and safe practice guidelines are nearing completion, so there is an urgent need to communicate this information to wheelchair users, families, transporters, schools administrators, and prescribing clinicians.
Review Course for Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers is a one-day course requested by the National Registry of Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers (NRRTS) to help prepare their members for the RESNA Credentialling Exam. The course has already been held four times and will continue as long as the demand exists. See our WWW-based Events Calender for the upcoming education and training opportunities. (Ashli--post link )

Conferences
Faculty and staff from the RST and RERC attend at least six professional conferences annually, which is another vehicle for sharing information and new knowledge about engineering and clinical developments in wheelchair technology. The premier meetings will continue to be the RESNA Conference and International Seating Symposium, where through our exhibits, formal presentations, and workshops, we reach a wide range of people.

Home Study
Training Program for Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers (RTS). This is a home study program for persons, who sell wheelchairs and seating systems, which is endorsed by the National Registry of Rehabilitation Technology Suppliers (NRRTS). It consists of three modules geared for suppliers but is also appropriate for consumers, their advocates, practitioners, and others who want a beginner-level home study program in assistive technology. Plans are to make this program available on the Internet. It provides students with the principles of consumer-based services in all areas of AT, with an emphasis on seating and wheeled mobility. Twenty-four distance-learning students are now enrolled in the program. One program goals is to teach RTS where and when to refer clients who need additional expertise.

New Directions
Possibly the most effective new vehicle for AT training is the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). Students, AT professionals, and a rapidly increasing percentage of persons with disabilities have, or will soon have, access to this rapidly developing interactive medium. Communication occurs at scheduled times (synchronously) or whenever the involved parties work it into their daily schedules (asynchronously). The WWW engages people around the world and does not segregate people based on system-imposed categories, i.e., professionals, students, consumers, suppliers, etc. This powerful tool will be explored for expanding our training capabilities.

Goal 3: Recruitment and access
Posters on the RST academic program are available to be sent to counseling departments, therapy departments, and engineering schools nationally, including those that traditionally attract minority students. This includes local engineering schools, therapy agencies, and vocational rehabilitation programs. Regional advertisements will be placed in publications such as the Pennsylvania OT Association Newsletter, Professional Engineering Society Newsletter, Keystone PVA Newsletter, and IEEE Regional Newsletter. Information is distributed to undergraduate engineering, science, counseling, and therapy programs around the country. RST faculty make regular presentations about the program. National advertisements appear in newsletters (OTWEEK, Advance, RESNA News, and IEEE-EMBS Magazine) read by engineers and therapists and those with an interest in AT. Our program is listed in Petersen's Guide in print and electronic format. The RST curriculum has created on an extensive WWW site, which provides information about RERC programs. The site attracts students and collaborators and receives approximately 500 hits per month.

For more information of the RST academic program in Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive technology visit http://www.shrs,pitt.edu/rst/index.html, call 412-383-6596.