Work RERC Will Continue for Another Five Years

CATEA has recently been awarded a grant to continue research and development as the national Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Workplace Accommodations (Work RERC) for another five years. The Work RERC will identify, develop and promote new assistive and universally designed technologies that maximize independence and participation of people with disabilities in the workplace.

Under the previous funding cycle, the Work RERC conducted research to learn more about the use and effectiveness of accommodations, reviewed the impact of policy on access to and utilization of accommodations, and began development of tools to assess employee needs for accommodations. Development projects included software to help people who are blind to use computer applications, a supine workstation for people with low back pain, accommodations for people in manufacturing settings, and a grocery checkstand that can be used by cashiers with or without disabilities.

The new grant will add research projects that examine the accommodations used by aging workers and the effect of accommodations on participation of people in the workplace. In collaboration with the Burton Blatt Institute and the Job Accommodation Network, the project will also investigate the costs and benefits of accommodating workers over time. Georgia Tech students will contribute to the design of new workstations and human-computer interfaces. Other development projects will create new systems to provide job task prompts for people with developmental disabilities (a collaboration with researchers at the University of Colorado) and improved vocabulary systems for people who have communication disabilities. Finally, the project will provide training for practitioners, workers with disabilities, and students interested in design and engineering.