Convening at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia November 17-19, 2016, the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) annual conference welcomed 16,170 attendees from across the country and around the world.

Participating as first-time exhibitors, we had a great response to advanced beta versions of Cognitopia’s Goal Guide and ScanDo apps. Many of the professionals attending ASHA work in skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation, or in home healthcare where they are involved in treating or providing therapy to seniors and people with traumatic brain injury. Perhaps our biggest takeaway was a better understanding of how what we’re doing at Cognitopia applies directly to the people those clinicians work with.

By demonstrating Goal Guide and ScanDo at the Cognitopia booth, we helped clinicians to see the potential for shared goal management and video modeling applications to help patients achieve better self-care between visits.

These applications offer patients a self-management tool for doing exercises, taking medication, or following through on other kinds of routine schedules.

A key feature of Goal Guide is being able to see data on the extent to which patients are complying with therapeutic regimens in between clinical visits. Attendees were also enthusiastic about the ability of ScanDo to deliver on-demand video instructions through a touchscreen interface or by scanning a QR code in key locations in the individual’s home environment.

We brought back some great feedback for our design team, hearing for instance that users would need to be able to print out schedules for patients who are not tech savvy. Another suggestion is that we offer an obvious help button that would link patients with a live-person or would deliver digital alerts to caregivers.

We enjoyed making so many valuable in-person connections and look forward to the commercial release of our applications in Spring 2017. In the meantime, we will be collaborating with several attendees who expressed an interest in working with us to implement Cognitopia’s beta applications into their clinical practice.

If you missed us at ASHA, we’ll be heading to Orlando, Florida for the 2017 Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) conference January 16 through 21. We will be presenting an educational session as well as demonstrating Goal Guide on the exhibit floor.

We’ll also be back in Philadelphia March 30-April 2, 2017 for the American Occupational Therapy Association’s 97^th Annual Conference, and in Boston April 19-22, 2017 for the Council for Exceptional Children Annual Convention.

Tom Keating

Tom Keating, Ph.D. is founder and CEO of Cognitopia, home of the Cognitopia Platform for Self-Determination, emphasizing tools for IEP self-direction, goal management, task analysis, and team coordination. Keating has been focused for the past 20 years on research and development of self-management and community living applications for individuals with cognitive disabilities and has been principal investigator on over 20 federally-funded technology development projects. He is also a Courtesy Research Associate in the Computer and Information Sciences Department of the University of Oregon. Keating’s perspective in all of his work has been strongly influenced by his experience of 31 years as a primary supporter for a brother who experienced autism.