Main Content

Accessibility for People with Cognitive Impairment

Term: 09/2017 to 12/2018

Project management and coordination: Prof.  Dr Henrik Trescher

Implementing institutions: Institute for Special Education at Goethe University Frankfurt, in cooperation with the federal association Lebenshilfe and Lebenshilfe Frankfurt am Main e.V.

Associates/Partners/Contributors:  Teresa Hauck, MA, Michael Börner, MA, Anna-Maria Hauck, MA

Research assistant(s):  Janos Klocke, (Political Scientist/Dipl.-Pol.)  Iris Pfeuffer, BA, Silvia Klemmt, BA

Financing: Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS)

 Project description:

The overarching question of the project is:  What do the barriers to participation lie for people with cognitive impairments, and what studies have already been conducted on this topic?  In a first step, national and international studies and publications on the topic of "Cognitive Impairment and Accessibility" will be compiled in order to derive still unanswered questions or questions that require further research from this research discourse, which will then be investigated in a follow-on research project (main study). For this purpose, extensive literature research will be conducted into (a) relevant journals and (b) publications, such as  monographs or research reports from both national and international discourse, covering the period of the last ten years.  The operationalization of the research foresees approaching the topic across eight areas (initially) in order to be able to cover relevant spheres of life as comprehensively as possible. These spheres are as follows: Leisure, work, school and education, housing, everyday life, political participation, agencies/authorities/public administration, as well as social spaces and mobility.  In a second step, 40 semi-standardized expert interviews with people suffering from cognitive impairment will be conducted in order to identify problem areas in practice. The results of the interviews with these 'experts in their own matters' will then be used to contrast the research.