Helpful and unhelpful aspects of bereavement support were investigated from the perspectives of 24 bereaved adults and their volunteer bereavement support workers. Most commonly reported themes were the provision of hope and reassurance, and the opportunity for continued sharing and support. Significantly more clients than volunteers reported provision of information, and talking to someone outside their social network as helpful, and both groups scored higher on helpfulness ratings than comparative groups of psychotherapists and clients. Clients' grieving styles and the quality of the helping relationship were also related to what was seen as helpful.

This study examines linguistic co-occurrence patterns in the discourse of individuals with communication impairments who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices in the workplace by comparing them to those of non-AAC users in similar job settings. A typical workweek (≈ 40 hours) per focal participant (four AAC; four non-AAC) was recorded and transcribed to create a specialized corpus of workplace discourse of approximately 464,000 words at the time of this analysis. A multidimensional analysis of co-occurrence patterns along functional linguistic dimensions, following Biber (1988, 1995) [ Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], reveals differences in the macro discourse characteristics of AAC vis-a-vis non-AAC texts. Results indicate that AAC texts make use of more informational, non-narrative, and explicit textual features of discourse than their non-AAC counterparts. Implications to improve the capabilities of AAC devices to produce speech that matches baseline expectations of co-workers in the workplace are discussed.

In response to the need for more accessible and engaging informal learning environments (ILEs), researchers have studied sonification for use in interpretation of live aquarium exhibits. The present work attempts to introduce more interactivity to the project's existing sonification work, which is expected to lead to more accessible and interactive learning opportunities for visitors, including children and people with vision impairment. In this interactive sonification environment, visitors can actively experience an exhibit by using tangible objects to mimic the movement of animals. Sonifications corresponding to their movement can be paired with real-time animal-based sonifications produced by the existing system to generate a musical fugue. In the current paper, we describe the system configurations, experiment results for optimal sonification parameters and interaction levels, and implications in terms of embodied interaction and interactive learning.

The ageing workforce and returning veterans have generated a heightened awareness of the need to accommodate people with disabilities in the workplace. A critical factor in developing useful accommodations is being able to accurately quantify the abilities of the person and the demands of the environment. Human factors specialists are often involved with measuring human capabilities and environmental factors with the aim of improving human performance. However, the use of assistive technology (AT) is typically not considered in the development of such assessment models. This paper presents a theoretical framework for the integration of AT into a process model for assessing human performance.