Collaborative networked framework for the rehabilitation of children with Down's Syndrome
A M P Almeida, Fernando Ramos · 2000
This paper describes a reference architecture to support a multi-user virtual communication platform that enables rehabilitation and social integration of Down’s Syndrome children. The platform, based on an on-line virtual collaborative environment supported by the World Wide Web, includes collaboration and interpersonal communication devices and data collection mechanisms to provide management information for system and effectiveness evaluation. It allows children with Down’s Syndrome, geographically spread in schools and homes, to access a distributed virtual platform able to offer communication and shared construction processes. This will leverage the exploitation and development of communication and socialisation abilities, creating conditions to the exploitation of new rehabilitation patterns. 1. IS VIRTUAL EFFECTIVE? Virtual derives from the Latin virtus, which means strength and power. In fact, it has little relationship with false or illusory. As Pierre Levy states, “the virtual is by no means the opposite of the real. On the contrary, it is a fecund and powerful mode of being that expands the process of creation, opens up the future, injects a core of meaning beneath the platitude of immediate physical presence ” (Levy, 1998).