ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the development of methodologies that are valuable for designers of information technology systems. These are relevant both to designers of specialist systems to support people with cognitive impairment and for designers of “main stream” systems—so that they are able to take into account the needs of people with cognitive impairments. Communication systems that use synthetic speech, predictive programs that facilitate writing, and a range of nonlinguistic methods of communication, can be used by those with speech and language dysfunction caused by cognitive impairments. The use of the term cognitive impairment implies that two categories of human cognitive systems exist—impaired and unimpaired. Output from the cognitive system will generally be initiated in response to some form of external stimulus, or probe, by accessing extant memories relevant to the probe using executive processes to organize them in a task-relevant way and then producing a response.
