FW-HTF-RL: Success via a Human-Assistive Wearable Technology Partnership Fostering Neurodiverse Individuals' Work Success via an Assistive Wearable Technology

People with attention deficit or on the autism spectrum face high unemployment rates due to rigid workplaces, lack of job coaches, inadequate support, limited training opportunities, among other factors. Yet, workforce participation and sustained employment provide these neurodiverse individuals with opportunities for self-determination and autonomy.

Wrist-worn wearable technology such as smartwatches holds promise for personalized assistance to help individuals with work activities, thereby reducing potential stigma and concerns by employers, while providing self-managed accessibility opportunities. This project will improve employment opportunities for neurodiverse workers, via an assistive wearable technology that creates personalized work environments designed by and for these workers.

Enhancing neurodiverse individuals’ workplace experience, the findings will advance research on wearable technology and job support with personalized task design, with the goal of creating workplaces of the future that are more inclusive and equitable. The assistive wearable technology in this project establishes a model and design space to propel the development and use of future personalized work technologies, seeking to create the most benefit for neurodiverse workers.

Following the neurodiverse community’s aim, “nothing about us without us,” this project contributes to the inclusion of the neurodiverse community in research and work: shifting from passive individuals who are largely acted upon to self-determinant agents and self-advocates. Assistive wearables will create a space for these workers using specialized interventions seeking to improve the hiring rate by employers.

The technology-enabled workplace guidelines will empower the collaborative crafting of work times, tasks, and spaces enabling a successful integration of neurodiverse workers into different workplaces. Research findings will be shared in scientific and practitioner forums. The research team will provide training, education, and research opportunities for students from neurodiverse and other underrepresented groups.

The goal of this project is to empower neurodiverse individuals in their workplace experience and accessibility, using a human-assistive technology partnership to improve subjective and objective work success. This research project bridges from the present (85% unemployment) to this desired future. The multidisciplinary research team will study how assistive wearable technology, a smartwatch application, can improve neurodiverse individuals’ work success.

The application will monitor performance, recognize hand gestures, and intervene with prompts. To answer fundamental research questions, the study will involve adults with autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) (comprising 7.5 and 12.76 million American adults, respectively), employable within the stockers and order fillers occupation (O*NET; 53-7065.00), whose hand movements generalize to industries beyond retail (which alone comprises 28.67 million U.S. workers).

Data collected through a series of user studies will be analyzed to answer this research question: How can assistive wearable technology improve subjective (self-efficacy, job satisfaction, independence) and objective (executive function, productivity, accuracy) markers of work success for neurodiverse workers? First, a controlled laboratory experiment will result in recognition models built from wearable sensor data (inertial measurement units) adapted for work tasks.

Then, via controlled experiments (nine 3x3x2 studies), the technology will be tested assessing how it can effectively improve subjective (self-efficacy, job satisfaction, independence) and objective (executive function, productivity, accuracy) work success for neurodiverse individuals considering work time and environment. Lastly, a 3-week workplace field study will test real-world efficacy and build guidelines around work times, tasks, and spaces for this technology.

The project outcomes contribute to wearable technology, supporting job tasks with a personalized design to make future work more inclusive and equitable for the neurodiverse. Heeding the neurodiverse community’s aim, “nothing about us without us” in this project, this work advances a paradigm shift for the neurodiverse in research and work: from passive individuals who are largely acted upon to self-determinant agentic self-advocates.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.