Virtual Reality for vocational rehabilitation, training and assessment

Obtaining and maintaining employment for persons with severe physical and cognitive disabilities requires collaboration between the worker, job trainer and employer. Often, this is not enough due to safety or other workplace concerns and when the job training is possible, it can be time consuming. Using Virtual Reality for simulating these environments, with both head mounted and 180 degree curved screen displays, provides a safe environment for training and evaluation of the worker and their assistive devices. In this paper, we report on our initial efforts working with stakeholders to design a system supporting: worker training and safety, job coaches' ability to train and assess workers rapidly and employers' abilities to maintain a productive and efficient workplace while hiring people with disabilities. We will test the system in a randomized paired study (n=15).