Publicaciones innovadoras propias de la materia, desarrollando conceptos teóricos espaciales y comportamentales, metodologías de intervención espacial y de diseño propios, aparecen a partir de 2013. Desde ese momento se ha avanzado con textos que incluyen metodologías de intervención teórica (social y científica), conceptual e incluyentes.
Las experiencias realizadas en torno a la materia han dado resultados probablemente amplios, sin embargo desde el punto de vista teórico, metodológico y conceptual solo aparecen las publicaciones siguientes que vinculan la necesidad de llevar a cabo ajustes espaciales para que no haya desencuentros con las cualidades funcionales de todas las personas.
Se habla de recuperar una comunicación perdida entre el diseño del espacio y sus protagonistas: aquellos que lo viven, lo disfrutan o lo sufren. Los actores son los técnicos y diseñadores hablando con las personas, grupos y organizaciones ciudadanas.[26].
Space and its adjustments: spatial design model and methodology
In 2013, work began on cognitive accessibility with concepts specific to this subject and the necessary spatial adjustments. The book that supports the methodology for the design and evaluation of accessible spaces was published in 2014: “Model for Designing Accessible Spaces, Cognitive Spectrum.”.
Based on this text and design model, the Participatory Methodology for the Evaluation of Environments and Buildings is published, involving people with intellectual or developmental disabilities trained in the model to design accessible spaces, in understandable information: text, graphic and experimental. General Registry of Intellectual Property. Registry entry: 16/2015/3448. Disclosure date 1/3/2014 as recorded in RPI.
With this methodology, three convergent results are reached:
The model text states the following on page 22 (2014 edition):.
"Starting from these initial details (reference to cognitive abilities, Fundación ONCE and other institutions and The Arc of Texas), a model is developed for the design and diagnosis of accessible spaces. The aspects stated in The Arc of Texas are incorporated in this document elements for the design of the environment and the building related to the orientation of people. Thanks to the research carried out, it is possible to act with spatial and perceptual facilitators so that cognitive accessibility is free of obstacles, especially those elements that act as barriers to mobility due to its capacity to create situations of stress, confusion, disorientation and insecurity:".
Universal postulates or principles must ensure the adjustment of spaces, environments and buildings.
The concept of cognitive apprehension is defined on page 225 of the 2014 edition, which is not included in DALCO Requirements. STANDARD UNE 170001-2017:.
"The design of public environments, spaces and services (and private ones for public use and enjoyment) must be understandable by all users, regardless of their abilities. They must facilitate guidance for their use and exploitation. Signs and graphic elements are important supports, but complementary to the spatial design."
In 2016 and based on the progress made, the second edition of the digital book “Cognitive Accessibility, Model for designing accessible spaces” was published. Projects already executed and interventions in conferences and universities with inclusive classrooms in which people with intellectual or developmental disabilities participate are incorporated.
Occupational centers of organizations of people with diversity: Afanias in Madrid, SOI Cartagena (Cartagena, Murcia) and the CPEE Public Special Education Center of Alcalá de Henares,[27] work with the participatory model and methodology in the evaluation of environments and buildings. A glossary created by the users themselves is added.
From the previous publications, a new methodology in understandable text for the evaluation of environments and buildings is born. These are inclusive practical experiences involving people with intellectual or developmental disabilities trained to design and evaluate spaces, with understandable text, graphic and experimental information.
General Registry of Intellectual Property. Registry entry: 16/2015/3448. Disclosure date 1/3/2014 as recorded in RPI.
With this methodology, three convergent results are reached:
In order to work on capabilities with people with diversity, the book Cognitive accessibility training guide for people with functional diversity (Afanias, 2016) is prepared and published,[28] guide developed from the participatory model and methodology so that people with intellectual or developmental disabilities can support universal accessibility technicians in the cognitive components of the evaluation of environments and buildings.[28] This publication is a precursor to future publications on the need to design thinking in an understandable language of spaces, environments and buildings.[26].
The participatory methodology that is a systemic part of the model to design and work with the training guide has generated conceptual and experimental experiences that are used to know why and how people with diversity function in their role as evaluators. The publication Evaluation of cognitive accessibility. Scientific keys to strengthen the role of evaluator with functional diversity, published by La Ciudad Accesible Granada,[29] fills this space with knowledge and research and opens the doors to reflect on collaboration between research, experimental work and debate groups.
The text promotes the link between the social sciences and those that in recent years have achieved successes that began to have evidence in the middle of the last century and discoveries in the century: psychobiology, neuroscience, neuroengineering, the latter providing irreplaceable technological support, and cognitive neuropsychology, a branch of psychology that delves into the relationships between the various brain structures and functions with specific psychological processes: Cerebral GPS (Nobel Prize winners 2014) and Jennifer Neuron Anniston (Rodrigo Quian Quiroga).[30].
It includes innovations that the environment and architecture provide to promote the adjustment between human activities, forms—their meaning—and their relationships to improve people's behavior, facilitating their positioning and spatial orientation. It is included as a United Nations resource on the ENABLE page, ISSUES section and Accessibility position.[31].
Advances in cognitive accessibility. Learning, orientation and spatial imagination.
In October 2016, this book was published that addresses the issues of guidance as a systemic process that develops from the cognitive abilities, memory, and executive functions of the brain. It is acquired through learning and the participatory method contributes to its development and maintenance.
It develops the hypothesis that "the identification and learning of related spatial concepts through a method that organizes adjustments, imbalances and fractures, improves the person's ability to orient themselves since they can interpret and elucidate, through a continuous and logical structure, situations that daily present themselves as problematic and unsafe."[33] (Includes protocols for field work with Intellectual Property Registration in progress).
Beyond the importance that the method has for each person as a user, once learned it takes a social direction, when she becomes a transmitter - broadcaster - of her experiences in this matter. And its added value is personal again, since every time these exchanges are made, your memory reproduces, reaffirms and enriches them to also improve your mobility and autonomy.
General publications
Full Inclusion Madrid[35] (formerly FEAPS) publishes the Recommendations Guide on Cognitive Accessibility.[36] The different means that the person has when it comes to obtaining information for what they want or want to do were identified, with the Internet, the telephone or personalized attention being the main channels of the process. These means of offering information were the first to be analyzed and appear in this guide under the title General Recommendations.
The process that the person with disabilities continues, once information about the paperwork, means of transportation, destination, schedules, etc., is obtained, is that of displacement. In this sense, the group analyzed the barriers in transportation, orientation on public roads and in buildings, and the result of the analysis was also incorporated in the title General Recommendations. Finally, different educational, leisure, healthcare or housing areas were identified, in which in addition to general recommendations already incorporated, more specific ones were appreciated. These areas are included in the chapter on Recommendations for Specific Environments.
CEAPAT prepares and disseminates a document[37] on "Support technology and cognitive accessibility: from autonomy to participation" that includes organizations interested in the matter.