Welcome to the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities Web Site
David Braddock
Welcome to the Coleman Institute's web site. The Institute was founded in 2001 by the University of Colorado System with a generous gift from William (Bill) and Claudia Coleman. Our mission is to catalyze and integrate advances in science, engineering, and technology to promote the quality of life and independent living of people with cognitive disabilities. The Institute is actively engaged in supporting research, development, dissemination, and education in cognitive disabilities on all campuses of the University of Colorado System in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver/Aurora. We are committed to providing scientific, technological, and public policy leadership to strengthen the voice of persons with cognitive disabilities and their families in our society.
When we refer to "cognitive disabilities" on this web site we are primarily referring to intellectual and developmental disabilities, acquired brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, and severe and persistent mental illness. These conditions affect over 20 million American citizens -- seven percent of the U.S. population. Prevalence rates for cognitive disability will grow rapidly as our nation ages and as advances in the medical and rehabilitative sciences extend the longevity of persons with disabilities.
Cognitive disability stems from a substantial limitation in one's capacity to think, including conceptualizing, planning and sequencing thoughts and actions, remembering, and interpreting the meaning of social and emotional cues, and of numbers and symbols. Common consequences of cognitive disability include stigma and discrimination, social isolation, difficulty communicating, poverty, and institutionalization. Moreover, as societies become more technology reliant, a rapidly growing "digital divide" is developing between persons who are competent to use emerging technologies and those with cognitive limitations who are not competent to do so without adaptive personalized modifications and training.
The University of Colorado (CU) is a formidable research enterprise. We currently rank sixth among public universities in the United States in federal research expenditures. By investing the Institute's research resources in project support and matching funds for CU faculty, we seek to help them leverage additional cognitive disability research grants from external funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). One example of CU's success is the $4.25 million grant to CU from NIDRR to establish the first Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Cognitive Technologies. The Coleman Institute is co-funding this center with an additional $1.25 million in project funding over the five year period.
In addition to the RERC, the Coleman Institute is presently supporting a number of exciting research projects led by CU investigators. Several of these projects involve the application of new technologies. Under development are animated learning tools, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) based voice training programs, smart housing and transportation systems, and recreation technology specifically designed for health promotion for people with cognitive disabilities. Other initiatives focus on neuroscience research. Learn more about these projects on this web site, and about many other research projects in cognitive disability being carried out at the University of Colorado.
The Coleman Institute provides direct funding for projects such as those described above, but we also assist CU faculty by providing challenge grant funding through the Coleman Institute Fellowship Program for graduate research assistantships as part of federal research grant applications. We have numerous such commitments to CU faculty at the present time.
Every year we support several major conferences on cognitive disability research including our own annual Coleman Conference on Cognitive Disability and Technology. The Coleman conference has become a national event, bringing together faculty researchers from across the University of Colorado System, disability leaders, federal agency heads, and prominent scientists and engineers throughout the U.S. This conference is explicitly designed to explore research frontiers and partnerships in cognitive disability and technology. I invite you to register for our upcoming conference in October.
This web site provides information about the research and related activities we support at CU. We also provide links to a nationwide array of cognitive disability and technology resources in universities, state agencies, parent and professional associations, private corporations, and the federal government. We invite you to visit our site, to use it to link to other resources in cognitive disability and technology, and to return frequently.
David Braddock, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President, University of Colorado System, Executive Director, Coleman Institute and Coleman-Turner Chair in Cognitive Disability, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine