Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology products can enable people with disabilities to accomplish daily living tasks, assist them in communication, education, work or recreation activities, in essence, help them achieve greater independence and enhance their quality of life. Assistive Technology devices can help improve physical or mental functioning, overcome a disorder or impairment, help prevent the worsening of a condition, strengthen a physical or mental weakness, help improve a person's capacity to learn, or even replace a missing limb. http://www.rehabtool.com/forum/discussions/1.html

Here is an example of how a speech therapist has incorporated assistive technology into her clients life to benefit communication for a young boy who struggles to talk:

Morgan's iChat

January 5, 2009

Morgan is a young boy who I met in the spring of 2007. He has autism which has a huge impact on his ability to communicate and interact with people. When I met Morgan, he was quite animated but as he was not able to speak he primarily communicated with sign and gestures. Not that he limited himself to these means. If needed, he would walk to retrieve items, lead people by the hand, or anything he could think of to get his point across. I was struck by Morgan's sense of humour and how hard he worked to try to communicate, but even his dedicated parents could not always understand what he wanted.

After I met Morgan, his parents and I began to explore the possibility of a portable dynamic display device. We ended up trialling several different devices that would let Morgan carry all the symbols he needed to communicate with people who do not know his signs. Following several equipment trials, we identified the iChat communication device as the best option for Morgan.
We patiently waited several months while Enable reprioritized the funding applications they had received. Finally, in August the iChat was funded and in Morgan's hands.
It has been really exciting to see how Morgan, his family and his school have embraced the iChat communication device. His teacher quickly learned how the equipment worked and began thinking about how Morgan could use it to communicate and participate throughout the school day. His parents have really taken to programming the iChat and figuring out how to make it part of their everyday lives. Morgan has been using it to travel on the bus, to buy ice creams, and to ask his fellow classmates if he could help them. He even used his iChat to ask his parents if they could put up the Christmas Tree!

Assitive technology is proving a useful way to communicate, motivate and mobilise clients with all types of disability. Everyday technology becomes more advanced and new products are introduced to the market. This opens opportunitys for both the therapist and the client with goals and intervention. I believe it is an exciting new tool that Occupational Therapsists should become familiar with and prepared to introduce to their practice to make the therapy a fun and interesting way of reaching client potential.


The wii

The wii is a new peice of technology that offers consumers hands free gaming and interaction. It is played much the same as original playstations on a screen, choosing the game and competing with your own score or others, the exception of the Nintendo wii being that you use your body to control the player or character in the application. The arms, legs and whole body is used making it a physical game where the player is up and moving. The wii has games also associated with quizzes, mathematics and descision making so players can choose this type of game also. Watch this Nintendo advertisment to see what the hype is about..