Occupational Therapist often get clients with a variety of disabilities to use equipment, some of this can be refereed to as assistive technology. Following having a guest speaker who was an occupational therapist at a school speaking to us, the blog entry to be written was about assistive technology.
Assistive technology represents the “broad range of devices, services, strategies, and practices that are conceived and applied to ameliorate the problems faced by individuals who have disabilities” (Cook & Hussey, 1995)
So put into my own words, an simplified a bit, assistive technology is all the technology and equipment which can help people with disabilities to lead fulfilling and active lifestyles.
There is a rather wide variety of adaptive equipment available. One piece of equipment I found interesting was the talking photo album. The allowed you to put photos into a normal looking album, and then add a note to it in speech. This could be used for someone that was expected to lose their speech, and could do this before they lost their speech so they could still tell their story in their own voice. However the way our guest speaker showed it being used, was at a school where the teachers would take photos of the student who was unable to talk. The photo was then developed, put in the album, them a voice memo was added to it. This album would them go home to the parents so they could see and hear what their child was doing while they were at school. This link is a youtube clip that shows a talking photo album and how they are used. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMLV409Sbdw
Through some assistive technology companies talking photo albums can be expensive, however they are becoming more and more common and not just for people with disabilities, so this is bringing the price down. They can be purchased over the internet for about $65.00 US dollars. Cook, A., & Hussey, S. (1995). Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practise. St Louis: Mosby.
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