CRC ASSIST TECH ASSESS HDBK PDF

Preface

This book is the result of scientific collaboration and sincere friendship that was born in 2001 and has gradually strengthened over time.

The collaboration begins with the creation, at the Faculty of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, of the first course in psychotechnology that was held in Italy. This course aimed to combine multiple topics, bringing together technological and ergonomic arguments and issues concerning the psychology of rehabilitation to train competent psychologists within assistive technology provision.

The course was designed by Stefano Federici and held at the Sapienza University of Rome from 2001 to 2008. The term "psychotechnology," with the meaning adopted and introduced in the psychology of rehabilitation by Federici, initially sounded like a neologism. In fact, the objective of the course was to integrate technology and ergonomic aspects with those more specific of cognitive ergonomics, reread under the lens of the biopsychosocial model of disability, to train psychologists with both psychological and technological expertise and who were able to lead a user to meet their needs. Only in this way would it have been possible for the user to search and find a technological product that not only was satisfactory to his or her own person, but was also able to support him or her in the integration process within its milieu, by preventing, compensating, monitoring, relieving, or neutralizing disability and social barriers. Therefore, the psychotechnologist should possess those skills to be spent in centers for technical aid that, at the end of the last millennium, have begun to be characterized as autonomous centers of technology device assessment and assignment for an individual's disability and independent living.

The main theoretical difficulty in designing the psychotechnology course was to integrate technological-engineering models—not dissimilar in some way by certain models of cognitive functioning that tend to generalize and idealize the individual— with the biopsychosocial model of disability. The ergonomic approach to technology, both of cognitive and engineering types, indeed often tends to neglect the emotional, motivational, and social user experience so that it does not take into account those factors that very often affect it with a higher rate of incidence in the successful outcome in device use.

The discovery by Federici of the Matching Person and Technology model by Marcia J. Scherer was like the key to squaring the circle. It is a model that has combined people with disabilities' needs with assistive technologies in a user-centered context, without neglecting the functional and ergonomic features of the device. The answer to that fateful question was found, namely, that the psychotechnologist usually turned to him- or herself to find an effective integration of knowledge. As Federici was used to repeating in the psychotechnology course at the Sapienza University of Rome: "This course could also be called ‘Matching Person and Technology from the psychologist's standpoint'."

The collaboration between the Sapienza University of Rome and the Institute for Matching Person and Technology has produced dozens of theses and several doctoral dissertations concerning the adaptation and validation of the Matching Person and Technology model and tools or related to the professional profile and role of the psychologist in the assistive technology assessment and assignment processes. Some of those researchers and students are now successful professionals in psychotechnology. Furthermore, many authors who took part in writing of the chapters of this book come from that experience of study and research.

However, the collaboration and friendship between Marcia and Stefano has not only led to the sharing of ideas and research projects, but they have also created a scientific network among Italian, American, and other nations' scholars who have formed the scientific community that has allowed such a large participation of authors in the writing of this work.

As the editors, let us now respond to the reasons for this book, which certainly was not intended to be a history of this social network or a biography of its editors. This book is a challenge for us: to develop an international ideal model of the assistive technology assessment process that gathers the most recent scientific developments in the assessment and provision of technical aids for an outcome that, if reached, would be a real success—the well-being of the disabled person. Therefore, this model intends to express in an idealized and essential form an assessment process performed in a center for technical aid because it provides such tools for the assessment and the professional profiles that we might also define as "psychotechnological."

Of course, just because we speak of "challenge," we reveal our awareness about the problems and limitations of an "international" ideal model. For example, one of the unsolved problems is the difficulty, already met several times, in defining the features of a center for technical aid. The modeling process of a center for technical aid is difficult if one takes into account the extraordinary variety of systems of regional and national health and social care, both public and private. This variety influences in different ways the specific characteristics that are required at a center. Furthermore, the different nature of the center for technical aid makes problematic the definition itself of the individual who addresses to it: user, patient, client, or consumer? The user (for convenience we use this definition, a little more generic than the others) of a center for technical aid could be a patient of a physician (physiatrist) who operates in a national system of health care and sends him or her to a specialized facility, the center for technical aid indeed, for a more thorough assessment of a particular device. This assessment can be provided free of charge if the center is part of a national health system or by paying out money if the center is part of a private health system. Furthermore, the product chosen by the user could be sold or assigned directly from the center for technical aid or, alternatively, the device provision may be made later by other providers, external and independent from the center for technical aid.

These are just some of the issues to be discussed by the authors of this book. In fact, other issues will be also addressed that are even more problematic from a scientific viewpoint. We refer to those that are intrinsically linked to the design of an international model. Because of the difficulty in finding an adequate and effective synthesis of the various models proposed by specific national systems of public health and welfare, the scientific community faces a modeling of assistive technology system delivery that will be increasingly individualized with respect to either the social and cultural diversity of users or to the necessary adjustment of the center for technical aid's functioning to the local health system. However, it should be noted that this particularization of the models clashes with some trends that are aimed at instead promoting their globalization (for example, this occurs both in social and health policies of the European Community and in those of the World Health Organization). The internationalization of a model is indeed advantageous because it often emerges as a synthesis of experiences and knowhows of regional models. Moreover, it offers the opportunity, by sharing the theoretical model and evaluation criteria, to share data essential to scientific research, planning, and evaluation of national and international policies and verify the quality of public services.

A goal that we set in the writing of this project was to narrow the topics, trying to legitimate the choice made. In fact, our intention was not only to provide a theoretical text that aims to develop an ideal model of assistive technology assessment processes, but also to provide an operational tool that is able to outline both the specific space of applicability of the model itself and the main characteristics of a center for technical aid's functioning, a tool-kit for a proper assessment, and profiles of professionals acting within the center. Moreover, it even seemed essential for us to compare our model with some of the most advanced researches in technologies for rehabilitation and supports for independent living. However, we were well aware that a detailed description of all matters regarding the functioning of a center for technical aid (i.e. assessment tools, professional profiles, the latest technology devices for rehabilitation and independent living) would have required an encyclopedia and not a manual such as this book. Therefore, and this could be read both as a limit and as well an advantage of this book, we have chosen, for each of the three areas mentioned—the tools of evaluation, the experts of the evaluation in a center for technical aid and new technologies—the aspects of the current state of the art that we judged as the most representative or innovative. So, we not only identified for each topic the leading experts and invited them to write about their topic, but also, where possible, we tried to ensure that each chapter was written by more hands, concerted and promoting cross-cultural viewpoints. For this reason, the reader should certainly not be surprised if he or she will not find mention some professions among those that could be treated in such a manual. We tried to give more prominence to the definition, training, and professional role of the new profession of psychotechnologist, as well as to highlighting the professional profile of the speech language pathologist because of the relevance of dysfunctions in language in today's international health and social policies.

Finally, we would like to stress that this book does not intend to model the assistive technology assessment process as a result of a mere academic mental exercise, but it has even faced an applied research of the model. This is for two main reasons: The theoretical view of the authors' chapters and editors emerge from experimental research applied to rehabilitation and assistive technologies. In addition, the international ideal model of the assistive technology assessment process is already applied in centers for technical aid. Thanks to scientific and clinical collaboration, economic and operational support of the Centre for Technical Aid of Rome, Leonarda Vaccari Institute—which, in turn, is part of the Italian Network of Centres Advice on Computer and Electronic Aids and cooperates with the Institute for Matching Person and Technology and Columbia University, with whom it shares the principles that underlie the assistive technology assessment process—it was possible to define the assessment model proposed in this book because the model is already operative in the Centre for Technical Aid of Rome. This center offers a noncommercial advisory and support on assistive technology and computers for communication, learning, and autonomy. The service is free of charge for users who access it through the Italian National Health Service. Several scientific projects granted by the institute are in progress at the center to verify not only the advantages of a systematic application of the Matching Person and Technology tools in the assessment process, but also the application of the assistive technology assessment process model. Some results will be presented and discussed in the chapters of this book.

Sincere thanks go to the authors of the chapters who have welcomed with enthusiasm our model, enriching in many parts the initial draft of this work and giving it a wide-ranging speech that is updated and credible. Special thanks also go to the publisher, Taylor & Francis, who accepted the project with competence, supporting the long process of drafting and revising the work. Again, special thanks go to many peer-reviewers of the chapters, who have played a generous and valuable role, such as guarantors for the scientific nature and validity of each contribution as well as representatives of the international scientific community in this area.