Assistive Technology for Cognition: Perspectives on Funding

Author(s):  
Kathy de Domingo

Physical and occupational therapists commonly provide services that incorporate prosthetic and orthotic devices such as crutches, canes, reachers, and ankle–foot orthoses to support mobility and activities of daily living (ADLs). Likewise, speech-language pathologists provide services incorporating prosthetic devices to support communication such as an electrolarynx, microcomputers, and mobile devices and apps with voice output capability. Assistive technology for cognition (ATC) includes the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablets, and smart phones — cognitive prostheses — to compensate for cognitive challenges following acquired brain injury (ABI). Whereas funding sources for devices and services that support/compensate for mobility, ADLs, and communication challenges are generally well established, funding for ATC devices and services is relatively new to the field of speech-language pathology. This article explores the funding aspect of ATC devices and services.

2022 ◽  
pp. 707-736
Author(s):  
Isabel Cristina Siqueira da Silva ◽  
Luan Carlos Nesi ◽  
Viviane da Silva Machado

Ludic games and gamification processes can extend functional skills in players as they integrate different intelligences and stimulate the cognitive, perceptual, and motor activities. Play can facilitate the work of occupational therapist since provides better cooperation of the patient, besides helping in its development, increasing its behavioral repertoire, mainly in the accomplishment of activities of daily living. This chapter addresses these issues, discussing the design of a gamified virtual environment that helps occupational therapists to develop the potential of children and adolescents with mild, moderate, and severe neuropsychomotor disorder. For that, the authors present an investigation of the use of a gamified virtual environment and interaction devices in the training of activities of daily living. As result, they note that games as assistive technology can encourage the integration of education, rehabilitation, and habilitation of people in situations of vulnerability and social risk, providing access and inclusion through playful and challenging activities.


Author(s):  
Isabel Cristina Siqueira da Silva ◽  
Luan Carlos Nesi ◽  
Viviane da Silva Machado

Ludic games and gamification processes can extend functional skills in players as they integrate different intelligences and stimulate the cognitive, perceptual, and motor activities. Play can facilitate the work of occupational therapist since provides better cooperation of the patient, besides helping in its development, increasing its behavioral repertoire, mainly in the accomplishment of activities of daily living. This chapter addresses these issues, discussing the design of a gamified virtual environment that helps occupational therapists to develop the potential of children and adolescents with mild, moderate, and severe neuropsychomotor disorder. For that, the authors present an investigation of the use of a gamified virtual environment and interaction devices in the training of activities of daily living. As result, they note that games as assistive technology can encourage the integration of education, rehabilitation, and habilitation of people in situations of vulnerability and social risk, providing access and inclusion through playful and challenging activities.


Revista CEFAC ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisandra Santos Mendes Garcia ◽  
Claudia Maria Simões Martinez ◽  
Mirela Oliveira Figueiredo

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the national scientific production of Speech-Language Therapy in the interface with Occupational Therapy (OT) based on an integrative literature review. Methods: a selection of articles published in Brazilian journals in the field of Occupational Therapy: Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional of UFSCar, Revista de Terapia Ocupacional of USP, Revista Baiana da Terapia Ocupacional and Revista Interinstitucional Brasileira de Terapia Ocupacional with the descriptors “speech therapy, speech therapist and speech-language therapy”. The sample, consisting of 10 articles, was analyzed with quantitative and qualitative procedures. Results: the search showed publications from 2000 to 2017, with the largest number of articles in 2015. The main findings point to the language area as the most prevalent, revealing a connection between speech therapy and OT. Assistive Technology, particularly adopted with children, is a common field among the professional areas studied, with the highest incidence in the articles. Conclusion: the analysis of the scientific production showed that the partnership between Speech-Language Therapy and OT appeared under different objectives and the public, as early intervention, actions in multiple disabilities, with the disabled child and their family, with autists in hippotherapy, in school inclusion and in assistive technology, the latter more frequently. These findings allowed reflections on the interdisciplinarity of both professions and fields of knowledge.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kay

Clinicians in the fields of occupational therapy and speech-language pathology have been involved with assessing children with physical disabilities for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for decades. Still, assessment for these particular children, with their varying levels of complexity, continues to offer significant challenges to clinical evaluation teams. Even when the speech-language pathology intervention seems clear, complications arise and assessments can become stalled as to the child's physical access to the technology. This paper seeks to identify the need for clinicians skilled in the areas of AAC and assistive technology, and review the inherent challenges faced in the assessment of a child with a physical disability for AAC. An introduction to a holistic approach to the physical access assessment portion of the overall AAC assessment is then provided, along with examples where the application of a holistic approach may affect the physical access decisions made by the team.


Revista CEFAC ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilyn Borba da Silva ◽  
Miriam Cabrera Corvelo Delboni ◽  
Elenir Fedosse

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze which evaluations are used by occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists and physiotherapists on individuals presented with aphasia and what these evaluations address. Methods: the study conducted a national and international documental analysis of evaluations used by professionals working on the neurological rehabilitation of adults and/or elderly individuals with aphasia, published in the last ten years (January 2008/June 2018). This analysis was performed by an integrative review of databases LILACS, SciELO and PubMed, using the descriptors: Health Assessment or Testing, or Protocols, or Psychometrics, or Questionnaires and Rehabilitation, combined with the descriptors: Aphasia, Occupational Therapy, Speech-language Pathology and Physiotherapy. Results: 26 studies were included, most of which were scored as level VI of scientific evidence; the years of 2013 and 2016 presented publication peaks. The studies used 54 evaluation tools, among which 13 were recurrent in the studies, mostly analyzing aspects of communication/language. It is assumed that these data are related to the fact that speech-language pathologists provide care for individuals with aphasia; however, these individuals may present other needs beyond communication, such as those related to human occupation, requiring multiprofessional and integral health care. Among the protocols, the Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) was considered the most complete, since it addresses communication, linguistic, human occupation and psycho-affective aspects. Conclusion: this study identified the use of few instruments dedicated to individuals with aphasia related to all aspects that involve life, with predominance of protocols and evaluations that only address disabilities, highlighting the importance of assessments that address subjectivity, evaluating individuals with aphasia in all dimensions of their lives.


1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Calculator ◽  
Christine Dollaghan

This study examines the use of communication boards by seven nonspeaking, nonambulatory, severely mentally retarded students (all functioning at an early preoperational level cognitively) interacting with their teachers in a residential classroom setting. The authors present a method by which the spontaneous use of communication boards can be assessed as to actual functionality in meeting the students' communicative needs. The students' reliance on and success with their communication boards were analyzed relative to nonboard modes (e.g., gestures and vocalizations). Analysis of videotaped nonspeaking student-teacher interactions revealed that these students rarely used their communication boards despite their severe inability to convey messages by any other means. Use of the communication boards rather than alternate modes neither increased the likelihood of success nor decreased the ambiguity of student messages. Communication boards thus appeared to add little to the communicative competence of these students in interacting with their teachers. These findings are discussed in terms of the need to assess nonspeaking persons' use of augmentative systems outside the speech-language pathology setting, in order to begin to identify, explain, and treat communication breakdowns arising from interactions between nonspeaking persons and those with whom they attempt to interact in their daily living experiences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Abrahams ◽  
Harsha Kathard ◽  
Michal Harty ◽  
Mershen Pillay

As a profession, speech-language pathology (SLP) continues to struggle with equitable service delivery to both people with communication challenges and disabilities. SLP clinical practice in its traditional form has an individual focus and therefore cannot adequately serve the large population in need, which, in South Africa is the majority population. Using the concept of social embeddedness of professions as a guiding frame, the article explores the history of the profession and the influence of the medical model and coloniality in shaping SLP profession’s knowledge and practices. As such, we argue that professionalisation in its current form perpetuates injustice. The article proposes innovation across clinical practice, education and research as leverage points for imagining new practices.


1989 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Johnson Glaser ◽  
Carole Donnelly

The clinical dimensions of the supervisory process have at times been neglected. In this article, we explain the various stages of Goldhammer's clinical supervision model and then describe specific procedures for supervisors in the public schools to use with student teachers. This easily applied methodology lends clarity to the task and helps the student assimilate concrete data which may have previously been relegated to subjective impressions of the supervisor.


1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne E. Roberts ◽  
Elizabeth Crais ◽  
Thomas Layton ◽  
Linda Watson ◽  
Debbie Reinhartsen

This article describes an early intervention program designed for speech-language pathologists enrolled in a master's-level program. The program provided students with courses and clinical experiences that prepared them to work with birth to 5-year-old children and their families in a family-centered, interdisciplinary, and ecologically valid manner. The effectiveness of the program was documented by pre- and post-training measures and supported the feasibility of instituting an early childhood specialization within a traditional graduate program in speech-language pathology.


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