Assistive technologies

The person with disability, with the support of an occupational therapist, uses what are called assistive technologies, seeking, through tests and assessments, to find the products, mechanisms or technological systems that best allow them to overtake environmental obstacles or compensate for specific functional limitations.
Assistive technologies take shape through specific assessments, and where it is possible, carries out projects, training, and trial procedures, on:

1. augmented alternative communication: for communicational disabilities, in order to restore the client's communication capacities in various areas of daily life, independently from age, using if necessary approaches that are alternative to verbal language, and/or dedicated aids (communicators) using low or high technology;
2. PC access: in order to optimize PC use through commercially available interfaces or dedicated devices (special keyboards, mouse-imitating devices, educational software, voice control…);
3. environmental control: to facilitate control in domestic activities, working on accessibility, comfort and security, making use of technologies whether built in or not, commercially available or specific to disability;
4. basic education in PC use: to be enabled to use a personal computer

Beside the occupational therapist, staff who may be involved include: peer counsellor, engineer, architect, social worker.