Assistive Technology for Supporting Communication, Occupation, and Leisure by Children With Severe to Profound Developmental Disabilities

Background

Two categories of users have been recruited for the aforementioned programs:

• 1.

  Participants with extensive motor disabilities and normal intellectual functioning, and

• 2.

  Individuals with severe to profound developmental and multiple disabilities (i.e. a combination of intellectual, motor and sensorial disabilities).

The AT for the first category, implemented for educational and/or rehabilitative purposes, may be useful to improve literacy process (Chiapparino, Stasolla, De Pace, & Lancioni, 2011), instead the interventions for the second category may be focused on the independent access to preferred stimuli or on constructive engagement (Stasolla & Caffò, 2013; Stasolla et al., 2015).

A basic form of AT are the microswitches, that is electronic devices planned to enabling persons with disabilities to control autonomously their environment through the exhibition of small and simple behavioral responses (Holburn, Nguyen, & Vietze, 2004; Mechling, 2006; Saunders et al., 2003). For example, through a pressure microswitch, a child may receive a short listen (e.g. 10 sec) of preferred song, rather than directly switching on the computer or the CD player, not accessible to him/her, considering his/her clinical conditions (Lancioni et al., 2008), or accessible only through the help of caregivers (Lancioni, Singh, et al., 2006). Consequently, they are considered as a great educational and rehabilitative resource (Stasolla & Perilli, 2015).