Whether low-tech or high-tech, assistive technology improves functionality for people with disabilities
Featured Quote: “Assistive technology is really any device, strategy, product, or system that you can implement to make someone with a disability – or I would say even without a disability – be able to improve their functional abilities. So, anything you can implement, and sometimes it is just strategies. Sometimes we go into an office environment and someone doesn’t realize that their phone’s too far away. I walk in, and they’re talking about having shoulder pain. They have chronic cumulative trauma disorder – just from reaching, their shoulder hurts. I’m like, ‘Why is your phone over here?’ … So it could just be a strategy of putting something in a different place.”
Ashley McLeroy, rehabilitation engineer, Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services
Assistive technology – both high- and low-tech – enables people with disabilities to live more independent lives and to participate more fully in school, work, and the community.
In this interview, Ashley McLeroy, a rehabilitation engineer with the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services, chats with Alabama Care Anchor McCartney Hagar about what assistive technology is and how it is beneficial to individuals with and without disabilities.
Show highlights:
Ups and downs of rehab engineering
How to find the right assistive tech
Custom adaptive mouse demonstration
Accepting the transition to using new devices
Alternative computer access demonstration
Involving consumers in choosing assistive devices
When a device doesn’t work for the consumer
Low-tech, high-tech, and mid-tech assistive devices
Rehab engineering with a disability
Resources mentioned in this broadcast:
ADRS Rehab Engineering and Assistive Technology Program
Want to hear more community, school, and work success stories? Visit #community to view similar posts.
To learn more about services and waivers, visit www.mh.alabama.gov or www.rehab.alabama.gov.
Alabama Care is partially supported by the Alabama Council on Developmental Disabilities (http://www.acdd.org/). The views expressed are not necessarily the views of these organizations.