Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• If successful, the team proposes an assistive solution to the user and schedules a
new appointment.
• If not successful, the team restarts the “matching process.”
When the assistive solution proposed requires an environmental evaluation, the team ini-
tiates the environmental assessment process and orients toward possibilities of influenc-
ing the mainstream to respect eAccessibility requirements.
9.5 Psychotechnology Education: An Example
The concept of disability is basically integrated into the psychotechnological framework.
Disabilities or functional limitations are preconditions that enter into the profile of
adaptive systems or services with widened system boundaries. Nevertheless, it has to
be underlined that psychotechnology for the user group of people with disabilities is
of much higher importance for allowing access to and interaction with the mainstream
population by overcoming functional limitations. Presenting efficient or fancy alternatives
for the average person, people with disabilities using ICT and AT often gain their first
independent access to and participation in systems and services and thereby to the
mainstream population.
For people with disabilities, psychotechnology offers new possibilities for overcoming
sensory-motor limitations and pushes adaptation or “normalization” to a new level that
is known today as (e)Inclusion. Most important, the general ICT forces societal contexts to
change by making them modifiable, adaptable, and more fluent. This ICT revolution leads
to a process of ongoing adaptations of societal contexts to better meet the requirements of
users. This fundamentally changes the understanding of disability because it can no longer
be defined as a pure individual phenomenon defined by sensor-motor-cognitive conditions
against a fixed environmental context, but much more as a social phenomenon defined by
the environmental settings and designs allowing, supporting, or hindering interaction and
participation. It is no longer only asking how to best match an individual with AT into an
environment; it is more and more how to design and adapt the environment to best match
the needs of users with a widened diversity of skills and requirements (Miesenberger
1998, 2004, 2009a). From an individual/medical over an environmental model, we reach
a social model of disability (Gustavsson and Zakrzewska-Manterys 1997). The plasticity
of ICT includes the demand toward the mainstream population to respect the needs and
requirements of AT users—eAccessibility—into the assessment and matching process and
complements the scope of tasks of the psychotechnologist.
9.5.1 The Context of the Profession “Psychotechnologist”
A psychotechnologist is a person/profession who fixes persons with technology to
become social and interactive with the mainstream population. Usability and sometimes
accessibility experts call themselves a “psychotechnologist” (http://restrictionisexpression.
com/post/43184264/am-i-a-psychotechnologist-now). In the context of AT, this outlines
the “intentional” character of the profession. The psychotechnologist supports inclusion
and participation in established contexts by providing access to mainstream systems
and services. eAccessibility and eInclusion are two-folded: AT should enable people with
