Assistive Technologies for People With Cognitive Disabilities: Challenges and Possibilities

According to the Journal, Inclusion, in 2012, 9% of the US population, or 28.5M Americans, had a cognitive disability. Worldwide the number is believed to exceed 630 million. This is a very heterogeneous group, with a wide variety of abilities and impairments making it challenging to develop assistive technologies to meet their needsA growing sub-set of this cohort is the aging population, who continue to work but experience mild cognitive changes. Though these these individuals have deep funds of knowledge, and valuable skills they may struggle in the workplace, in part due to lack of access to tools that can address their individual challenges. . The development of new technologies, such as cognitive assistants, has opened the door to more useful solutions. This paper will review the history and challenges of assistive technology for cognition (ATC) and highlight the work in which we are currently engaged.