Disability, Society and Assistive Technology

ISBN-13: 9781472447180 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 04/04/2017 Series: Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Pages: 120 Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d) The provision of assistive technology is an important individual and collective service of the welfare state. The state plays a significant role towards linking users and products, and the matching of devices and users is both a science and an art. However, many people feel it is stigmatising to use individually designed assistive technologies as they often, in a subtle way, convey discriminating barriers in society. The major challenges of assistive technology are thus to reduce social exclusion and marginalisation and, importantly, to reduce individual risks and societal costs related to non-use due to deficiencies in usability, aesthetics and design of the technologies. This groundbreaking book discusses the relationships among society, disability and technology by using different empirical examples