Le tecnologie assistive per la disabilità tra attualità e innovazione: una systematic review

Assistive Technology (AT) refers to products or services (specialized or mainstream) used by (or for) persons with disabilities (Sik-Lányi 2015) to improve their quality of life by supporting cognitive and social skills and autonomy.
Given the increase in mainstream technologies in everyone's life, is there still a specific AT development filed and a dedicated market? How are they characterized?
To explore the debate and the areas of development, a systematic review was conducted following a multiphase procedure (Cochrane, 2011) in order to analyse the AT dedicated to children and young people, adults and the elderly.
The research, in three databases (SCOPUS, IEEE, Web of Science) with keywords, identified 951 articles. 77 duplicates removed, the AT identified in the remaining 874 articles (415 children / young people, 106 adults, 353 elderly) were classified according to the ISO 9999 Standard and connected to the ICF domains. Despite the heterogeneity of the identified products, specific research lines emerge according to the different age groups: technologies for practicing skills and communication for children and adolescents, for work and professional training for adults and for the care and protection for the elderly.
The results highlight the constant and renewed attention of the scientific community for AT, also characterized by a high technological innovation (sensors, cognitive assistants, robots, wireless systems, wearables). This makes the sector as a border area, challenging for special education and for the life project of the person with disability