This document discusses the roles and responsibilities of assistive technology professionals. It addresses that assistive technology professionals typically have backgrounds in fields like engineering, occupational therapy, or education. They must understand both their own discipline and assistive technology. The document also outlines ethics codes, quality assurance measures, and liability considerations for assistive technology professionals.

1. Larry F. Cobb
October 22, 2014

2.  The person that provides assistive technology
and his/her professional issues
 Ethics of Practice
 Quality Assurance
 Liability

3.  A specialist in assistive technology
application; typically has professional
background in engineering, occupational
therapy, physical therapy, recreation therapy,
special education, speech-language
pathology, or vocational rehabilitation
counseling

4.  Each practitioner brings something
important to the table.
 They must be well grounded in their
disciplines and have knowledge and skill in
assistive technology and the industry in
general.

5.  Ethics is defined as “the study of conduct and
moral judgement….and the system or code
of morals of a particular profession.
 Each ATP must comply with the code of
ethics of their discipline
 A professional association typically develops
the code.

6.  Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive
Technology Society of North America
(RESNA)
 Interdisciplinary association of people with
common interest in technology and disability
 Purposed with improving the potential of
people with disabilities by promoting
research, development, education, advocacy,
and the provision of technology and the
people engaged in these activities.

7.  Standards are often based pertaining to each
specialty is important since most
practitioners are from different disciplines.
 The standards are generally based of
certifications

8.  A broad area of fundamental importance to
the safe and effective application of assistive
technologies
 Two Basic Consideration
 The quality of services rendered
 The quality of devices supplied

9.  Three views of what constitutes quality
 The consumer – judges the quality on how daily
activity is improved in specific areas of application
 The practitioner – generates measures of
performance and attempts to judge quality of
services and devices against these measures
 The purchaser – Are the services or devices cost
effective?

10.  Professional certification is way that
professional organizations use to measure and
report an individual practitioners degree of
competency.
 A body of knowledge must be agreed upon
unique to practitioners in an area of certification.
 A set of professional competences must be set
and a way of evaluating an individuals
knowledge of must be developed and
implemented.

11.  Several types of standards that can be
developed
 Relations by federal legislations as with
manufacture and production of assistive
technology
 The FDA has is way of classifying medical devices
 Devices can be rated by development of
compatibility and performance standards

12.  The selection of device is based on what a
person is able to do now, not what he or she
will be able to do.
 To evaluate effectiveness, you have to look at
the entire process and not just the service or
device.
 The determination of success is based on
measurements of outcomes related to the
success the consumer achieves using the
assistive technology system.