Environmental evaluation of a rehabilitation aid interaction under the framework of the ideal model of assistive technology assessment process

Recently Federici and Scherer [1] proposed an ideal model of an Assistive Technology Assessment (ATA) process that provides reference guidelines for professionals of a multidisciplinary team of assistive technology (AT) service delivery centers to compare, evaluate, and improve their own matching models. The ATA process borrows a user-driven working methodology from the Matching Person and Technology Model [2] and it embraces the biopsychosocial model [3] aiming at the best combination of AT to promote customers' personal well-being. As Federici and Scherer [1] suggest, the multidisciplinary team, by applying the ATA process, may provide for users not only a device, but much more an assistive solution, which is the real outcome of a match process. An assistive solution is provided for the user only when the interaction dialogue between user, device, and environments of use improves the users' performances in participating in their everyday contexts. In this theoretical framework, the evaluation of the users' interaction with the AT in different kinds of environments is a key factor for the success of the ATA process, because, as Mirza, Gossett Zakrajsek, and Borsci [4] claim, the environment is antecedent to the AT and crucial for identifying how the AT works in relation to the users' needs. In the ATA process a specific Environmental Assessment (EA) model for testing the interaction of the user with the environments of use, through the AT, has been defined. The aim of this paper is to describe the EA model steps and discuss the dimensions that a practitioner has to consider for this assessment. Accessibility, universal design, and sustainability are used in the EA model as the dimensions for measuring the relationship between the AT and the environment [4]. The EA model steps and the trade-off among these dimensions are presented through a case example in which practitioners analyze the relationship between a communication aid used by a child and her classroom and home environments.