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Image of an empty street in Korea, with vibrant shop signs

Type

Journal Paper

Themes

Assistive & Accessible Technology

Research Group

Disability Interactions
Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey

Jamie Danemayer & Myung-Joon Lim

Korea is a rapidly ageing country, with its population over 65 years old increasing from 5% in 1990 to 17% in 2021. Comparatively, the global population over 65 has increased from 6% in 1990 to 9% in 2019 ]. As populations age and functional difficulties become more prevalent, the importance of assistive technology (AT) provision becomes more pronounced. Disparities in access to AT within a population can indicate inequities in healthy aging trajectories that will widen as the overall population ages, if clusters of limited access are not identified and addressed.

Taylor & Francis Online; 2023

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Abstract

Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey

Purpose

Explicitly monitoring the need, use and satisfaction of assistive product (AP) provision is essential to support population health and healthy longevity in ageing/aged countries, like Korea. We present findings from the 2017 Korea National Disability Survey (NDS) on AP access and compare them to international averages, introducing Korea’s data into the wider coherence of global AP research.

Materials and methods

Using data from Korea’s 2017 NDS, surveying 91,405 individuals, we extracted and calculated AP access indicators, including needing, having, using and being satisfied with 76 unique APs, by functional difficulty and product type. We compared satisfaction and unmet need between the National Health Insurance System (NHIS) and alternative provision services.

Results

Prosthetics and orthotics had high rates of under-met need, and lower satisfaction rates, from 46.9% to 80.9%. Mobility APs overall had higher rates of under-met need. There was either low (<5%) or no reported need for most digital/technical APs. Among main products, those provided through the NHIS had lower unmet need (26.4%) than through alternative providers (63.1%), though satisfaction rates were similar (p < .001).

Conclusions

The Korean survey findings align with global averages calculated in the Global Report on Assistive Technology. Low reported needs for certain APs may reflect low awareness about how these products could benefit users, emphasizing the importance of data collection at each stage of the AP provision process. Recommendations to expand access to APs are given for people, personnel, provision, products, and policy.

Implications for rehabilitation

  • Access to assistive products (APs) is an essential part of physical and occupational therapy services and rehabilitation. Monitoring population-level data on disability and AP access can inform policymakers about a key aspect of population health and healthy ageing, and demonstrate the need to expand access by including APs and associated services in primary/universal healthcare packages.
  • Stratifying findings about AP access by type of functional difficulty and further by specific device helps identify the populations for whom needs are not being met. These domain-level and device-level indicators inform efforts to support specific groups within the population of people with disabilities, which has implications for how rehabilitation services are provisioned, targeted and made more accessible.

Cite

Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey

Jamie Danemayer & Myung-Joon Lim (2023)

Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology,

DOI: 10.1080/17483107.2023.2225565

Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey

Type

Workshop

Themes

Assistive & Accessible Technology

Research Group

Disability Interactions
Could AI Democratise Education? Socio-Technical Imaginaries of an EdTech Revolution

Sahan Bulathwela, María Pérez-Ortiz, Catherine Holloway, John Shawe-Taylor

This paper starts by synthesising how AI might change how we learn and teach, focusing specifically on the case of personalised learning companions, and then move to discuss some socio-technical features that will be crucial for avoiding the perils of these AI systems worldwide (and perhaps ensuring their success). This paper also discusses the potential of using AI together with free, participatory and democratic resources, such as Wikipedia, Open Educational Resources and open-source tools. We also emphasise the need for collectively designing human-centered, transparent, interactive and collaborative AI-based algorithms that empower and give complete agency to stakeholders, as well as support new emerging pedagogies.

Workshop on Machine Learning for the Developing World (ML4D) at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2021; 2021

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Abstract

Could AI Democratise Education? Socio-Technical Imaginaries of an EdTech Revolution

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education has been said to have the potential for building more personalised curricula, as well as democratising education worldwide and creating a Renaissance of new ways of teaching and learning. Millions of students are already starting to benefit from the use of these technologies, but millions more around the world are not. If this trend continues, the first delivery of AI in Education could be greater educational inequality, along with a global misallocation of educational resources motivated by the current technological determinism narrative. In this paper, we focus on speculating and posing questions around the future of AI in Education, with the aim of starting the pressing conversation that would set the right foundations for the new generation of education that is permeated by technology. This paper starts by synthesising how AI might change how we learn and teach, focusing specifically on the case of personalised learning companions, and then move to discuss some socio-technical features that will be crucial for avoiding the perils of these AI systems worldwide (and perhaps ensuring their success). This paper also discusses the potential of using AI together with free, participatory and democratic resources, such as Wikipedia, Open Educational Resources and open-source tools. We also emphasise the need for collectively designing human-centered, transparent, interactive and collaborative AI-based algorithms that empower and give complete agency to stakeholders, as well as support new emerging pedagogies. Finally, we ask what would it take for this educational revolution to provide egalitarian and empowering access to education, beyond any political, cultural, language, geographical and learning ability barriers.

Could AI Democratise Education? Socio-Technical Imaginaries of an EdTech Revolution

Three young operators working for Humanity and Inclusion in Uganda assessing an elderly woman who uses a crutch

Type

Editorial

Themes

Assistive & Accessible Technology

Research Group

Disability Interactions
The Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing initiative: learning from the GATE initiative

Chapal Khasnabis, Catherine Holloway, Malcolm MacLachlan

We are now in an era of assistive care and assistive living—whereby many people, of all ages, in good health, and those who are more frail, or with cognitive or functional impairments, are using a broad range of technologies to assist and enhance their daily living. Assistive living1 is becoming an important part of population health and rehabilitation, which can help to maximise an individual's abilities, regardless of age or functional capacity. This encouraging shift in ethos has been strengthened by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a plethora of digital and remote technologies have been used.

The Lancet; 2020

The Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing initiative: learning from the GATE initiative

A lady in a wheelchair in a building in Africa

Type

Journal Paper

Themes

Assistive & Accessible Technology
Culture and Participation

Research Group

Disability Interactions
“When They See a Wheelchair, They’ve Not Even Seen Me”—Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya

Giulia Barbareschi, Mark T. Carew, Elizabeth Aderonke Johnson, Norah Kopi, Catherine Holloway

Stigmatizing attitudes and beliefs towards disability represent one of the most pervasive and complex barriers that limits access to health care, education, employment, civic rights and opportunities for socialization for people with disabilities [1,2,3]. The damaging impact of disability stigma is widely acknowledged and, according to article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, developing strategies, campaigns, policies and other initiatives to combat disability stigma and ensure that all people with disabilities are treated with dignity and respect is also a duty of the 182 countries who ratified the treaty [4]. Although the majority of literature focused on understanding disability stigma has been carried out in high-income settings [5,6,7], in the last decade, an increasing number of scholars have conducted studies looking at the negative stereotypes, prejudices and inaccurate beliefs that shape disability stigma in the Global South [3,8,9,10]. Most of these studies have described how these stigmatizing beliefs are often driven by a combination of personal and societal factors, ranging from misconceptions concerning the causes of different impairments (e.g., disability to be seen as a form of curse or punishment); assumptions about the lack of capabilities of people with disabilities; or discriminatory practices that actively endorse separation between people with and without disabilities [3,9,11,12]. Yet, there is a dearth of comparative studies that examine the perspectives of both people with and without disabilities of disability stigma and discrimination, including how the use of assistive technology may shape stigmatizing interactions.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; 2021

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Abstract

“When They See a Wheelchair, They’ve Not Even Seen Me”—Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya

Disability stigma in many low- and middle-income countries represents one of the most pervasive barriers preventing people with disabilities from accessing equal rights and opportunities, including the uptake of available assistive technology (AT). Previous studies have rarely examined how disability stigma may be shaped through factors endemic to social interactions, including how the use of assistive technology itself may precipitate or alleviate disability stigma. Through two strands of work, we address this gap. Via a series of focus groups with Kenyans without disabilities (Study 1) and secondary data analysis of consultations with Kenyans with disabilities and their allies (Study 2), we identify shared and divergent understandings of what shapes disability stigma and discrimination. Specifically, Kenyans with and without disabilities were cognizant of how religious/spiritual interpretations of disability, conceptions of impairments as “different” from the norm, and social stereotypes about (dis)ability shaped the experience of stigma and discrimination. Moreover, both groups highlighted assistive technology as an influential factor that served to identify or “mark” someone as having a disability. However, whereas participants without disabilities saw assistive technology purely as an enabler to overcome stigma, participants with disabilities also noted that, in some cases, use of assistive technologies would attract stigma from others.

Cite

“When They See a Wheelchair, They’ve Not Even Seen Me”—Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya

Barbareschi G, Carew MT, Johnson EA, Kopi N, Holloway C. “When They See a Wheelchair, They’ve Not Even Seen Me”—Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(8):4272. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph...

“When They See a Wheelchair, They’ve Not Even Seen Me”—Factors Shaping the Experience of Disability Stigma and Discrimination in Kenya

Photograph of an informal settlement

Type

Journal Paper

Themes

Inclusive Design
Culture and Participation

Research Group

Disability Interactions
Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal setlement

Giulia Barbareschi, Ben Oldfrey, Long Xin, Grace N. Magomere, Wyclife A. Wetende, Carol Wanjira, Joyce Olenja, Victoria Austin, and Catherine Holloway

The World Health Organisation estimate that there are approximately a billion people with disabilities who require access to appropriate assistive technology and this number is set to double by 2050 [82]. Assistive technologies (ATs) play a crucial role in the lives of people with disabilities and are necessary to be able to access essential services and participate in family and community life according to one’s aspirations [40, 62, 68, 81]. Although this is not often specifcally mentioned, the large majority of people with disabilities will routinely use more than one assistive device in their everyday lives [25, 26]. For example a person with a visual impairment is likely to use a white cane to navigate from their house to the office where they work and have a screen-reader, or an equivalent accessibility software, on their computer to be able to do their work once in the office [17].

ASSETS '20: Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility; 2020

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Abstract

Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal setlement

Living in informality is challenging. It is even harder when you have a mobility impairment. Traditional assistive products such as wheelchairs are essential to enable people to travel. Wheelchairs are considered a Human Right. However, they are difficult to access. On the other hand, mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous and are increasingly seen as an assistive technology. Should therefore a mobile phone be considered a Human Right? To help understand the role of the mobile phone in contrast of a more traditional assistive technology – the wheelchair, we conducted contextual interviews with eight mobility impaired people who live in Kibera, a large informal settlement in Nairobi. Our findings show mobile phones act as an accessibility bridge when physical accessibility becomes too challenging. We explore our findings from two perspective – human infrastructure and interdependence, contributing an understanding of the role supported interactions play in enabling both the wheelchair and the mobile phone to be used. This further demonstrates the critical nature of designing for context and understanding the social fabric that characterizes informal settlements. It is this social fabric which enables the technology to be useable.

Cite

Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal setlement

Giulia Barbareschi, Ben Oldfrey, Long Xin, Grace Nyachomba Magomere, Wycliffe Ambeyi Wetende, Carol Wanjira, Joyce Olenja, Victoria Austin, and Catherine Holloway. 2020. Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal settlement. In Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 50, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/337362...

Bridging the Divide: Exploring the use of digital and physical technology to aid mobility impaired people living in an informal setlement

Photograph of the Global Report On Assistive Technology paperback publication

Type

Editorial

Themes

Assistive & Accessible Technology

Research Group

Disability Interactions
Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology

Johan Borg, Wei Zhang, Emma M. Smith, Cathy Holloway

GReAT, but do we care?

If accessible, assistive technology would be life changing for a billion people across the world today – and two billion people in 2050 (WHO, 2018). It would make the difference between independence and dependence, inclusion and exclusion, life and death. It holds the potential to improve and transform health, education, livelihood and social participation; fundamental human rights everyone is entitled to. And if we are lucky to grow old, the chances are that we all would use assistive technology by then. But do we care?

Assistive Technology, The Official Journal of RESNA; 2021

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Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology

Johan Borg, Wei Zhang, Emma M. Smith & Cathy Holloway (2021) Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology, Assistive Technology, 33:sup1, 1-2, DOI: 10.1080/10400435.2021.2003658

Introduction to the companion papers to the global report on assistive technology