1. Intellectual Disabilities and Assistive Technology
Presented by
Abe Rafi, Director of Digital Strategy & Online Services
2016 State AT Program Conference

2. According to the CDC, in the USA
16M people have cognitive impairments 7M: intellectual or developmental disability
1M: autism
5M: alzheimer’s
3M: other cognitive disabilities
~1 million families
120K
staff
The Arc’s 120K staff serve about 1M families that include a person with an intellectual or developmental disability.
These families and individuals turn to The Arc for advice and support on many decisions across all areas of their lives.
People with cognitive disabilities comprise a large, relatively under-served consumer group.
The buying power for this group is generally held by the families of people with cognitive disabilities. Since these disabilities are randomly distributed in the population, the distribution of wealth in this consumer group follows the normal distribution of wealth in the USA. This consumer group has the same demand for technology & same ability to buy it as other consumer groups.

3. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990
In the last few years The Arc families have been increasingly asking us for advice on buying technology and training to learn to use technology. In response, many of our 660 chapters have ben to provide new services that rely on mobile technology, smart home technology, etc. As a national network, The Arc has made the top-level strategic decision to transform the way we deliver services via technology, over the next few years.
The Arc’s focus on technology at this point in time is fueled by the following larger historical changes:
the emergence of consumer technology that is out-of-the-box usable by people with cognitive disabilities (touch screens, text-to-speech, GPS & other sensors, artificial intelligence, etc.).
regulations that require schools to provide technology to students with cognitive disabilities & train them to use the tech (tablets, phones, and a multitude of apps).
the rapidly decreasing cost of creating and distributing new technology that is useful to non-mainstream users. As a result, small companies or individuals can develop apps, peripherals and other devices for under-served users with cognitive disabilties, more easily than ever.
large established tech companies who have succeeded in meeting the needs of mainstream users are seeking new ways of serving user groups with unmet needs. These companies are experimenting with new products/services for people with cognitivie disabilities. Plus, they seek to develop products/services that can be repurposed for the growing aging population which is expected to develop cognitive impairments over time.
wide adoption of technology in the mainstream population. Meaning, people with cognitivie disabilities don’t need to seek out hard-to-find experts when they need help using tech—they can rely on nearby lay users in their families or others (teachers, independent living coaches, employers, family members, etc).

4. Example use cases for people with cognitive disabilities:
Independent living
Job coaching
Transportation
Health
Security
Entertainment
Socialization
Communication
Broadly speaking, the use cases for people with cognitive disabilities fall into the same basic categories as the use cases for mainstream users. However, people with cognitive disabilities often require products designed in ways that meet their specific needs.
The Arc’s Tech Toolbox is an online directory of such tech products. Like yelp.com, anyone can rate/review the products in the Tech Toolbox directory or post new products to it. You can visit it at:
(Note: Tech Toolbox only launched in beta at the end of the summer It currently contains a small fraction of the thousands of apps/devices for this market. The site is open to the public, without requiring users to login. But, The Arc has not announced it to the world, loudly. Instead, we are quietly refining Tech Toolbox and adding more products to it over the next few months.)
For examples of products that meet these use cases, see Tech Toolbox:

5. Potential collaboration with State AT Act Programs
The Arc refers people to their local AT Act Program
AT Act Programs gather data
Virtual Coaching
Abe Rafi –