Establishing the Field of Applied Cognitive Technology

This second issue of Inclusion is focused on introducing and defining the relatively newly-emerging field of Applied Cognitive Technologies and on sounding a call for both the rights of people with cognitive disabilities to have access to technology that can lead to better lives and for the need for more research and development in this emerging field. We do not think we need to provide a reference to justify the statement that access to technology is critical across every aspect of life in this day-and-age and that most of the technology on the market today is not "cognitively accessible" for use by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities or people with other cognitive disabilities. In our estimation, access to technology is critical if people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are to become fully included in all aspects of their lives. Of course, there has been significant research and development focused on technology use to enable people with disabilities, including people with cognitive disabilities, to function more successfully, so to call this an emerging field is somewhat artificial. Nevertheless, we believe that the importance that electronic and information technologies play in the lives of all people has increased so dramatically in even the last decade (and will continue to increase every bit as dramatically in the near future) that the nature of the research and development necessary to ensure that people with cognitive disabilities are not left behind has fundamentally changed, and we need a better nomenclature to define and differentiate this area of research and development then has existed to this point.In the past, technology to support people with cognitive disabilities has been referred to as cognitively accessible technology, cognitive prosthetics, assistive technology, or cognitive technology. In this issue, we forward the proposal that the best way to conceptualize efforts in this emerging area is under the umbrella of the discipline of Applied Cognitive Technology. The term Applied Cognitive Technology (upper case or lower case) has not been widely used, and is most associated with the efforts of the Coleman Institute on Cognitive Disabilities at the University of Colorado. The establishment of the Coleman Institute more than a decade ago provided a catalyst to the field to expand systematic efforts to conduct research, training, and development activities promoting access to electronic and information technologies for people with cognitive disabilities, leading to the establishment of the largest federal investment in these issues in the form of the U.S. Department of Education funded Rehabilitation Engineering and Research Center (RERC) on Advancing Cognitive Technologies at the University of Colorado. It is worth noting, then, that it is appropriate that this issue of Inclusion will be officially launched at this year's Coleman Institute conference in October.One might argue that since we have several names for such a discipline already (e.g., cognitive technologies, assistive technology, etc.), adding one more name will simply add to the confusion. We would argue, however, that this is not the case and that by establishing and defining a discipline of Applied Cognitive Technology, we can assist the field in situating research and development in the context of similar disciplines and fields, and to communicate more precisely what is being done by these efforts. For this to be true, however, one must make the case that one of the existing terms or descriptions is not, in and of itself, sufficient.Google the term "Applied Cognitive Technology" (or Technologies) and you won't get many hits. Google "Cognitive Technologies" and you will get more than 150,000 hits. So, should we consider our efforts solely within the realm of the discipline of Cognitive Technologies? To answer this, we have to determine what is encompassed in the field of cognitive technologies. Walker and Hermann (2005) defined the "field" of "cognitive technology" as related, essentially, to how technology impacts cognitive psychology. The field examines the impact of technology in the classroom and on social interactions, and includes topics that include social identity and construction of the self in the use of the Internet and high tech communications. The Springer edited series titled "Cognitive Technologies" defines its scope and mission as encompassing artificial intelligence and its subfields and related areas, such as natural-language processing and technologies, high-level computer vision, cognitive robotics, automated reasoning, multiagent systems, symbolic learning theories and practice, knowledge representation and the semantic web, and intelligent tutoring systems and AI and education. Finally, the journal Cognitive Technology's mission is to provide a forum for scientific analysis of new developments that can assist or augment cognitive functioning – areas of research and development that range from perception, memory, comprehension, decision making, problem solving, and reasoning, and functioning that may occur at the individual or the group level.Certainly, the existing field of cognitive technologies provides a close match with what is the focus of much of the work in what we are calling Applied Cognitive Technology. Yet, there is virtually no research or focus in the field of Cognitive Technologies on the design and use of technology by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The articulation of an "applied" wing of this discipline, Applied Cognitive Technology, would, in our opinion, open the door for more cross fertilization between researchers and developers in these two areas. As a field, Applied Cognitive Technology would constitute research and development to provide technology supports that enable people with cognitive disabilities to successfully function in inclusive environments, to increase participation in tasks and activities in inclusive environments, and to promote social inclusion, self-determination, and quality of life.But, someone might ask, isn't that what is intended by the field of Assistive Technology? Is there a need to differentiate the work done under the rubric of Applied Cognitive Technology from the excellent work in the area of Assistive Technology? Assistive Technology certainly has a rich history in research, development, and policy in disability spheres. That, we would argue, is the primary reason to coin another term to describe current efforts. Assistive Technology is understood in a very specific sphere of technology; technology devices and services designed specifically for people with disabilities to mediate impairments in communication, language, mobility, and, to lesser degrees, memory and comprehension. This point might sound controversial, and we do not mean any disregard to the important work done in the Assistive Technology field over the past several decades or to diminish the ongoing importance of assistive technology for many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but we think that by establishing a new way to talk about the field, particularly given the growing importance that electronic and information technologies play in the lives of all people, we can extend the foundational efforts established by research in assistive technology.Although you could certainly say, for example, that the use of a smartphone to obtain directions to a movie theater in a town that one does not live is a form of assistive technology, how many of us think of smartphone use as such? Frankly, the ubiquity of technology in society today is making the notion that some people need technology and some do not obsolete. As traditional Assistive Technology morphs onto platforms associated with more commercially recognized electronic and information technologies, such as smartphones or tablets, the distinctions between Assistive Technology and other technologies will diminish. It is clear that we need to move to the notion that all people can live improved lives with access to technology, and to consider how to ensure ubiquitous technologies such as smartphones or tablets can be leveraged to address the support needs of all people, including people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We would suggest that, as defined earlier, the field of Assistive Cognitive Technology aligns with strengths-based understandings of disability, asking support providers to consider what people do well and to build on those strengths and interests in providing technology supports. This sentiment is phrased by Foley and Ferri (2012) as the need to develop technology for people, not disabilities. Again, we want to emphasize that this stance is not intended to be critical of the excellent contributions from researchers and practitioners who have worked in the area of Assistive Technology, but to suggest that focusing on Applied Cognitive Technologies offers a logical next step to that work by shifting the focus from building specialized technologizes, to building cognitive supports into technology available and used by all.We will dwell less on whether either the terms cognitive prosthetics or cognitively accessible technology are sufficient to capture what is happening in the field. The latter just describes a feature of technology (developed to be cognitively accessible). The former is associated with technology in the field of rehabilitation, and its connotation as providing a "prosthesis" (e.g., a device that replaces a missing body) for cognitive functioning may be appropriate for efforts in rehabilitation, but suffers from the same limitations described when considering Assistive Technology.As such, we believe that there is benefit to establishing a field of Applied Cognitive Technology. As we noted, we are not starting from scratch, but building on the work of many researchers and developers across decades. In canvasing the history of such efforts, we would identify several waves of research and development that emerged and have brought us to where we are today. Davies and Stock (in this issue) provide a research-based survey of these areas, but for purposes of beginning to articulate the work done through the field, we have identified the following waves of research and development.The first wave of this field emphasized research and development involving many of the following areas (See Lopresti, Bodine, & Lewis, 2008 for details):The second wave of emphasis in the field built on first wave research and development activities to extend efforts toward:A third wave of research and development, still emerging, focuses on some of the following:Readers should not expect mature literatures in any of the above areas. The fact is that much of the literature continues to focus on "access"; how existing electronic and information technologies might or might not be accessible to people with cognitive and intellectual disability. There is still much that needs to be done to examine factors that impact technology use; in general, the issues of flexibility of use, reduction of error, simplicity of use, and perceptibility are areas of major concern/focus in technology design. In addition, there remains a focus on research that "proves people with cognitive disabilities" can learn to use and benefit from technology.It is our hope that this special topic issue on applied cognitive technology can, to some degree, spur the field to consider research and development in many of the above areas. It all begins, however, with equal access, and we know that such access has not been gained by most people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Thus, this special issue begins with a call for such access, with Braddock and colleagues articulating a call for the right to technology access. That article is followed by a review of, primarily, second and third wave applied cognitive technologies by Stock, Davies, and Gillespie. The next article by Mechling and colleagues examines the efficacy of touch screen technology for young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The final article in the issue by Stock and colleagues reports on a GPS-based wayfinding program running on a smartphone to enhance greater community access through public transportation. We have included, in several articles, case examples to illustrate how important applied cognitive technologies are to achieve inclusion, self-determination, and an enhanced quality of life.

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