Establishing the Field of Applied Cognitive Technology

Abstract

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 He