F E AT U R E
Conversations That Matter: Assistive technology and occupational therapy
Sharing suggestions from OTA’s National Conference, Cairns 2023 Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA)
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ccupational therapy encompasses the most extensive scope of practice among professions working with assistive products, with OTs focusing on the foundational concepts for utilising assistive technology (AT) as a means to enhance participation (Layton et al., 2023). This article shares findings from the ‘Conversations That Matter’ session hosted by the Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA)1 at the Occupational Therapy Australia 30th National Conference & Exhibition in Cairns in June 2023. This ‘conversation’ was structured to draw on two important AT reports released in 2022: 1) The Global Alliance of Assistive Technology Organizations’ (GAATO) Assistive Technology Outcomes and Impact: A Global Grand Challenge Report (GAATO, 2022), and 2) The inaugural World Health Organisation (WHO)/United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Global Report on Assistive Technology (WHO & UNICEF, 2022). An online resource was also developed for the session, which provided ready access to these two open-access reports as well as links to various AT models of practice and outcome measurement tools. This resource is available at https://bit.ly/3oVhdQO. 1
Australia Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA) - https://www.arata.org.au/
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Figure 1. GAATO Outcomes and Impacts Model (GAATO, 2022)
