This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and assistive technology advisors to understand more about measuring AT outcomes with the person, linked to their goals.
When thinking about the use of assistive technology for cognitive support after brain injury, it is important to consider the person and their goals, the types of activities they want or need to complete each day, assistive technology they may use for cognitive support, and the range of environments or contexts in which they complete activities using this technology.
After trialling the use of assistive technology and/or other solutions, it is important to discuss, explore and measure outcomes achieved with the person and their key supporters. This will determine if the intervention was successful or not, and help to guide future planning together.
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Measuring outcomes
This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to understand and explore the measurement of outcomes with the person with brain injury, linked to their use of assistive technology, activity preferences and goals.
Measuring outcomes are important in evaluating how the assistive technology worked for the person during the trial process. Outcome measures also help to understand if the assistive technology enabled the person to achieve their goal. If the assistive technology did not work well for the person, the use of outcome measures is an opportunity to understand why this was the case. They may also help to understand and identify a need for other supports and/or services to achieve better outcomes in the future.
There are a number of ways that assistive technology outcomes can be measured. There are published measures and frameworks that can be utilised to formally assess a person’s outcomes in relation to their goal, including tools specific to the evaluation of technology use.
Outcomes can also be measured using customised methods, such as counting, charting or recording the presence or absence of a target behaviour (e.g. brushing teeth each morning after breakfast; taking medication at a set time each day). Direct comparison of outcomes can be made by documenting the count of a target behaviour both pre- and post-introduction of technology, to determine if the device was an enabler or barrier in helping the person achieve their goal.
Using tools
This section of My Technology Space provides information and resources to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to explore outcome measurement and evaluation of interventions using a range of tools and resources with the person with brain injury, linked to their activity preferences and goals.
This section of My Technology Space includes an overview of some of the published outcome measures and tools that may be used by allied health professionals or other assistive technology advisors with people with brain injury and their supporters, when considering the need for, or outcomes achieved by using, technology for cognitive support.
Using the Human Activity Assistive Technology Model, outcome measures and tools relating to the person or the Human include:
Those relating to Activities include:
Outcome Measures and tools relating to the Assistive Technology include:
Those relating to the Environment include:
Considering next steps
This is the final section of My Technology Space. It provides brief information to assist allied health professionals and other assistive technology advisors to consider potential next steps in the collaborative process when working with the person, including exploring additional goals for which there may be assistive technology solutions that are suitable to trial.
Allied health professionals and assistive technology advisors will be required to engage with the person with brain injury and their informal and/or paid supporters at different points in time to help consider assessment of goals and support needs, selection and implementation of interventions (including types of assistive technology), and strategies to measure outcomes (including goal attainment).
The six sections of My Technology Space have provided information, tools and resources to assist to follow and document this process with a person, to consider technology options that may be used for cognitive support after brain injury, and to assist to achieve activity goals.
You may like to read about the outcomes obtained using assistive technology via Josh’s story, or Chris’ story.
Now that you have reached the final step in the process, you may wish to return to earlier sections of the website, or explore other goals with the person.
Select here to return to the section on About the person and their goals.
Select here to access the Framework for Evaluation of Assistive Technology.