Worthy of Any Assistive Technology Program's AT for Employment Toolkit!
Heads up, this is a good read! The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology and Devices showed me that we still need people writing books like this, even with the Internet. We need people like Suzanne Robitaille who can cast their net over a sea of material, interpret it, put it into historical context, spin it through their own life experience, and hand it over to the willing and grateful reader.
You might not expect that's what you'll find in The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology and Devices. The cover is tiled with icons that look downright clickable. And so my first unconscious reaction was, why even put it to paper? Isn't there just an app for that?
Then I started reading.
This book is for anyone who wants to see the AT forest for the trees. Of course it doesn't cover everything and everyone, but it is a proper orientation on AT for adults, articulated in a strong voice by a writer who knows how to say it simple. Robitaille is a former AT columnist for Businessweek Online and the founder of abledbody.com. I suspect she's never written a federal grant in her life; it takes a special talent to be able to write just three and a half pages on the history of AT.
I'm not saying it's perfect. The introduction too closely suggests the AT Act programs are funded to buy devices for people all over the United States. And is it the Eye Pal SOLO that can also magnify text to a computer screen or the Eye Pal SOLO LV? We are nerds for noticing. Robitaille does what few can do: paint the complete landscape with a few deft strokes.
The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology and Devices: Tools and Gadgets for Living Independently was published by Demos Medical in 2009.
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