1.3 Classification

When it comes to inventorying, there is no end in listing all assistive devices. Catalogues and databases such as Handynet or Abledata, for example, may contain information on more than 25.000 products. Such a list is perhaps too much extensive for newcomers in the field of assistive technology, but can be of great help for parents, teachers or technicians that deal with CP children and need a reference.

Therefore, classification and grouping of the many products is necessary to reduce this amount of devices to broad categories and it help us understand the scope of functionality of each one of them. We are however faced with a myriad of alternative ways of grouping assistive technology. Most of these grouping frameworks are not exhaustive nor have mutually exclusive categories.

The most known and formal classification of assistive technology is the ISO9999 international classification or its European standard CEN29999 .

The ISO 9999 is a three-level classification system that clusters AT products round "CLASSES" (e.g. mobility, communication, recreation, etc.), then round "SUBCLASSES" (e.g. within class "mobility": powered wheelchairs, cars adaptations, etc.), eventually round "DIVISIONS" (e.g. within subclass "powered wheelchairs": electric motor-driven wheelchair with manual steering, electric motor-driven wheelchair with powered steering, etc.). Each ISO 9999 classification item has a numerical code: for instance, item "electric motor-driven wheelchair with powered steering" has the code 12.23.06, where the first two digits stand for Class 12 "mobility", the following two digits stand for subclass 12.23 "powered wheelchairs" and the last two digits stand for this specific division.

But we can also classify assistive technology by broad categories of impairments: visual impairments, auditive impairments, cognitive, mobility, …. It all depends on the purposes we have in mind. Within each category, one could again classify AT in those increasing the remaining capacity, those replacing the lost capacity by another capacity and a rest category, for example. Such an approach is also suggested by the HEART line E studies (Azevedo et al. 1993, Azevedo et al. 1994a) and this is the one we have adopted in this course module for its simplicity and efficiency, considering the public we are addressing. It suggests to classify AT into four groups:

• • Communication;

  • Mobility;

  • Manipulation;

  • Orientation.

Although there is no single unique, optimal way of grouping AT, we should also not forget that from the end-users‟ perspective", classifications are not so relevant. Users do not really bother to which group the AT they need belongs, as long as they get it and can use it. Hence, within our material, we should strike the right balance between an analytic, classifying approach and a user-oriented more holistic approach.