“Why is that robot following me?” Older participants’ perspectives of co-designing digital technology

Presentation in the International Society of Gerontechnology conference, Trondheim Norwa

Woordenschatontwikkeling in relatie tot neurosociocognitieve kerndomeinen bij downsyndroom

Item does not contain fulltextEen vertraagde en verstoorde taal- en spraakontwikkeling is een belangrijk onderdeel van het downsyndroom-gedragsfenotype. De taalontwikkeling wordt geassocieerd met negen neurosociocognitieve kerndomeinen, welke alle van invloed zijn op en een bijdrage leveren aan taalontwikkeling. Onderzoek naar de achterblijvende woordenschatontwikkeling bij kinderen met downsyndroom heeft zich tot op heden beperkt tot onderzoek naar slechts één of enkele van deze domeinen, terwijl bekend is dat kinderen met downsyndroom op alle negen domeinen hun eigen sterktes en zwaktes hebben. Het doel van dit onderzoek was het gelijktijdig in kaart brengen van de mogelijke samenhang tussen de receptieve en expressieve woordenschat enerzijds en de negen kerndomeinen anderzijds bij kinderen met downsyndroom in de leeftijd van 1-6 jaar. Binnen een vragenlijststudie, die is uitgevoerd bij 123 ouders van kinderen met downsyndroom, zijn kleine, opeenvolgende stappen in de ontwikkeling van de kerndomeinen beoordeeld middels stellingen. Per domein zijn vervolgens de totaalscores bestudeerd en de correlaties berekend. Om te corrigeren voor de invloed van leeftijd en levenservaring zijn de partiële correlaties berekend. Aandacht, cognitieve ontwikkeling, sociaal-emotionele ontwikkeling, mobiliteit, fijne motoriek, zelfredzaamheid, adaptatie en oriëntatie toonden alle een significante positieve samenhang met zowel de expressieve als receptieve woordenschat. Deze eerste exploratieve studie laat zien dat ook bij kinderen met downsyndroom deze neurosociocognitieve kerndomeinen samenhangen met de woordenschatontwikkeling. Het is daarmee belangrijk om het functioneren op deze domeinen te betrekken bij interventies en een holistisch perspectief op de taalontwikkeling in te nemen.8 p

Ageism in applying digitial technology in healthcare:Implications for adoption and actual use

Many discussions, studies, and policy reports regarding ageing and digital technology (DT) begin by addressing the following logic: the population is rapidly ageing, leading to an increase in chronic diseases and increasing costs and burden on the healthcare system (Neven, 2010). DT is often presented as an answer or a solution to this ‘problem’ in what Peine and Neven (2019) described as ‘interventionist logic’. However, older adults are often categorised and discoursed as a homogeneous group of ‘non-users’ in the context of designing DTs (Quan-Haase et al., 2018), associated with illness, frailty, cognitive decline, and dependency (Neven, 2010). These conceptions, together with the notion that as people age they consume’ as much as three times more healthcare resources than others (Alemayehu and Warner, 2004), leads to a fixation on DTs developed primarily for care and healthcare for older adults (Schulz et al., 2015). This is often policy-driven due to the idea that DT has the potential to reduce healthcare costs. This fixation has led to a rapidly growing age-tech market of healthcare DT, as can be seen in a visualised mapping of age-tech companies currently operating in the market (see Etkin, 2021). Consequently, healthcare professionals and caregivers are positioned at the forefront of using DT with older adults. For the purpose of this chapter, we describe DT as technological devices, ser vices, or platforms that use, collect, and often process data, and are connected to the Internet, other devices, or apps. Examples of such DTs are eHealth apps, smart watches, sensors and systems that can detect and predict falls, and social robots, among others

Predictors of receptive and expressive vocabulary development in children with Down syndrome

Purpose: There is a lack of longitudinal data on predictors of vocabulary development in children with Down syndrome (DS). In typically developing children, many internal and external predictors of vocabulary development have been determined before. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of these variables in the receptive and expressive vocabulary development of children with DS. Method: The present study used a longitudinal design in young children with DS to study the vocabulary development over a period of 1.6 years and investigated the possible predictive role of child-related and environmental variables. Result: Receptive vocabulary development was best predicted by the adaptive level of functioning and early receptive vocabulary skills. Expressive vocabulary development was best predicted by the adaptive level of functioning, receptive vocabulary, maternal educational level, level of communicative intent of the child, attention skills and phonological/phonemic awareness. Conclusion: A wide range of internal and external predictors for vocabulary development of children with DS was found. Predictors resemble those predicting vocabulary development in peers with typical development between 1 and 6 years of age, as identified in other studies

The concurrent and predictive validity of the Dutch version of the Communicative Development Inventory in children with Down Syndrome for the assessment of expressive vocabulary in verbal and signed modalities

The expressive vocabulary of children with Down Syndrome (DS) is generally measured with parental reports, such as the Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), given that standardized tests for assessing vocabulary levels may be too difficult for most young children with DS. The CDI provides important insight into the parents' perception of their child's vocabulary development. The CDI has proven to be a valid measurement of expressive vocabulary, spoken and gestural, in typical and atypical populations. The validity in children with DS is not well established and signed vocabulary is often not included. This longitudinal study examined the concurrent and predictive validity of the Dutch version of the CDI (N-CDI) in children with DS between 2;0 and 7;6 years old to assess spoken and signed vocabulary. N-CDI scores were assessed on strength of association with mental age, an expressive vocabulary test and spontaneous language analyses in a play setting with parents at T1 and T2 (1.5 years later), and a therapy setting with speech language pathologists at T1. The results of the present study show that the N-CDI is a valuable and valid measurement of expressive vocabulary in children with DS. Strengths and weaknesses of several assessment methods for expressive vocabulary are discussed

Use of and satisfaction with ankle foot orthoses

Objective: The aim of this study was to obtain insight in specific elements influencing the use, non-use, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction of ankle foot orthoses (AFOs) and the presence of underexposed problems with respect to AFOs. Methods: A questionnaire was composed to obtain information from AFO users to investigate the variables associated with satisfaction and the relation between these variables. A specific feature of this study was the systematic analysis of the remarks made by the respondents about their AFO. Quantitative data analyses were used for analysing the satisfaction and qualitative analyses were used analysing the remarks of the respondents. A total of 211 users completed the questionnaire. Results: Our survey showed that 1 out of 15 AFOs were not used at all. About three quarters of the AFO users were satisfied and about one quarter was dissatisfied. Females and users living alone reported relatively high levels of dissatisfaction, especially in the field of dimensions, comfort, weight, safety and effectiveness. Dissatisfaction with respect to off-the-shelf AFOs for the item durability was higher than that for custom-made AFOs. In the delivery and maintenance process the items ‘maintenance’, ‘professionalism’ and ‘delivery follow-up’ were judged to be unsatisfactory. A large number of comments were made by the respondents to improve the device or process, mainly by the satisfied AFO users. These comments show that even satisfied users experience many problems and that a lot of problems of AFO users are ‘underexposed’. Conclusion: To improve user satisfaction, the user practice has to be identified as an important sub-process of the whole orthopaedic chain especially in the diagnosis and prescription, delivery tuning and maintenance, and evaluation phase

Attitudes of health care professionals toward older adults’ abilities to use digital technology:Questionnaire study

Background: Digital technologies (DTs) for older adults focus mainly on health care and are considered to have the potential to improve the well-being of older adults. However, adoption rates of these DTs are considered low. Although previous research has investigated possible reasons for adoption and acceptance of DT, age-based stereotypes (eg, those held by health care professionals) toward the abilities of older adults to use DTs have yet to be considered as possible barriers to adoption. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the influencing role of ageism in the context of health care professionals attitudes toward older adults’ abilities to use health care DT. A further goal was to examine if social comparison and stereotype activation affect and moderate this association. Methods: A new measurement to assess health care professionals’ attitudes toward older adults using technology (ATOAUT-10) was developed and used in 2 studies. Study 1 involved the development of the ATOAUT-10 scale using a principal component analysis and further examined health care professionals’ attitudes toward the use of health care DTs and correlations with ageism. Study 2 further explored the correlation between ageism and ATOAUT in an experimental design with health care professionals. Results: In study 1, physiotherapists (N=97) rated older adults as young as 50 years as less able to use health care DT compared to younger adults (P<.001). A multiple regression analysis revealed that higher levels of ageism, beyond other predictors, were predictive of more negative ATOAUT, (β=.36; t=3.73; P<.001). In study 2, the salience of age was manipulated. Health care professionals (N=93) were randomly assigned to rate the abilities of a young or old person to use health care DT. Old age salience moderated the correlation between ageism and ATOAUT (R2=0.19; F6,85=3.35; P=.005), such that higher levels of ageism correlated with more negative ATOAUT in the old age salient condition, but not the young condition. Stereotype activation accounted for health care professionals’ attitudes more than did the experience of working with older patients or the professionals’ age. Conclusions: Negative and ageist attitudes of health care professionals can potentially affect how older adults are viewed in relation to DT and consequently might influence actual use and adoption of technology-based treatment. Future studies should broaden the validation of the ATOAUT-10 scale on more diverse samples and focus on the discriminatory aspect of ageism and self-ageism of older adults. This study calls for a focus on ageism as a determinant of adoption of DT