Assistive Technology for Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Review of Literature

Use of technologies in our current time is extremely widespread from our social media to portable devices, but there is less focus on how this technology functions in the lives of individuals with neuro-disorders. With the rise in trends for inclusivity for all, it would be worthy to investigate how technology bridges the learning and living gaps between people with and without these disabilities. The aim of this paper is to explore how these groups of people –specifically those with autism, ADHD and Rett Syndrome—interact with technology, and more importantly, treatments regarding their day to day living from speech to social skills, emotions, motor therapy and more.  The method used in this literature study is through search for articles on platforms including ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed and ScienceDirect. The keywords we used were "autism", "robot",  "rett’s", "adhd",   "augmentative","alternative", "communication"  "virtual", "video", "reality",   "robotics", "asd" and we  specifically combined "autism" AND "robot", "autism” AND "robotics", "virtual” AND "reality", "asd" "robot", "augmentative", AND "alternative", AND "communication" ,"asd" AND "robotics." Most studies included were conducted between the years 2008-2021, and most research papers on this subject have been published in the last decade.