Testing Disabilities with Emerging Technologies

In this paper, we want to show the role of new and emerging technologies in the daily life of disabled people. When we talk about disability, we mean any temporary or permanent condition, acute and/or chronic disease and/or deficit, as well as new cultural-socio-economic statuses which imply functional limitations experienced at any age. In this latter context we are not using disability as a synonym of some specific handicap or impairment of a class of human beings. We are referring to a wider concept where limitation can be experienced as disabling, and this can include a wider and heterogeneous group of conditions: sensorial, motor, cognitive, and psychic disabilities as well as socially disadvantaged conditions. All the conditions are characterized by a specific impairment or, in more complex cases, by a cluster of impairments.