Introduction of Compensatory Technology in Vocational Rehabilitation: A Practice Study About the Value of Technology and the Values that Shape These Practices

摘要

Job seekers with cognitive impairments, tor example Aspergcr s syndrome and/or ADHD, have greater challenges in entering the labour market corn-pared with other groups with impaired functional capacity. Introducing Cognitive Support Technologies (CST) can improve the competitiveness of job seekers with cognitive challenges. Compensatory technology has proven to be an underutilized tool in vocational rehabilitation for people with cognitive challenges. The data are taken from a two-year ethnographic fieldwork study at two vocational rehabilitation companies. Both companies placed special focus on introducing technology in the vocational rehabilitation process. The study shows that the introduction of compensatory technology has been valuable both in the individual empowerment process and for the participants upon completion of the vocational rehabilitation programme. The inhibiting factors described may be related to the diagnosis of the typical challenges faced by adults suffering from ADHD and/or Asperger's, such as organizational challenges, procrastination or general difficulty in doing things in a new way. The article describes the motivational value associated with CST in a vocational rehabilitation perspective, provides new knowledge about values in public management and reveals how efforts to achieve quantitative performance requirements inhibit the introduction of CST.