Advancements of technologies in the areas of mobiliy, hearing and vision, communication, and daily living for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) has the potential to greatly enhance indepencence and self-determination. Previous research, however, suggests that there is a “technological divide” with regard to the use of such technologies by people with IDD when compared with the general public. The present study sought to provide current information with regard to technology use by people with IDD by examining the technology needs, use, and barriers to such use experienced by 180 adults with IDD through QuestNet, a self-directed computer survey program. The study findings suggest that although there has been progress in technology acquisition and use by people IDD, yet there remains an underutilization of technologies across the population.

The increased use of AI-based systems poses risks and opportunities for people with cognitive disabilities. On the one hand, automated administrative systems, such as job applicant screeners, may disadvantage people whose patterns of strengths and weaknesses, and whose life circumstances, differ from those commonly seen in pools of data. On the other hand, people with cognitive disabilities stand to gain from AI's potential to provide superior support, such as speaker-dependent speech recognition. Further, privacy concerns are heightened, both because of greater likelihood that people with uncommon combinations of attributes can be identified from their data, and because of the potential for discrimination and exploitation. It is important that people with disabilities are able to make self-directed choices about the tradeoffs among risks and benefits, not denying them the dignity of risk that others have. Enabling this calls for advances both in technology and in organization.