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Background: Acquired brain injury and spinal cord injury are leading causes of severe motor disabilities impacting a person's autonomy and social life. Enhancing neurological recovery driven by neurogenesis and neuronal plasticity could represent future solutions; however, at present, recovery of activities employing assistive technologies integrating artificial intelligence is worthy of examining. MAIA (Multifunctional, adaptive, and interactive AI system for Acting in multiple contexts) is a human-centered AI aiming to allow end-users to control assistive devices naturally and efficiently by using continuous bidirectional exchanges among multiple sensorimotor information. Methods: Aimed at exploring the acceptability of MAIA, semi-structured interviews (both individual interviews and focus groups) are used to prompt possible end-users (both patients and caregivers) to express their opinions about expected functionalities, outfits, and the services that MAIA should embed, once developed, to fit end-users needs. Discussion: End-user indications are expected to interest MAIA technical, health-related, and setting components. Moreover, psycho-social issues are expected to align with the technology acceptance model. In particular, they are likely to involve intrinsic motivational and extrinsic social aspects, aspects concerning the usefulness of the MAIA system, and the related ease to use. At last, we expect individual factors to impact MAIA: gender, fragility levels, psychological aspects involved in the mental representation of body image, personal endurance, and tolerance toward AT-related burden might be the aspects end-users rise in evaluating the MAIA project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates whether sport activities involving children with a disability can reduce negative attitudes towards disability in children without disability. We compared the effect of being schoolmate or member of the same football team whereby a child with disability was member of the class/team or not. This lead to four groups that were assessed both at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Two measures were collected: an ad-hoc questionnaire and an Implicit Association Test. The two assessments were designed to measure explicit and implicit attitudes towards children with disabilities. Results suggested that sport activities over one school year reduced more (p < .001) the implicit negative attitude towards disability (Mean = -.17, sd = .10) than the contact with the classmate in the school context (Mean = -.03, sd = .14), possibly due to their team building characteristic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]