Robotic and virtual reality technologies have been used with children with disabilities and older adults for different purposes. In this article, after summarising the characteristics of these technologies and listing various applications, we discuss the different challenges of developing them for children with disabilities and older adults, even if the intervention goals are similar. This sets the context for the articles addressing some of the identified challenges that were submitted to a special thematic session on robotic and virtual reality technologies for children with disabilities and older adults held at the ICCHP-AAATE 2022 conference.