Resources: Leaps in Technology and Access to Information
A Grand Diversity. The following list is a relatively current reflection of the diversity of approaches and devices.
- Facilitated communication – a guiding hand to help someone with autism to speak by using a keyboard.
- Augmentative communication – manual and electronic communication aids to help a nonverbal individual to communicate and socialize with other people.
- Environmental controls – making a switch larger or a device easier to use can increase the ability of people with physical disabilities to independently control their environment. Examples include turning on the television, lights, and appliances; answering the phone; opening doors; and steering a power wheelchair.
- Custom seating systems – designing a wheelchair insert that is fitted to the shape of an individual (without compromising the ability to maximize trunk strength where applicable) can allow for maximum function and can prevent skin breakdown caused by pressure sores.
- Postural supports inserted into a power wheelchair help a student sit in a comfortable position and reduce abnormal muscle tone. The student can then work at a desk or table along with friends and classmates, and generally participate in more educational and recreational activities.
- Independent mobility is a first step toward independent living. Many kinds of power wheelchairs are available. The controls can be placed to match a person's particular abilities.
- Vocational and employment adaptations – modifications to a work site such as raising the height of a desk, or fabricating work areas, or adapting machinery to make it accessible to employees with disabilities.
- Home modifications – lever door hardware and grab bars in the bathroom, lowered light switches and shelves, toe space at counters and the sink, and lowered counters and paddle faucet controls may allow someone in a wheelchair considerable independence at home.
- Environmental modifications – ramps at state and local parks; restaurants, theaters, retail stores, businesses, and other places of public accommodation allow access to public recreational, commercial, and business opportunities.
- Lifts for public transportation, TTYs for phone systems, and pointers and switches.
- One man can manage in his living quarters because an environmental control system has been installed – an amplifier on the phone to accommodate hearing limitations and a personal alarm system to notify health personnel if he has a medical emergency. This combination of high and low technology has given him the confidence and support to remain quite independent in his own home.
- A head mounted light beam for a ten year old child with cerebral palsy allows her to use a computer keyboard, and operate a communication system that speaks for her.
- Voice Processor – a microelectronic device that rebuilds the sound waves of speech by analyzing and reconstructing speech weak or difficult to understand voices are clear and concise, background noise is rejected and vocal strain is greatly reduced.
- Ultra Voice Unit – a loudspeaker with a rechargeable battery that fits on an upper denture or orthodontic retainer; volume and pitch are set by a handheld control.
- Mind Control Tool Operating Switch (MCTOS) – a switch controlled by bioelectrical activity measured at a person's forehead. The switch operates using eye movement, muscle activity, or the mind – the switch is "off" when the mind is quiet, and "on" when the mind is excited. MCTOS can operate communication devices, environmental control devices, and computers.
On the Horizon:
- Improvements in natural language technology that will permit sending video over the Internet that can be signed for people with hearing disabilities.
- Natural language technology will permit people to seek out information, regardless of their level of technical expertise. Inquiries can be made using nearly any communications method (email, SMS, voice, instant messaging, etc.) or device (landline or mobile phone, PDA, laptop, PC, etc.).
- Improvement in converting spoken word to text with 95% accuracy.
- Using the Internet to integrate email, paging and real time TTY; and voice-to-text messaging.
Exploiting Mobile Technology. The use of PDAs and cell phones in increasingly interesting ways is opening new doors. For instance, the MAPS PDA prompter uses words and pictures to prompt individuals through daily tasks (shopping, taking the bus to visit a friend).
The "script" for the prompts is developed on a home based computer, then downloaded on to the person's PALM or Blackberry or other Personal Digital Assistant. With web access available through cell phones, coupled with high definition display screens on phones, individuals could call up their own scripts in a variety of situations. Friends and family could help them develop the steps they need to take in a task.
Similarly, were people with disabilities armed with their own cell phones/PDAs they could carry identifying information with them, call to a central number to ask for advice, get public transit directions while out and about, and so forth.
Can someone who's quadriplegic or hearing impaired play a video game? QUEST TV takes you to the International Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where a group of gamers used colorful tactics to convince mainstream developers to make video games accessible for everyone.
Information and Solutions. The Internet has resulted in an explosion of sources of information. Just "google" adaptive technology and the deluge will begin. Two challenges for the future could help make information more accessible and useful.
One challenge is the cost of getting access to research information. For instance, Johns Hopkins University alumni can subscribe to Hopkins KnowledgeNET. This web-based service offers different levels of free access to hundreds of journals, newspapers and e-books, and fee-based access to an expanded set of resources. The Enhanced Service offers thousands of full-text journals from licensed sources in business, education, engineering, humanities, international studies, medicine, nursing, public health, music, science and social studies. It also offers access to e-books from leading publishers such as Harvard University Press, MIT Press, and The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Enhanced Service provides fax, toll-free telephone, and e-mail access to a dedicated Hopkins Knowledge&NET librarian. A one-year subscription to the Enhanced Service is only $125.
Imagine if there were a collaborative effort among disability organization to create a similar KnowledgeNET that was free to individuals, families and advocates?
A second challenge is moving from information to solutions. The amount of information available free of charge is overwhelming. The real challenge is sorting through it and finding solutions. For many, nothing will replace the power of sitting down with people who share a common interest, all of whom have collected information, and sorting through it together to come up with solutions. That is why all sorts of training events, workshops and conferences work well. Big changes in the system have emerged because small groups of individuals, families and advocates have worked through information together. With daily advances in Internet technology and lowering costs, it is becoming increasingly possible to do "face-to-face" meetings around the world.