Assistive Technology and Accessibility

Our lives have become dependent on instant communication. We spend every waking hour talking and texting, so it is hard to imagine a scenario in which you suddenly lose the ability to speak, write, and comprehend what you hear and read. This is called “aphasia” – the loss of language – and most often it is a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), or other neurological condition. Aphasia is not a well-known condition, possibly because our fast-paced, communication-driven culture does not recognize individuals who cannot speak up.

In a recent industry show-and-tell, Paul Schroeder of the American Foundation of the Blind gave us all a good chuckle when he said “I didn’t realize 508 referred to the number of weeks it would take to get the standards updated!”

Accessibility is a required and important part of every meeting planning process. Our population is growing older and attendees may have limitations due to aging. Individuals with disabilities are increasingly part of every community and organization. By making meetings accessible, you help create an inclusive environment and provide a greater opportunity for all attendees to participate and interact. New Editions’ conference team has planned and conducted accessible meetings for over 15 years.

Get Ready, Set, Snow! Winter sports enthusiasts embrace all that Mother Nature has to offer, whether a snow capped mountain, a frozen ice rink, or the backyard. Snow skiing, ice skating and sledding are winter activities enjoyed by many, including people with disabilities. Good equipment and smart preparation help ensure safe winter fun.

November is National Caregiver Month, a time to pay tribute to the 44 million individuals caring for older adults and people with disabilities in the United States. Family caregivers have an increased risk of negative health outcomes, including the erosion of physical, emotional and financial health. What can we do to ease their burden?

As population demographics continue to shift, long term services and supports are increasingly important to improve health and quality of life for individuals of all ages and abilities. A key component of long term services and supports are home and community-based services (HCBS), which provide opportunities for individuals, including people with disabilities and chronic conditions, to receive services in their own homes or communities.

It's August and everyone is ready to hit the road, or the air, or the rails. A summer break from the routine of life’s challenges is a right that many Americans take for granted, but it is not so simple for Americans with disabilities to exercise that right. Since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) came into effect over twenty years ago, the United States has become a much friendlier landscape for people with disabilities. Still, for people who use crutches, walkers or wheelchairs, travelling can be quite a challenge.  

If the ADA were a person, it should be graduating college by now and looking for a job. However, workplace equality for people with disabilities is where the least progress has been made in the last quarter century, according to an informal poll of webinar attendees during “24 Years of the ADA: Progress, Pitfalls and Possibilities” hosted by Cornell University and the Northeast ADA Center on July 9, 2014. Where has the most progress been made?

The country is aging and so is the workforce. According to the 2012 Census, there were over four million full-time workers age 65 and older. The aging process can bring with it a gradual decrease in vision, hearing, and physical abilities. Jobs that were once easy for a 30 or 40-year-old to perform can become challenging for a 60 or 70-year-old. For example, in our work, some veterans have told us that war wounds sustained in the 1960s and 1970s are only now starting to take their toll, inducing new mobility and dexterity limitations.

Want to know how to make a website accessible? Google the answers. Want a mainstream phone with built-in speech output for using it without vision? Go to an electronics store. Want to know how to make an ATM accessible? Put your headphone jack in pretty much any ATM. Want to know how to change your organization so that accessibility becomes an integral part of everyone's job? Um...  As time goes by more and more of the technological challenges around accessibility are being solved, written about, and widely implemented.