A Brave New World for the Disabled

Thanks to new technology, advocates of the handicapped are now envisioning a world in which the blind will be able to proofread written work, the paralyzed will be able to use computers, and those with impaired motor skills will be able to use a keyboard with ease.

While a few years ago such a scenario seemed fantastical, an ongoing conference at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) shows that it's fast entering the realm of possibility.

When you first enter the basement of the GSE's Gutman Library, you find yourself at what looks like a typical conference in which Apple or IBM computer hardware and software are showcased, in which spectators "ooh!" and "ahh!" at the latest innovative technology.

But that's not what this computer display is all about.

Just ask Tony Wilson, a staff member for the Technical Aid Assistance for the Disabled in Chicago. Wilson, who has been using a wheelchair since an injury seven years ago, will attend Chicago's Malcolm X. College this fall and says he hopes to work in data processing in the future.

Wilson says he recognizes the importance of this new technology for himself and the roughly 36 million people with disabilities in the U.S. He says he hopes the aid of the new technology will increase his marketability in the workplace.

"What I want now is enough for job status," Wilson says.

Wilson and about 40 others, among them people with disabilities and their parents, developers of technology, and professional educators from a variety of academic disciplines, are taking part in an unprecedented two-week program designed to teach disabled individuals, their parents and educators how to take advantage of the new technology.

The program, entitled "The National Special Education Alliance/Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)/Harvard Summer Training Institute," seeks to introduce the best available computer equipment to assist people with special needs, and to provide these individuals with the training and practice to use these new tools. The program also aims to identify software that meets individual goals and curricular objectives, and to provide a framework for thinking about the future of technology in the special needs curriculum.

"What has gathered us together is the realization of the uses of technology," said David Rose, executive director of CAST and a lecturer on education for the GSE. "It was very clear that it was very powerful for disabled people."

"Certainly one of the goals is to outreach and to make people with disabilities, parents with family disabilities, professionals who work with disabled individuals to be more aware of what's possible," says Alan J. Brightman, manager of the Office of Special Education of Apple Computer, which is funding the institute.

Virginia Thornburgh, the coordinator of programs for persons with disabilities at the Office of Human Resources, who has spent more than 20 years working on disability issues, termed the program as a "cutting-edge movement in disability concerns."

"I just think it's a great combination of advanced technology and human need," says Thornburgh. "The knowledge is now available to tap the potential of people with great disabilities."

The program is designed for individuals who are potential leaders in the field of technology for special needs. It is being jointly sponsored by the National Special Education Alliance (NSEA) and CAST.

NSEA is a rapidly growing, nationwide coalition of 23 community resource centers, professional organizations and technology vendors working together to increase awareness, understanding and implementation of microcomputer technology to aid disabled children and adults.

CAST, which was founded last spring, is a non-profit educational and research organization dedicated to serving children and adults with special needs through innovative uses of technology. The CAST staff designed and taught the program.

NSEA and CAST officials says they are involved in a wide range of activities, from developing computer equipment and other technology to fit each individual's special day-to-day needs, to helping to create curricula and learning programs for such students. Rose says that equipment needs to be specially adapted for each individual, and that there are no standard instruments to recommend.

"We're really more like a resource," says Robert Glass, an NSEA member who directs the Louisvillebased Resource Center for the Disabled and worked for several years for the American Printing House for the Blind. "If you need some ideas about implementing this in your school let's talk about it," Glass says.

Before the advent of computer technology, the blind were unable to make corrections or proofread their work. Talking word processors now allow them to do this, Glass says.

"There's so much that you and I take for granted," says Glass, who has developed a special math program for blind children from kindergarten to second grade. "Things you take for granted like reading the daily newspaper" are only now becoming available to the blind, he says.

Experts in the field of disability services say that computer technology is currently revolutionizing the options available for persons with disabilities, and making it possible for individuals who once may have had to stay at home or in a hospital to go out and become more productive, contributing members of society.

In the past, many people with severe disabilities were confined all their lives to rehabilitation hospitals "where everyone has assumed, maybe even talked about, `so we'll just give him personal care and attendance three shifts a day and we'll call that a life.' Where parents of kids were told `that's about as far as your kid Herbie can go because Herbie's disabled'," says Brightman. "We never should have thought that way."

Now, however, a youngster with a severe disability has the chance, to not only attend school, but to benefit substantially in the classroom from the new computer technology. And so do his peers.

"What [the new technology] means is for the first time other kids can begin to learn that this kid who up to now had to use communication simply to make functional needs come and go and can't really do a lot of digressive calculations, other kids can learn for the first time that 'he's kind of a whiz at baseball statistics, we never knew that before. He's got a good sense of humor, we never knew that before,'" Brightman says.

Computer access brings to some to a "new lease on life," Thornburgh says. She says that one of the main purposes of the program is "a reduction of anxiety" among people with disabilities, so that they are not afraid to ask questions about how to use this new technology, and to seek help. "It opens up the ability to make requests," Thornburgh says. "All accessibility is about is a level playing field."

"The equipment becomes that much more significant for people who are severely disabled," says NSEA official Harvey Pressman.

Yet the program is also for those who work tirelessly in this field, as it represents a forum where they can come together and learn from each other and from the latest technology so that when they return to their respective states, they'll have a clearer sense of the type of special equipment available.

"It's mainly been a time where we can fill in our gaps [in knowledge] and use our strengths and backgrounds [for others]," Glass says.

"It's a program for people who work with people who are disabled," Pressman says. "The vast number of them are parents of people who are disabled."

NSEA officials say that, in the years ahead, they hope for continual expansion which eventually will make all this new technology available at a relatively affordable price to everyone who needs it.

"The kind of program we talk about establishing isn't effective if there are three around the country, or 24 around the country for that matter," says Jacqueline Brandt, executive director of the NSEA. "The concept is that every family, every teacher, every person should have access to some degree within their community to services. So we anticipate continual but careful growth."

While this may be an ambitious goal, that does not deter advocates of the handicapped, who are not easily discouraged and are well aware of the potential for a fully accessible society in the not-too-distant future.

As for Tony Wilson, he says he's excited about the new technology that's available, and about the prospect of proving to others with disabilities that the future is bright.

"I just look at myself as someone who's gotta do what he's gotta do," Wilson says.