The Communications Revolution Program #11-94 "Liberation Technology: From Disabled to Enabled?" Introduction by Jude Thilman After years of developing adaptive technologies, what's the number one complaint about computers from people in wheelchairs? They still can't reach the switch to turn it on. People with disabilities and the promise of technology, I'm Jude Thilman and this is "The Communications Revolution." Talking synthesizers give the blind access to the written word. TDD devices on the telephone allow deaf people to make routine calls. Curb cuts provide greater mobility for people in wheelchairs. In the last 15 years technology has made simple, essential tasks possible for millions of disabled Americans, but it could be doing much, much more. A 1992 study found that over 2.6 million people need some sort of assistive technology, and that they can't get it. The reason given: The majority said they simply couldn't afford it. What's the solution and what is society's responsibility to provide high-tech tools to earn a living or just negotiate daily life? We'll discuss the obstacles and uses of new technologies by people with disabilities. Our panel of experts here with us in the studios of KPFA, Berkeley, include Karen Goodwyn, with the California Department of Rehabilitation. She heads up a telecommuting pilot program for people with disabilities and sits on the steering committee of CATS - California Assistive Technology System. Lisa Wahl is the executive director of the Center for Accessible Technology. She's been active with the online computer bulletin board community and she's author of the book Telecommunications Resources for People with Disabilities. And from the studios of WXXI in Rochester, New York, Norman Coombs, who is a professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he teaches classes that includes interaction over computer bulletin boards and e-mail. He's the chair of EASI - Equal Access Software and Information. Our discussion begins after this story of frustration in the pursuit of technology from producer Vicki Post. ****** Vicki Post: What would it be like if suddenly you couldn't see that computer screen or hit the keys on your keyboard or punch the buttons on your phone? Or what if you couldn't even hear the phone ring? Would you know what technology you'd need? And what if that technology was actually leaving you behind? Hi, I'm Vicki Post. I'm totally blind and I'm deaf in one ear. I'm a radio journalist and every time I write a script I have to braille it first, for me, then I type it for my editor, and if I get interrupted... (phone rings)... I loose my place and I have to do it all over again. "I need a chart read back, okay?" I'm also a professional astrologer and when I want to get someone's birth chart I can't just punch it up on a computer. It's all based on glyphs and pictures and I need something based on text, so I have to call a special company and pay someone to read it to me. It's frustrating, but what to do about it? One person who's found some solutions is my own twin sister. Veronica Elsea: I'm Veronica Elsea . I'm a composer, trying hard not to be a computer nerd. VP: With all her equipment she's certainly headed in that direction. She has a computer that gives her audio cues to let her know what it's doing, a scanner, a speech box, a braille printer, a dream office. VE: Technology, it's really made my life a whole lot easier. It's made me feel much more competitive, much more equal, much more connected to the rest of the world. I feel like I can do whatever I want. I can write things, I can review them, I can redo them, I can throw them away. In addition to that, now I'm even working on a computer program called "Score" which will allow me to produce good looking print music that other musicians can read and I can write scores that I couldn't do before. (phone rings) VP: To the deaf, technology has meant access to a whole world most of us take for granted. Susan Cantrell: It's just hard maybe for you to imagine what limitations were put on us. VP: Susan Cantrell is a service representative for Pacific Bell's deaf and disabled services. She uses sign language and speaks to me through and interpreter. SK: We had to drive to visit people to relay messages to each other. A couple of hours, we'd think nothing of it. Now we can call, see they're not home, why bother going to visit them. We used to have to ask hearing neighbors on a piece of paper to make the phone call for us. Now we can do that ourselves and that's what's really beneficial. (phone rings) VP: A TDD to handle phone calls, a wrist signaler to let her know when the phone rings and the California Relay Service to help her deal with voice mail, 911, and people like me who talk. (VP on phone) I'd like to place a call to a Susan Cantrell in Berkeley. VP: There's even a braille TDD for those who are deaf and blind, but all this equipment costs money - a lot of money. My sister got her system for about $18,000. (VE responds to talking computer: Yeah, no kidding. Shut up!) But does it always work? What do you think? (VE responds to talking computer: Oh man, will you shut up.) Because by definition adaptive technology is an afterthought and it's always playing "catch up." Meanwhile, the rest of technology races ahead as people find faster, easier, keener ways to do things... Multimedia, Windows, the graphic user interface. Tom Foul: We spent 5,000 years moving from ideographs to words. Why does somebody want to go the other way? VP: Tom Foul designs adaptive gadgets for the Smith Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Institute in San Francisco. TF: The graphical user interface is a mistake for everybody. They have picked up and decided to use what, as far as I'm concerned, is a more primitive form of communication as in graphics, icons and silly images. And they have kicked us in the face with it. VP: Us meaning blind people like Larry Scadden who works for the National Science Foundation, a government agency that develops and promotes the use of modern technology. LS: The National Science Foundation, within the last few months, has introduced new software here, primarily one called "Mosaic." VP: Now, Mosaic is being touted as the "user friendly, killer application" for the Internet. LS: It's something that I cannot use. It cannot be used with a speech synthesizer or braille display, and if I can't use it there are hundreds of thousands of others who will not be able to or maybe even millions who won't be able to use it in the future. So if you make it usable by me, then you're making it usable by lots of others as well. VP: Instead of just always making it work, why not design things from the ground up so that everyone, including disabled people, can use them. This is what's known as "universal design." Janina Sajka is with the World Institute on Disability. JS: Just like there was never a good reason to build a sidewalk without a curb cut for people in wheelchairs, we feel there's really no good reason to build electronic equipment and telephone technologies without electronic curb cuts. VP: Ah, yes, those now familiar sidewalk curb cuts. They've not only benefited people in wheelchairs, they've been a real godsend to people with strollers, shopping carts and walkers, and electronic curb cuts, to pursue the analogy, might make it easier for everyone to get around in the high tech world. (CNN music sound track) VP: A good example of this is the captioning service for the deaf. At the push of a button, what's being said on your television will appear in words on the screen. People like Susan Cantrell can now watch CNN or any other program that's encoded. When the service was new she had to buy a special box that cost about $200. Today, it's just a little chip installed in every TV in America for about $1 per set. The deaf still use it. Congressional offices also use it to monitor C-Span. Children and immigrants can use it to learn English and it's even proven useful in noisy bars. (noisy bar sound) VP: Maybe the success of closed-captioned TV will help coax the rest of the industry to use this idea of universal design. That's the program supported by most disabled activists, but sometimes I wonder, do I really have to be a disabled activist just to get my work done? (Voice says, "Yes, you do.") Another activist telling me, yes, I do. JS: This is more your issue than you may realize already. VP: Janina Sajka. JS: The telephone is changing, and it's not just a push-button phone anymore. it's a push-button phone with a screen on it, and the screen has all kinds of props that blind people can't read. It has buttons that you have to press in a certain amount of time or the system hangs up on you, so little by little the technology is becoming everybody's issue. VP: So I'm still doing research and asking lots of questions like, why can't I get what I need without having to beg for it? Is technology being developed because someone can do it or because someone really needs it? And why is technology always just out of reach for those who need it most? For "The Communications Revolution," I'm Vicki Post. ****** Host Jude Thilman: People with disabilities are called the one minority group that any of us can join and some half a million of us a year do join, regardless of our race, our sex or our class, but as we've just heard, the very technologies that could liberate are out of reach. I'm Jude Thilman. Let's begin our discussion with you Norm Coombs. You're the chair of EASI - Equal Access to Software and Information - and you are blind yourself. In evaluating what's out there for use by people with disabilities in terms of what many see as this ideal of universal design we run smack into different disability interests. Now, what about this debate over GUI - graphical user interfaces . Would you explain the essential conflict and how you would resolve it? Norm Coombs: I think that universal design is an important concept. I guess I'd like to say that I think it's good and careful design - planning something from the ground up when I think too often the designers get caught up with the latest technology and want to display the bells and whistles and don't really do the careful designing. But I think what you are pointing your finger at is that for some persons with disabilities, the graphical user interface is very helpful and useful, for most blind users and some with low vision it becomes a real roadblock at least in terms of today's technologies. So it looks like you have a conflict between two disabilities. It's the same thing with the curb cut. It helps a person in a wheelchair get off the curb. Blind person can wander in the street and not realize it unless the curb cut is planned carefully. I think careful designing can go a long way. My own concept is that what we need is a "user definable interface" so that you let the user pick the interface that he wants. There's no reason that they can't define a computer so it can come up with either a graphical user interface or a text-base one. Some people that I know that aren't blind prefer the text-based. With the speed of the modern computer, the cheap cost of memory chips, I don't see any reason that we can't have our cake and eat it too. Host: So you don't think there's a conflict between different disability interests. This concept of user defined interface - it seems that when you were asking each individual consumer to define to the company that builds the product exactly what they want to be in that product you're talking about cost. Aren't we Lisa Wahl? Let's bring in Lisa Wahl, you're the executive director with the Center for Accessible Technology. You deal with this problem all the time. How can you convince business that, as Norm Coombs suggests, there's really not a conflict. Lisa Wahl: Well, I don't think there is a conflict. I think the way you convince business though is you point to the things that are out there that are moving in this direction. An example is, well, the Macintosh operating system at the moment, if you're more comfortable with text then all the titles of your folders and documents can be displayed on the screen by simple words and you won't have icons. If you're more comfortable with icons then you can customize each little icon to be something completely different. Now, that's within a graphic operating system but yet you're still allowing the user to say I'd rather see words or I'd rather see pictures. And if they're doing that now and that is allowing the user to choose, then we just need to say to them, that is the strength of your system, that is why people maybe are even buying this type of computer, and why don't we just generalize this across the board and make it possible in every system. Host: Karen Goodwyn, let's let you in on the discussion. You're the field computer liaison with the State of California's Department of Rehab. What's your perspective on this whole problem of trying to design equipment from the start that meets a variety of disabled needs? Karen Goodwyn: It's a very difficult problem and I hate to see us close doors because we're looking and waiting for a perfect solution. I think the more users with disabilities we get involved the sooner we'll find solutions that are more universal in nature. NC: If I can throw in a more hopeful sign I was just last week at a conference in Washington sponsored by WID, the World Institute of Disabilities located in Oakland, and it was a whole bunch of different disability organizations meeting to talk about the National Information Infrastructure, the so called electronic super highway. What was interesting was the great variety of disability groups that were there and while we knew we had differences the sense that we had a similar underlying concern that we needed to find some way to help each other instead of fight each other was really quite encouraging and I hope that kind of momentum can continue. Host: Just on the point, Norm Coombs, I know that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991 doesn't mandate access to the new information super highway or even telephones for that matter. Is there some piece of the NII policy that's being developed that's going to mandate access for people with disabilities to the new information super highway? NC: I think it's a little unclear at this point. The bills that went through the house with very large majority had some language that were very hopeful and positive. The bill in the Senate does too although there are parts of it that people worry about. In fact, what we worry about more is it won't get passed at all. There seems to be a mood in Washington, let's do nothing, and see who wins in the next election, but if you want to write your senator and tell him to push S-1824 through we might get the super highway moving. Host: Alright, let's come back to our discussion of the technology available. Karen Goodwyn, you've been doing this work now for 23 years, give us a thumbnail sketch of what's available through the state currently. You're talking mostly about adaptive technology programs, specialized technologies or retrofitted technologies. what's out there currently for people with disabilities? KG: Well, for people with visual impairments, people who are totally blind may choose to use a screen reader with voice synthesizer. They may also prefer braille output. They can use a combination of both. People with low vision may choose still to use a screen reader and voice output and augment it with enlarged screen displays. People with physical disabilities who have difficulty with keyboard entry may choose voice input and people with learning disabilities or other keyboard entry problems may use abbreviation expansion. Host: So Karen, with these particular technologies the state of California, in this instance, will provide help acquiring them? KG: Well, basically we have, I have two different consumer populations that our agency is concerned with. I am personally concerned with our own employees who have disabilities, but our agency serves a very much larger population of consumers with disabilities and our agency is providing these kinds of technologies to both populations. Host: Providing them free of charge? KG: There are a variety of ways one gets these kinds of technologies. Basically, if a person is a client or consumer who is receiving services from our agency and it's related to a job there would probably be no charge. We can also help them set up other ways of acquiring the equipment, which may be through interest-free loans or self-support plans or any other number of ways of using benefits that we know exist in the community. Host: So it sounds at least like in California the programs are in place and yet we read that over 2.6 million people with disabilities have an unmet need for assistive technology and they mostly say they can't afford it. Lisa Wahl, are the programs in place sufficient to meet the need? LW: I'm not going to say whether the programs are sufficient or not. I don't think I know. What I found... we get hundreds of phone calls each week from people who feel that they could benefit from adaptive technology and a lot of times the people who believe they cannot afford it are the people who have not yet defined exactly what it is they need. People all know that a computer costs a thousand or two thousand or three thousand dollars. You can see the ads in the paper and yet you have to get just so much more specific when you're talking about a specific person and what they might need. If it's someone with a learning disability and the difference for them is going to be able to hear the text on the screen as they write so they can hear and see their words at the same time. You can do that with the very first edition of any type of computer practically. The Mac 512 has a talking word processor that works on it and so does the first IBM and so that is something that you might find at a garage sale and yet... you need to know. Host: You're suggesting people just don't know what's available out there. That's the principal problem and not the cost of specialized technology. LW: That has always been the case unless somebody needs something particularly high-end. There are people who know exactly what they need and they can't get it funded because they want to suddenly have a career in multimedia computer artistry and they know that they need $12,000 worth of equipment and no, there isn't a program that is just there to immediately go out and do that for them. They would have a longer road to put together funding for that. Host: It seems to me, Lisa, that, with all due respect, the majority of people with disabilities are close to 75 percent unemployed. They are among the lowest income group in this country. Norm Coombs, let's bring you into this if you could respond to what Lisa was just suggesting, you've written actually that unless there's a deliberate policy to the contrary, expensive technology will leave the underclass further behind. What's your answer to what the main reason is that most people with disabilities can't get this stuff? NC: I don't think it's quite as simple as it looks. I know some people here in Rochester who have good quality adaptive computers and still don't have job. A friend of mine has a master's degree, an adequate computer and still no job, so that she got the money to get the computer but it didn't get her the job. I think if we knew there were jobs out there for people then investing and getting the adaptive equipment's going to pay off and it'll be money in the bank for the society to do it, but if we still have a world in which we provide people with adaptive technologies at considerable cost and leave them sitting at home with nothing to do, I don't know what the solution is except trying to really break through the employment barrier. It's a bigger problem than just giving the tools to do the job. It's a social attitude that's still the problem more than the tools. Host: Karen Goodwyn. KG: I had some interesting experiences with access equipment which I would call "barrier busters" for employers. One man who's blind had an Opticon in his possession and persuaded his future employer that the Opticon was the solution. Host: What's an Opticon? KG: An Opticon is a device that converts print to tactile images that are like the print and originally it was thought that it would really assist blind people to enable them to reprint materials. It was functionally a nice idea but not very practical for most blind people. But this man had the Opticon and was hired by and employer because the employer was confident that this would solve his print problems, so he calls it a "barrier buster." Now, I also trained a young man who was quadriplegic and mute to become a computer programmer. He could move only one finger very slowly and the businessmen were quite reluctant to relate to him because he had a very unappealing language board with an alphabet on it. But when I gave him a TTY... Host: What's that? KG: That's a communications device used by the deaf and it was a little portable unit with a little display, an electronic display, with the letters that he was typing in. The businessmen were intrigued by this piece of equipment and began having dialogues with him and began to realize his potential and eventually he was hired by a major Bay Area employer as a computer programmer. But without these "barrier buster" pieces of equipment, which may not have really been as functional as the employers perceived them to be, they would have been jobless. Host: You just heard from Karen Goodwyn who is field computer liaison with the State of California's Department of Rehabilitation, telling us two nice success stories. You're listening to "The Communications Revolution." You can contact us via e-mail at KPFA @ well.com. If you're on the Internet and would like to continue this discussion after the show dial into our IRC channel at TRP11. That's TRP11. Karen's point brings us back to your point Lisa Wahl. You were saying that knowing what the appropriate technology is is a big part of the battle. You've actually had clients walk in the door who've been totally puzzled and confused by all the glitz and gadgetry and hype that's out there to buy bigger, better, newer equipment. One woman I think whose hands didn't work too well, a man was trying to sell her a very fancy voice input technology. Tell us that story. LW: This rehab professional had heard about voice input technology where you just talk to the computer and he thought that that was going to be the answer for everyone he worked with that had carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive stress from using the keyboard and she took basically one or two looks at it, actually she spent and hour or two with it, and she just said, I do not have the patience to use this, I am not going to talk to the computer, it is embarrassing, she just could not relate to talking to the computer and having to correct the computer, so instead of a $3,000 piece of technology she settled on a $300 one-handed keyboard that could be placed at her side so her arm was in a neutral position, her fingers didn't have to move very much because there were only seven keys on the keyboard and she learned a chording scheme to enter keystrokes instead of something else. I want to go back to Norm's comment because I think that what he said is just the gist of the matter. That as a society we have not made up our mind that we really want to include people with disabilities and that they are us and that there are these steps like the Americans with Disabilities Act where groups of us have said we do want to believe that everyone should be included but there is still like a schizophrenia in our society... Host: In attitudes by society? LW: In attitudes, so you'll find people at the forefront, some people in rehabilitation, some people in consumer groups who believe in universal design, multiple access and in providing equipment, but if we don't get everybody on board, if you don't get your job when you have your technology, it is all for naught. Host: We're discussing accessible and useful technologies for people with disabilities. You've been hearing from Lisa Wahl was just talking, she's the executive director of the Center for Accessible Technology. Norm Coombs, who was trying to get into the discussion there, is with EASI, Equal Access to Software and Information. Also with us is Karen Goodwyn with the state Department of Rehabilitation here in California. I'm Jude Thilman. This is "The Communications Revolution." We'd like to hear from you right now. Give us your thoughts on technology for the disabled. You can join our discussion with your questions, your comments, your opinions by calling 1-800-848-2298. That's 1-800-848-2298. We'll be right back. ****** Host Jude Thilman: What is the best use of adaptive technologies? Mainstreaming people with disabilities so that they can join the work force out in the world, or making it easier for them to work at home? We're discussing technology for people with disabilities and considering all sorts of debatable questions like these. Call us with your questions and opinions at 1-800-848-2298. Norm Coombs, you were trying to get in on Lisa's point just a little earlier. NC: I was going to make a comment related to prices in two ways. One, I think there is a tendency for people to go for the glitzy high-priced items when it often isn't what's needed. I tend to go with technology that's two or three years old and a little on the cheap side myself. But the other point I really want to stress is that some people have felt that technology is bringing a split within the disabled community - between those who are employed and can afford it and those who can't, and that those who aren't employed have no real interest in technology. At the beginning of the program Janina Sajka mentioned that the telephone's becoming more and more of a technological device and you keep hearing about interactive television at home, that they'll be sticking a box on top of your TV, and so I think that technology that everybody has in their home - the phone and television - are going to become more interactive and may become less accessible to disabled persons unless we insist on it being built andbeing present. Host: I think there was one disabled rights activist who said that we're at the... we're pouring the concrete now for the curbs on the information super highway and are we going to put cuts in or not? I think it's becoming very apparent that everyone's going to need to have access to technology in one form or another, even though it is just in our home, to transact business with the bank, or what have you. But isn't there a catch-22, Norm Coombs, about whether people need to have some measure of equipment before they could actually work. I mean, the argument goes that some people could work if they had the right equipment. Others could get the right equipment if they had work. What's the cut-off point? Where do you decide what the basic equipment is that needs to be provided for people with disabilities? NC: Obviously, it depends on the job, but the more we are moving technology into schools that used to... I teach at the Rochester Institute of Technology for a living and it used to be technology was in the laboratories and it's now starting to move more and more into the classrooms and as students get accustomed to using it in the classroom, not only in college, but moving down into the elementary grades, I think we're going to find a generation of students, sooner that we think, who will grow up familiar with technology. Host: Our number is 1-800-848-2298. Let's hear from Donna in Canoga Park. Welcome, Donna. Caller #1: Thank you, it's a good show. How does a employer ensure that the disabled are included among the job applicants? Must they take a separate step? How do they do that? Host: Karen Goodwyn. KG: If they're interested in letting disabled applicants know about job opportunities I would suggest letting the nearest Department of Rehabilitation office know that you have job openings available and would like to have qualified, disabled applicants applying. We have a constant stream of motivated, trained people who can have whatever it needs to take to prepare them adequately for job openings that are appropriate. You can find us listed in the telephone book under government agencies, State of California, Department of Rehabilitation. Host: Or in any other state where you're hearing this broadcast today. Also, Lisa or Norm, are there any organizations that help find employment for people with disabilities looking for jobs? NC: I was going to comment on that another way and suggest that when you contact your local high school or your local college or wherever you normally go to get people, let them know that you're interested in also hiring people with disabilities so that when they have a student in college or high school with a disability I think often times placement offices won't take them seriously as a candidate. If they knew the business people out there were willing, we could change the attitudes and we could mainstream employment. Host: Anything to add, Lisa? LW: Well, this isn't going to meet everybody's needs, but for those people who have modems and are using online services there are increasingly job applicants posting their resumes. I think there are some boards specifically where people with disabilities who want to work are posting their resumes and where employers are posting job openings. Host: Any way they can get a hold of those boards. LW: The Job Accommodation Network comes to mind and they have an 800 number. KG: WIDnet , which operates out of Oakland - World Institute on Disability - also operates a job bank. Host: And WIDnet is the name on the bulletin board? KG: WIDnet, yes. Host: Alright, thank you Karen Goodwyn. Let's bring another listener into the discussion. Maria, from Sacramento, welcome to the program. Caller #2: I just wanted to say that the idea that all you need to know is what you need and where to get it isn't always necessarily true. I have gone... I'm blind, myself, and I am trying to home school and I have been trying desperately through the Department of Rehab, which has informed me that they don't deal with people like me because I'm not in any of their programs. I've been trying to find even the most basic technology that will allow my daughter to type something in so that it can become braille and that I can braille things so I can check on her homework, her school work. Even that basic technology is way out of my means and I have gone through the National Federation of the Blind. I've gone through the Easter Seals. I hear about these wonderful programs that have technology and funds available to train and to help the blind and when I get there they go, huh, who, what, where. They don't seem to know where it is or what I'm talking about, and I have not been able to find any kind of help in finding any funding source or even training source because I've got three children and I'm at home and I'm not in the loop, as it were. Host: Thank you very much, Maria, for your call. I think Maria's problem is more common than not. Can anyone address it? Karen Goodwyn. KG: If you have a need for assistive equipment, the department can assist you in guaranteeing a low interest loan if you don't qualify for any of the other programs and it sounds to me that because your interest is not vocational it doesn't really fit into the Department of Rehabilitation's program to get you a job, but you do have other access equipment needs so you might want to contact our agency and ask about the equipment loan programs that we operate. Host: Equipment loan. Anything else? Norm, Lisa? LW: I would say, just be persistent. You do know what you need and we had an older braille output system pass through our center recently as a donation. It's not there now, but just keep putting our your need. You might call the Lion's clubs in you area and if you call the center in Sacramento there's the Sacramento Center for Assistive Technology . Let them know that you're looking for this and your persistence will probably pay off. Unfortunately, your need is for a piece of technology that as yet has not been recognized as a widely needed piece of technology and yet with the Americans with Disabilities Act I think more and more people are going to recognize a need for braille output technology, that businesses that serve the public are going to say, gee, maybe I need to have braille output attached to my computer here so that I can print the daily menu out in braille or I can print my newsletter out in braille and when that starts to happen then we'll see the prices come down. There are... it's just like the voice input technology which three years ago was $10,000 and is now $1,000. We haven't seen the economy of scale yet for braille output and yet I'm very hopeful that we will. A center such as mine would love to own a braille output device too and yet it's still very steep. Host: I thank our listeners for being patient and holding on, but I do want to ask this. In our report at the beginning of this program, we heard that it cost less than a dollar to put a closed caption chip in all TVs. Would it be that cheap if all makers of computers were to put braille output and voice input devices into computers from the start. Would that work? Would that be cheap? NC: Not for braille, but the voice capabilities... more and more computers are starting to have that built into them. Certainly all the Mac computers have it into them and I'm convinced that all the IBM compatible ones will have the capability of speech so what you really need is the right kind of software. Host: So that could be something that could be part of a standard for universal design, right? NC: Yes. Host: Alright, let's hear from David in Sebastopol. Caller #3: Glad you finally got to me and I wanted to add a very positive note because for the past five years I've been the field trainer for the Department of Rehabilitation for the State of California, and I have dealt with folks who are seriously disabled physically, that is, quadriplegics as well as people who are blind and people who are deaf and people who are deaf and blind, and extraordinary amounts of effort and money has been spent on these people in order to allow them to be independent and employed and while it is not true for everyone this is one place where the field is level and while this may not be politically acceptable, not everyone is talented, or educated, or capable of doing everything and almost 100 percent of the time the people who have been my clients and clients of the Department of Rehabilitation here in California arrive at our doorstep knowing nothing. I don't know where to get it, I never heard of it, nobody ever told me, and while certainly some people fall into this category, there is a great need for self-help for finding information. People who are blind who do not even know about the government's service that provides books on tape and so on and that they are qualified to receive things just as simple as that and high technology things are not simple for anyone to specify and to my knowledge the local rehab departments as well as Sacramento are working on this at this very moment, having just had a conversation with one of the district supervisors this morning in this regard, so I would be very hopeful in terms of people getting employed. Major employers are cooperating with the ADA. People like IDS where there are several completely blind people who have passed all the difficult state examinations and are now on the process of being trained to be financial consultants. Kaiser Hospital in Northern California, who are employing visually impaired folks and providing the adaptive equipment that they need to do their essential jobs. Host: That's definitely putting a very positive spin on a difficult area and I thank you very much for your call, David, from someone who's in the front line of trying to access services and goods for people with disabilities. Let me just tag onto David's call by informing our listeners that two valuable booklets on resources for people with disabilities. One, Materials for Consumers with Disabilities by the Telecommunications Education Trust Depository and that can be obtained by calling area code 415-777-9648. That's the Telecommunications Education Trust Depository. Also, the World Institute on Disability Resource List or WID, here in Oakland, you can call and receive their resource list at 510-763-4100. Again, those two numbers were 415-777-9648 and 510-763-4100. Let's here from Connie, now, in San Francisco. Welcome to the program, Connie. Caller #4: I moved to San Francisco three years ago and I was sixty and that was my greatest disability. I was in the clerical field. I suffer from a disability that's very common. I have manic-depressive syndrome and I have lithium therapy to handle it and I went for a year to the Fisherman's Wharf office of the rehab department and it was very, very frustrating. And finally I realized at the end of the year... I got some statistics on people like me, we are at the very end of the line and the people like paraplegics, severely disabled, blind, because I finally, just by happenstance, I got a job at St. Mary's in transcription. I'm a clerical worker. And there was a blind woman there and there was a schizophrenic who also with his... SSI was allowed to piece out his income with a little more earnings from the hospital. I've wondered rather if the hospital gains in cheap labor this way, because people being on pensions - SSI - then the hospital doesn't, well, that particular hospital may not have had to spend so much money on them. But the blind woman, in particular, had a very involved apparatus for transcription and the fact that she did not crank out sixty reports a day was not held against her whereas I was fired on the basis of not being able to meet the quota and I found it very cruel and unfair in my case. Host: Connie, let me ask you an additional question. Did you see or know of any disparity in wages paid to those on SSI at that hospital from other folks? Caller #4: It was just a suspicion of mine. The schizophrenic told me that he was on SSI and that he could only work a certain amount because SSI did not allow him to work beyond a certain level of income, so this may have been an advantage for the hospital. Host: Thank you very much for your call, Connie. Karen Goodwyn, can you enlighten us on this? KG: Well, I would, just on the basis of some very skimpy facts, just do some very basic speculation, and it's pure speculation. That is, that, probably the man was afraid of losing his SSI by working too much and was faced with the classic work disincentives that people with disabilities have to overcome if they're going to become fully employed. Host: Classic work disincentives meaning they're not allowed to work over a certain amount or they lose their aid, right? KG: They loose a lot of benefits if they choose to work... it's like a point at which their benefits are significantly reduced. Host: Sounds just like the welfare or any other state aid. KG: Yes, it's a typical catch-22 for a lot of people. On the subject of productivity, I work with many, many blind people who produce as much or more than other people. I have disabled people who are telecommuters in my pilot program who produce more at home because they have better equipment at home than we supply them with in the office. I don't see any real disparity in production and there's certainly no disparity in pay. Host: Our number again is 1-800-848-2298. Lisa Wahl? LW: I wanted to confirm what the caller was saying about people with emotional problems not being at the front of the list for adaptive technology though and I think, again, that's an education process. I've known some kids in school who, because of their behavior, they weren't allowed to touch the computers because people were afraid they would break them and yet these were kids that their intention was not to break the computer. They understood the computer, they related to the computer, they knew more about the computer than the teacher did and yet people didn't have the understanding to say the computer might be a good thing for this kid to be doing and I find with adults too that we don't yet understand the ways in which computers can empower and enable people to work when they have less obvious disabilities and that that's a consciousness raising thing for the society as well as employers and people with disabilities. Host: It's certainly a direction that we're moving in. I think it was the State Board of Education, recently, here in California, has issued a requirement that all students attending college have computers, any public college university in the state, which is just incredible if we think about, in our own lifetimes, how recent the ubiquity of computer use has become. From Pomona, we'll hear from Veronica now. Welcome to the program. Caller #5: I'd like to come back to the cost issue on a little different angle that I think has almost come up but not quite made it into the discussion yet and that is, we've talked several times about the rehab programs and these various government agencies and who will help buying things and I think part of the problem gets down to marketing. Who's making the equipment. For instance, if you are a blind person and you have the assumption that a government agency is going to provide this equipment for you... I know people who go to employers and you can say to the employer, well, gosh, I need a $15,000 braille display and I need this, and he doesn't know any better and boom, they say the state bought it or my big corporation bought this big braille display. There's no incentives to bring the price down because it's not out there in the ordinary consumer market. Now, myself as a diabetic, for instance, I need to use a meter for blood testing. Well, everybody's kind of wandered around for years and they've made a speech box so that it will read the output display, although there's kind of a missing link about where do you put the blood. Nobody's figured out how to help a blind person do that. And now that they're coming up with new versions where you don't have to do all this complicated stuff their excuse is, well, we're not going to put speech in it because it's marketing, you know, we don't think that other people will need it. You're such a small group, so it's always being done as an afterthought by somebody else, by a specific "we make things for the disabilities." I think we need to focus a little more on this angle and because as long as everybody gets the word out that it's all associated with some government group nobody will touch it. Host: Thank you very much, Veronica, for bringing all those valuable points into the discussion. Our number again is 1-800-848-2298. Norm Coombs, do you want to respond to some of the points Veronica brought up? NC: Yes, I would. I think she's quite right. Marketing is an important part of it in several ways. I know in speech synthesizers and such, which I'm most familiar with, they come in all kinds of sizes and prices, and often times it seems like the schools and the businesses buy the most expensive and I know a lot of blind people sometimes don't prefer what's supposed to be the Cadillac and that it appears to me that the expensive, adaptive equipment, can afford the salesman and the glitzy brochures and go out and impress the public, that this is what you have to have and often times something for half the price is every bit as good. And so getting the word out is difficult to compare one with another. Host: Our number again if you'd care to join our discussion on new technologies for people with disabilities is 1-800-848-2298. Veronica also mentioned how many people, when they hear that a particular adaptive technology or particular service is associated with a government agency they won't touch it, they won't go near it. On the other hand, some disability rights advocates are arguing that the only way you are going to get 100 percent access by all people with disabilities is by having huge government subsidies. You yourself, Norm Coombs, have written that the U.S. spends almost $120 billion a year towards support of people with disabilities, but it spends only $3 billion a year on rehabilitation, that is, creating a self-support structure of independence. How can government policy on the federal/state level begin to reorient, reallocate these resources in a more useful way, Norm? NC: Well, I think again it's a social attitude that we have an easier time helping people that seem down and out and you feel so good about it and the whole idea of helping someone who maybe isn't in quite as desperate a situation to become really independent is harder to see. When you really help someone to become empowered and independent I think it's not only a financial kind of thing but you impact that person at a a very deep level. I've been teaching for over thirty years, been using computers for about 14, 15 and a friend of mine not long ago said that I was a different person than I used to be. Basically saying that, having become more independent than I was before not only made me a better worker but it changed kind of who I was and my own self concept. Host: From San Francisco, we're joined by Daniel. Welcome to the program, Daniel. Caller #6: Hi there. How are you? Host: Fine, how are you? Caller #6: Pretty good. I know Norm Coombs through AXS-1LIB and EASI so he may know me through that venue. We're talking about a lot of adaptive technologies, some of which can be fairly expensive but of course some of them are simple for the blind, as magnifiers and so forth and currently insurance companies don't cover for those sorts of really simple adaptive technologies and I was wondering how things are going in terms of incorporating that into the health care plan so that people can have low cost or have insurance companies pay for these relatively inexpensive adaptive technologies? Host: Thank you very much for your question, Daniel. Who knows? How's this working with health care reform, Lisa Wahl? LW: At the moment it's so wildly inconsistent that it's... there's no logic to it. You'll find a state agency that covers some health needs for children. One moment they will say that they would never in a million years buy a computer and the next moment you turn around and they've bought a computer for a kid. Insurance companies - private insurance companies - are just as inconsistent and I don't even know if it's based on people making a very good case and backing it up and getting doctor's letters and things like that. I think for people with disabilities that have an awareness about equipment and it can be as simple as a magnifier but it can be as crucial as a certain type of wheelchair that would allow you to either get out of your house or never get out of your house and so those devices in the debate are very, very important to a small minority of people that are aware of how life and death important they can be. I have not seen any clear cut trend one way or the other on what we call durable medical or adaptive technology. I know families that have traveled to Washington recently to tell people if you don't cover these feeding tubes my child's going to have to be hospitalized. They may not be much per unit but you're looking at a lifetime worth and yet it's so much cheaper to keep someone at home then to keep someone in an institution, so I think the debate goes on and whether adaptive technology is included or not it's all just an expression of our level of consciousness at the moment and I'm worried because I don't think it's high enough. Host: Karen Goodwyn. KG: California is attempting to organize all the different resources available for technological assistive devices through the technology grant they have and they have the California Assistive Technology System with the CATS steering council, which is going to try to bring together these various groups with various abilities to fund and coordinate and to try to reach out to underserved populations - the elderly, youth - and make a little bit more cohesive delivery system for all of these different things. Host: I know in preparing for this show I read about a burgeoning industry that's attempting to provide reconditioned or used technologies, tools, for people with disabilities. The "screen reader" technology system for example that you can buy reconditioned for $1375 as opposed to $4,000-$6,000 dollars for a new one. Are any of you aware of this new industry coming up? KG: I know there are organizations that try to recycle equipment. I know Cristina Foundation tries to recycle business equipment to disabled users but I'm not aware of the organization you mentioned. Host: Well, I hope that this expands and we are out of time. So much information to cover and so little time. Thank you all so much. My guests have been Norm Coombs, Karen Goodwyn and Lisa Wahl. Our thanks also to WXXI in Rochester for their help and to all of you who called into the show. Join us again next time. I'm Jude Thilman for "The Communications Revolution." ****** .