Disabilities
Assistive Technology in the Home and Workplace

Objectives

We need to recognize that people with disabilities have contributions to make to our profession and at the same time our profession has contributions that can be made to the disabled. This class will look at these opportunities especially in the light of the American Disabilities Act (summary).

[Class Notes]

[Class Projects]

[Class Assignments]

[Examination Questions]

[Assistive Technologies]

One of the most impressive uses of the web and of our technologies can be found in connection with the the Starbright Foundation. Visit this site to learn how seriously ill children can be helped.

Readings

• "Justices Further Limit Scope of Disability Act - Law Doesn't Trump Seniority Policies", By Charles Lane, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, April 30, 2002; Page A04
• NaturalPoint trackIR hands free mouse.
• "Seeing-eye mice- New device helps the blind", MSNBC, JERUSALEM, April 13.

  Blind Israeli Ariel Gamliel uses a special computer mouse to study a map of the Old City of Jerusaelm. The mouse acts as the eyes of the partially sighted and blind by helping them view computer graphics through touch.

• Microsoft Accessibility - an excellent listing of products and aids (last accessed 2001/04/13).
• A Roanoke Times and World Report front page article about our own Virgil Cook, a faculty member in English at Virginia Tech.
• The Special Services Laboratory located in the Newman Library at Virginia Tech (the work of the laboratory is campus wide).
• Services for Students with Disabilities at Virginia Tech
• The Eye Gaze System was developed in Virginia by LC Technologies, Inc. to assist wheelchair paraplegic patients access a computer using the "heads-up" technology.
• Examples of Acceptable and Offensive Language
• Disability and the Workplace: An Internet Primer from Cornell University Library.
• Job Accommodations Network (JAN)
• Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (the first "Civil Rights" Act for the handicapped).
• The Americans with Disabilities Act, (ADA), 1990.
• More accesses to documents pertinent to ADA.
• Computers Assisting The Handicapped by Christopher R. Murphy (CS 3604, Spring 1997).
• Accommodations for the Handicapped in the Teaching Environment.
• VIRGINIA ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM (VATS).
• Disability Access Symbols - Produced by the Graphic Artists Guild Foundation - with support and technical assistance from the Office for Special Constituencies, National Endowment for the Arts.

References

The pages in this directory were modified to meet the "Bobby" standards by Michael O'Laughlen, Shawn Murphy, Jennifer Pritchett, Michael Leiderman, Marcus Hays, and James Brox in Fall 1999.