Help in the Workplace and Home for Visually Impaired and Aging

By Disaboom Staff

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By Disaboom Staff

You don’t have to be visually impaired to have trouble reading labels, newspapers, menus and instructions. The problem might be that you are over 40. It’s extremely frustrating; especially when you really do need to read the fine print and a magnifying glass is nowhere to be found. For the visually impaired, it’s frustrating to be in a work environment, and have to ask for help. That’s what happened to Maurie Hill, who works for Ai Squared, a maker of visually-impaired assistive technology. Sitting at her desk waiting for a document to print she instead heard a “beep-beep” from the copy/printer machine alerting her to a paper jam. Now, for anyone who could read the LCD screen, they would know to open the draw on the right and pull out the jammed paper, clear the machine and press the start button. But Maurie is visually-impaired and couldn’t see the screen. That was before the ZoomReader iPhone App. Today, Maurie uses her IPhone 4 App to take a picture of the screen, and then listens to a voice-activated message instructing her how to clear the jam.

Doug Hacker, Vice President of Business Development for Ai Squared told Disaboom that the new iPhone App, ZoomReader, is the latest technology from the company who for over 20 years has been the global leader of assistive technology for the visually-impaired. “This new product can take a picture of what you are looking at, and using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Technology and Text-to-Speech Technology, convert the letters in the image to actual text and then read that text back to you.” Doug continued, “And what’s really useful is that it is convenient and portable. Most people have their cellular phones with them at all times. There are other products that do similar things but they cost up to $1,000. What we are trying to do with the iPhone App is make the solutions mainstream and affordable and not something you have to go outside your normal world to buy.”

Disaboom is particularly interested in new products that allow people with disabilities to return to the workforce, or help those who are already working advance in their careers. We believe that assistive technology is the key. So we asked Doug Hacker what else Ai Squared was doing in this area.

“Ai Squared’s flagship product, ZoomText and other products we make such as our large print keyboard are getting people back to work,” answered Doug. “Turns out that visually impairment is one of the easiest disabilities to “solve” in the workplace. We see people who use our technology being 100% as effective in their job as those who don’t need the assistive technology. Interestingly, there have been studies done that show that people who need assistive technology in the work place, have more retention than other people. They have better morale because they value their position in the workplace. We see the ZoomReader iPhone App being an extension.” Hacker continued, “People with visual impairment want to do all the same things other people want to do. With the technology we have on hand, we can make those things possible.”

If you would like a chance to win a ZoomReader, you must own an iPhone4. Please send your name, address, email address, and age to Cheryl@nteractiveevents.com. We will draw the winning entry on May 2, 2011.

Employing veterans: why is it so difficult?

Conclusion: Written by JOHN BOERSTLER

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Part 1 of this article identified the problem of translating military skills to civilian professions and part 2 tackled the issue of networking for private sector employment. With veteran unemployment running at 10%, solutions to these problems are keys for presenting the best possible scenarios for gainful employment.

Problem: The stigma of behavioral and physical health issues in returning veterans.

Disabled veterans are at an immediate disadvantage when compared to their civilian counterparts. Whether vets suffer from post-traumatic stress or from a back condition sustained from their service in the Armed Forces, they’re limited in their ability to fully-function. On one side you have the employer who might be more reluctant in hiring a veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because they simply don’t understand the condition. On the other you have a veteran who may be limited in what they can do at work because of their disabilities and is therefore unemployable. Both are challenges for the veterans to overcome when searching for a position that’s right for them.

We’ve identified the problem, what is the solution?

Disabled veterans can benefit from existing hiring preferences in federal, state and local government.

Many private corporations and non-profit organizations have disabled or protected veteran status on their entrance questionnaires that sometimes translate into specific preferences for those seeking employment. However, when addressing the need to overcome the stigma of hiring these heroes, larger information campaigns are needed to set the record straight. For example, the Real Warriors campaign is a Defense-funded program that addresses the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) through marketing, social media, and public service announcements via their interactive website. More information on the federal, state and local hiring preferences for disabled veterans can be found by logging onto their websites:

Feds Hire Vets

Veterans Preference in Texas

Veterans Preference in City of Houston

Copy of Executive Order

Although there are many great employment assistance resources and services available to our community of returning veterans and their families, it seems as if the word is still not getting out despite major pushes at the national, regional, state and local levels. As much as it is the responsibility of each service man and woman to take charge of their own transition, civilian employers need to pull their weight as well. Doing more to understand the benefits of hiring veterans and learning about how their disabilities, both emotional and physical, can impact their ability to function in a work setting are both critically important. The numbers are an indicator of how our transitioning veterans are faring nationally but I guarantee it’s worse at the grass roots level because many cases go unreported. Many employers and veterans have stepped up to overcome this great challenge and more will continue to as awareness grows. Be sure you’re part of the solution as opposed to being part of the problem and we’ll work together to get vets employed.

Join John for a discussion on our blog at www.disaboomlive.com. Or visit us online at www.disaboom.com.

John@LoneStarVeterans.org

On TV, PWDs Are “Ratings Gold”

May 10, 2011, 9:39 am

[By Suzanne Robitaille]

Every now and then the media writes an article about reality shows thatblend in people with disabilities. Favorites are American Idol contestant James Durbin, who has both Tourette and Asperger syndromes, and Luke Adams, the first Deaf contestant on The Amazing Race. While it’s great to see differently abled folk thrown into the crazy, shenanigan-lovin’ circus that is reality TV, it’s about time that producers began realizing the potential for PWDs to draw in top ratings all on their own.

There’s no finer person to lead this trend than Oprah Winfrey, who just crowned Zach Anner, a comedian who has cerebral palsy, as the winner of his own TV show on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Anner plans to travel the world in his wheelchair, cracking jokes about inaccessible palaces and how yoga looks a lot like how he puts on pants in the morning.

In a cable series on NBC’s Universal Sports, Take a Seat followed filmmaker Dominic Gill, who shared a tandem bike with 10 physically challenged partners during a cross-country trip. The network is innately familiar with physical disabilities as it sponsors and airs the Paralympics Games. Not to be outdone is TLC’s popular series Little People, Big World, which follows an Oregon family of little (and average-height) people as they juggle the social and physical challenges of living with dwarfism.

Across the pond, the Brits are fashionably early to this game. There’s BBC America’s Britain’s Missing Top Model, where all the models have a disability, yet, in the beauty industry, “an ounce of fat is a greater hurdle than a missing limb,” as The New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley keenly notes. Dancing On Wheels is another BBC program where six couples compete for the Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships – and some of them do a mean foxtrot.

And though it ended in 2009, BBC’s The Cast Offs was like Survivor for PWDs, where viewers rooted for a paraplegic, a dwarf, a blind person, a deaf person, a man with deformed arms and a woman with a facial condition to endure on a British island for 90 days. One reviewer called it “Lord of the Flies on crack.”

PWDs are now even creating their own web series on YouTube. One to check out is My Deaf Family, which is executive produced by Deaf actress Marlee Matlin (who also is a contestant in this season’s Celebrity Apprentice). A BBC Ouch! web series, My Big Fat Inclusive Wedding, asks disabled brides to recount the unique touches that made their days so special. Ouch! also hosts a fascinating web podcast between three disabled comedians in Australia, San Francisco and in London.

Since no one person with one type of disability can truly represent someone with a different disability, you can bet there’s gads and gads of PWD storytelling to explore on the tube. New Mobility Magazine said it best: PWDs “show the reality of life. The fullness of life. Add in the curiosity factor, and we’re ratings gold.”

TecAccess Trains Disabled Youth For Social Media Careers

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are transforming how businesses develop new products and improve services — and the need for tech-savvy people to run social media for companies is growing by leaps and bounds. At the same time, young people with disabilities like autism and other developmental or intellectual disorders are finding themselves underemployed. One possible solution: Put them to work in the social media field.

TecAccess, a provider of accessibility consulting services, has teamed up with the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services and non-profit American Epiphany for a pilot internship program to teach special needs young people to become social media specialists and land jobs in the corporate world, with the goal of helping them develop long-term successful careers.

“Corporate America is finally realizing what the kids have known for several years now….and want to jump on the social media bandwagon, says Debra Ruh, founder and CEO of TecAccess. “Our goal is to expose these young people to a work environment and teach them how to use skills they already have in an appropriate way that can pay huge dividends for the businesses that hire them,” says Ruh.

The first class got underway earlier this month, with students between ages 19 and 24 with disabilities ranging from autism and Down syndrome to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Social media is a niche that can easily be filled by high functioning people with these types of disabilities, because it doesn’t require an as-intense level of social or customer interaction as other jobs might. The focus on information technology also appeals to many people with disabilities who have grown up with technology that helps them learn and communicate, and tend to be more tech-savvy as a whole.

Class instructors are already reporting progress. One of the interns with Aspergers’ who came into the first class was very hesitant and withdrawn, and didn’t connect with other members of the group, says instructor Chris Hagerman. The intern had difficulty speaking when asked a question in class, but she could write “furiously” and had no trouble reading her answers out loud. “There was much less pressure writing down her answer and then reading it to the class,” Hagerman says. “Now she can’t wait to get started.”

Long-time Richmond, Va., news anchor Andrea McDaniel is the founder of American Epiphany, a one-year-old 501(c)(3) non-profit that works to help writers create and promote stories that celebrate the vision of America’s Founding Fathers. McDaniel says media folks were early to jump on the social media bandwagon. Facebook and other tools are “the fastest ways of getting information out, as we just witnessed in Egypt [when long-time Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down],” McDaniel says.

For the state of Virginia, which recently received a warning from the U.S. Justice Department over the way the state treats its citizens with disabilities, the pilot internship program is an affordable solution to bringing more training programs to the community for people with disabilities. The Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services helped develop the course curriculum and has provided ongoing support.

Employers Gird for Disabilities Act Changes

Amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act that take effect on May 24 are intended to make businesses focus on accommodation. An attorney explains what owners should expect and do

By Karen E. Klein

Recent amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act widen the range of disabilities and shift the burden of proof from employees to business owners in labor disputes, says Jeff Nowak, a labor and employment attorney at Franczek Radelet in Chicago. The new regulations issued last month by the U.S.Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were mandated by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 and will take effect on May 24. In fiscal year 2010, there were 25,165 disability discrimination charges filed with the EEOC, up from 21,451 charges in fiscal year 2009.Nowak says employers will have to spend more in the future to accommodate disabled employees and assign staff to handle impairment requests. He spoke recently to Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

Karen E. Klein: How do the amended rules compare to the original Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990?

Jeff Nowak: The amendments were enacted on Sept. 25, 2008, and became effective on Jan. 1, 2009. The law made a number of significant changes to the definition of "disability" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Congress approved the final regulations drafted by the EEOC on a bipartisan vote and they were published last month.

As originally enacted, the ADA defines someone with a disability as one who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Individuals also may be protected by the ADA if they are regarded as having a disability, such as HIV, or having a record of a disability, such as alcoholism.

What does the amended law change?

It did nothing to change that basic definition. However, since the ADA took effect, the courts have construed the definition in a relatively narrow fashion. So a court could dispose of a case alleging discrimination by finding that the individual was not actually disabled.

The amendments make sweeping changes in the manner in which these terms now are construed. The final regulations include specific language that says the term "disability" should be broadly construed to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of the ADA.

The message from Congress and the EEOC for business couldn't be any clearer: Stop focusing on whether someone is disabled and focus on the potential discrimination and reasonable accommodation.

These new regulations list certain impairments that the EEOC says will virtually always be found to be a disability. What are those conditions?

They include deafness, blindness, autism, cancer, cerebral palsy, diabetes, epilepsy, and major depression. It's not a per se list, stating that every one of these conditions will always be considered a disability, but it went nearly that far.

What's interesting about this list is the EEOC has always taken the position that you have to conduct an individual assessment to see what the person can or can't do before you make a determination of disability. For instance, I can't assume that diabetes is a disability until I make an assessment of the employee's disability. Now the burden is shifted to the employer to prove it does not constitute a disability.

Certainly if someone is blind or in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy, there's not much dispute that they're disabled.

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