Nonprofits boost access to tools for disabled

THE BIG PICTURE: Stephen Mitchell uses his video magnifier to read at his condo in Narragansett. Mitchell has macular degeneration and uses the magnifier to read his newspaper, the mail and pill bottle labels. Several nonprofits are experiencing demand for this type of technology and iPads in particular, and the nonprofits that work with the Rhode Island Assistive Technology Access Partnership have experienced staffing growth and increases in demand for these devices in the past year. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
THE BIG PICTURE: Stephen Mitchell uses his video magnifier to read at his condo in Narragansett. Mitchell has macular degeneration and uses the magnifier to read his newspaper, the mail and pill bottle labels. Several nonprofits are experiencing demand for this type of technology and iPads in particular, and the nonprofits that work with the Rhode Island Assistive Technology Access Partnership have experienced staffing growth and increases in demand for these devices in the past year. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Stephen Mitchell of Narragansett uses a desktop video magnifier supplied by a local nonprofit to read his mail, the newspaper and his medication-container labels.

The nonprofit Ocean State Center for Independent Living in Warwick helped Mitchell obtain the device, which assists with daily living for those with visual impairment, he said. Mitchell said he was diagnosed with macular degeneration in 2011.

“I had been reading with a magnifying glass and that didn’t do the trick,” said Mitchell, who is retired. “I’d be lost without the paper.”

Video magnifiers and iPads are two of the kinds of technologies in demand in Rhode Island for people with disabilities, according to nonprofits that help make them available.

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The state’s Rhode Island Assistive Technology Access Partnership, which partners with the R.I. Office of Rehabilitation Services, gets about $360,000 a year to cover staffing salaries at some of the nonprofits and purchase of devices for tryouts. Some devices also are provided to people with disabilities on loan, said Kathleen Grygiel, acting ATAP program director.

She is also administrator of the vocational rehabilitation program at ORS, which coordinates funding and activities. The federal funding comes through the U.S. Office of Health and Human Services.

“The expectation with federal funding is to create a mechanism to ensure Rhode Islanders with disabilities become knowledgeable about devices, have tryouts and have access through loan or reuse programs,” said Grygiel.

Assistive technologies help with daily living as well as workplace issues for those with vision, hearing or speech impairment, as well as with developmental disabilities like autism. These are often free to qualified clients who show need, income eligibility and disability.

While funding has remained steady at ATAP, the number of clients served through training, demonstrations, loans or other device access has grown from 575 in fiscal 2014 to 1,573 in fiscal 2015, Grygiel said.

She attributes that growth in part to greater awareness, as the nonprofits and programs market the devices and services. But a bigger reason is the 2014 consent decree settlement between Rhode Island and the U.S. Department of Justice affecting individuals with intellectual disabilities, Grygiel said.

For 3,250 Rhode Islanders, the U.S. DOJ Office of Public Affairs said at the time, the landmark 10-year agreement constituted the nation’s first statewide settlement that addresses the rights of people with disabilities to receive state-funded employment and daytime services in the broader community, rather than in segregated, sheltered workshops and facility-based day programs.

Along with the growth in use of services, the Assistive Technology Conference of New England, a decades-old annual conference, was renamed with a regional scope last year, and has been expanded to two days for the first time this year on Nov. 19-20 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick.

Participants are coming from 16 states, said Kelly Charlebois, executive director at TechAccess.

The nonprofits involved in providing assistive technologies to the public include TechAccess and Ocean State, both in Warwick.

The nonprofit East Bay Educational Collaborative in Warren provides services and devices statewide to youth and young adults from birth through age 24 with learning disabilities, autism, low vision or blindness and other disabilities, said Lisa Labitt, assistive technology specialist and coordinator for the nonprofit’s ATAP center for children and youth.

Also providing devices is the state’s Adaptive Telephone Equipment Loan Program. And the Rhode Island Council on Assistive Technology is an ATAP partner.

IPads have become increasingly popular at TechAccess, said Charlebois.

“We’ve developed some professional-development modules around training for the iPad and using it for individuals with disabilities: accessibility features and apps designed for the disabled,” she said. “It’s a technology available off the shelf, so there’s a lot of interest in it.”

TechAccess added two clinical employees to a clinical staff of four (there are seven employees total) to meet demand in the last year.

TechAccess works with about 300 clients, mostly youth, and workforce uses for the iPad are in demand for adult activities, such as job-hunting, she said.

For individuals with visual impairment, the iPad’s built-in “zoom” and voice-over features can help with filling out a job application. The camera on an iPad can take a photo of a document, install it using a specialized app and have that information read to the user with built-in speech feedback, Charlebois added.

In the Adaptive Telephone Equipment Loan Program, the most popular product is a Cap Tel captioned telephone, which is about half the size of a laptop, said program coordinator Denise Corson.

“This technology is for people that have a hard time understanding speech,” Corson explained. “What the phone does is: when you speak to a hard-of-hearing person, your conversation is captioned by a live operator. [Then], the person can read the conversation on a screen built into the phone.”

The state provides some of the funding, and some comes from a surcharge on Rhode Islanders’ phone bills, she said.

Next year, Corson hopes to add iPhones and iPads as landlines become obsolete, because these devices have programs that come preloaded if you’re deaf. A bill written to enable this did not make it to the state Senate last year, so proponents intend to try again in 2016, she said. •

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1 COMMENT

  1. Thank you PBN for running this important story about the potential that technology holds to help people with disabilities to lead very productive lives – at home, in school, AND in the workplace. The role of non-profits is key in getting these supports to people in a timely way – so that technology is available and can be used when it is really needed. Thank you again for covering this topic in your publication. I hope that I can read more in the future.