disabled persons and computing

The impact of the personal computer upon persons hav-ing disabilities involving sight, hearing, or movement has been significant but mixed. Computers can help disabled people communicate and interact with their environment, better enabling them to work and live in the mainstream of society. At the same time, changes in computer technology can, if not ameliorated, exclude some disabled persons from fuller participation in a society where computer access and skills are increasingly taken for granted.

Computers as Enablers

Computers can be very helpful to disabled persons. With the use of text-to-speech software, blind people can have online documents read to them. (With the aid of a scan-ner, printed materials can also be input and read aloud.) Persons with low vision can benefit from software that can present text in large fonts or magnify the contents of the screen. Text can also be printed (embossed) in Braille. Deaf or hearing-impaired persons can now use e-mail or instant messaging software for much of their communica-tion needs, largely replacing the older and more cumber-some teletype (TTY and TTD) systems. As people who have seen presentations by physicist Stephen Hawking know, even quadriplegics who have only the use of head or finger movements can input text and have it spoken by a voice synthesizer. Further, advances in coupling eye movements (and even brain wave patterns) to computer systems and robotic extensions offer hope that even profoundly disabled persons will be able to be more self-sufficient.

Challenges

Unfortunately, changes in computer technology can also cause problems for disabled persons. The most pervasive problem arose when text-based operating systems such as MS-DOS were replaced by systems such as Microsoft Win-dows and the Macintosh that are based on graphic icons and the manipulation of objects on the screen. While text commands and output on the older system could be easily turned into speech for the visually impaired, everything, even text, is actually graphics on a Windows system. While it is possible to have software “hook into” the operating sys-tem to read text within Windows out loud, it is much more difficult to provide an alternative way for a blind person to find, click on, drag, or otherwise manipulate screen objects. Thus far, while Microsoft and other operating system devel-opers have built some “accessibility” features such as screen magnification into recent versions of their products, there is no systematic, integrated facility that would allow a blind person to have the same facility as a sighted person.

The growth of the World Wide Web also poses prob-lems for the visually impaired, since many Web pages rely on graphical buttons for navigation. Software plug-ins can provide audio cues to help with screen navigation. While Web browsers usually have some flexibility in setting the size of displayed fonts, some newer features (such as cas-cading style sheets) can remove control over font size from the user.

Because most computer systems today use graphical user interfaces, the failure to provide effective access may be depriving blind and visually impaired persons of employment opportunities. Meanwhile, the computer industry, educational institutions, and workplaces face potential challenges under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires that public and workplace facilities be made accessible to the disabled. Some funding through the Technology-Related Assistance Act has been provided to states for promoting the use of adaptive technology to improve accessibility.