Disability Futures

It is understandable if you get choked up (and find your faith in humanity restored) while watching this TEDx Talk by 14 year old Jacob Smilg. In it, Jacob recounts how he used his tech know-how and love for his friend Ethan to create a device for Ethan to more easily communicate after a freak accident and resulting brain injury.

In the summer of 2013, while at summer camp, on a clear and cloudless day playing Frisbee in a field, Ethan Kadish was struck by a bolt of lightning. The jolt stopped his heart and the resulting brain injuries left him unable to function independently, making it impossible for him to speak, or even to breathe on his own.

When Jacob learned that Ethan did retain the ability to blink his eyes to answer yes and no questions, he had an “ah-ha” moment. Using a microcontroller in a 3D printed case, an LED display, and two big buttons mounted onto Ethan’s wheelchair headrest, Jacob created a simple Yes/No device that Ethan can use instead of blinking his eyes. This makes communication less ambiguous and allows him to communicate with more people. “With my device, Ethan can more easily communicate with a group and having real conversations makes him overjoyed,” says Jacob.

When I was 13 months old, a household accident resulted in third-degree burns to about 20% of my body.

My injuries were critical. Upon arriving at the emergency room, I was put into a medically-induced coma. I spent the next five weeks in the hospital fighting for my life. More than 40 years later, I still have noticeable scars on my neck, right shoulder, right arm, and chest.

The physical recovery from a burn injury is incredibly long and grueling, from skin graft surgeries to rehab to pressure garments to follow-up surgeries. But in many ways, the physical recovery is just the beginning. Burn injuries forever alter a person’s appearance. Burn injuries heal, but the scars don’t disappear. Emotional recovery can be a life-long process.

Social media sites like Facebook have the power to create community connections that can aid in a burn survivor’s emotional recovery. Instead, news broke last week that Facebook removed a photo of Lasse Gustavson, a Swedish firefighter who sustained severe burn injuries to his face on the job. Of all the questionable decisions Facebook has made—and there have been many—this may be among the most grievous.

After removing Gustavson’s photo two times, Facebook acknowledged the incident and reinstated the photo of the firefighter. While some news outlets are reporting that Facebook issued an apology, the “apology” appears to be a fairly typical error message.

I’m willing to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt: the people who work at Facebook agree that the photo should not have been removed. But it appears that Facebook’s removal of images of burn survivors may be a “regular occurrence.” If true, this pattern suggests a flawed algorithm, not a one-time computer glitch.

The diverse D.C. coalition against assisted suicide, NoDCSuicide.org, has come up with an infographic showing the abject failure of the D.C. assisted suicide bill to protect people from the dangers of mistake, coercion and abuse. 

The bill doesn’t even casually mention, much less require, self-administration of the lethal drugs, making it the most clearcut active euthanasia (legalized homicide) bill ever to receive serious legislative support in the U.S. 

Please go to the coalition website and share this important infographic, calling on Mayor Bowser to veto the bill (social media sharing options are included).

You may already be familiar with VoiceOver on the iPhone, which uses screen reading to describe what is on screen for people with limited or no vision. But Apple also works with hearing aid companies to optimize iPhone for people with hearing impairments, beaming the phone's audio directly over Bluetooth.

And some features, like FaceTime, may not be obviously seen as accessibility tools, but since it debuted in 2010 with the iPhone 4 it has allowed millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to communicate visually, from anywhere, using sign language.

These are but some of the ways Apple intends to help promote accessibility.

This bill amends the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to require a state to identify, evaluate, and provide special education and related services to children who have visual or hearing disabilities (or both) and also are, or may be, classified in another disability category. A state must ensure that it has enough qualified personnel to serve children who have such disabilities and that a full continuum of alternative placements is available to meet the needs of disabled children for special education and related services.

The individualized education program for each child that is either (or both) visually or hearing impaired must include specified components and must provide the child with instruction that meets the child's unique learning needs. Similarly, the individualized family service plan for an infant or toddler with a hearing disability must include specified components.

A states' closure of a special school serving deaf or blind children shall count as a reduction of its financial support for special education and related services for purposes of the prohibition against reducing state financial support for such services from one fiscal year to the next.

The bill also: (1) authorizes grants for training special education personnel, to be used in preparing individuals to become qualified teachers and early intervention specialists for children with hearing disabilities; and (2) establishes within the Department of Education the Anne Sullivan Macy Center on Visual Disability and Educational Excellence to better support students with visual disabilities.

Although the law has been enacted in a handful of states with a mostly white population, it faces particular opposition in the nation’s capital, home to a large African American community. In national surveys, African Americans have consistently stood against assisted suicide.

Critics say the notion of doctors hastening death for terminally ill patients runs counter to religious teachings about the sanctity of life.

Among them is Pamela Wandix, a 59-year-old African American woman with esophageal cancer who lives east of the Anacostia River. She saw her sister die of bone cancer last year and has buried nine other siblings. Death is often on her mind.

A new wearable aid for the blind and visually impaired people uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to better analyze fed data from cameras and sensors. The device is being developed by Swiss startup Eyra, and is named Horus, after the Egyptian god. Its an apt symbol since stories tell us that Horus lost his eye in a fight only to have it restored by another god.

Horus is a wrap-around headband equipped with two cameras to watch for what’s in front of the user. The images seen are narrated through earpieces that directly stimulate the tiny bones in the ear, with a technology called bone conduction. This way, the audio from the device does not interfere with surrounding noise and also does not disturb other people.

Workers at polling locations in Michigan will not ask you for your voter registration card.

But they will ask for some form of photo ID.

No photo ID? You can still vote

You should know you do not need a photo ID to vote, but you will be asked for one.

So even if Steve Merring wasn’t wearing his school ID, he could have voted in that election.

All you have to do is sign an affidavit, according to state law.

The ACLU of Michigan recently sent a letter to hundreds of city clerks reminding them of the law, and asking them to post signs at polling places informing voters “that they may, in fact, vote without a valid picture ID by signing the affidavit form.”

Police escorted protesters in wheelchairs out of a state office building late Tuesday afternoon after a group advocating for disability rights blocked its main entrance.

Around 50 protesters filled the lobby of 1 Ashburton Place, and the protesters said their group included about 200 people, some who were on the building's 11th floor and others who were outside.

The disability-rights organization ADAPT organized the demonstration, bringing in members from the Massachusetts chapter and chapters in other states.

According to the Disability Policy Commission, the protest was held to demand that the state "negotiate in good faith with advocates to save the Personal Care Assistance program that serves as a lifeline for 26,000 people with disabilities to live in the community outside of nursing homes."