Disability Futures

Can Crowdsourcing Help Make Life Easier For People With Disabilities?

Not the best language, but an interesting take on inclusion.....

"Actually finding the bus stop, not the right street, but standing in the right place when the bus comes, is pretty hard," says Dave Power, president and CEO of the Perkins School for the Blind near Boston. Helen Keller's alma mater is developing a mobile app that will provide audio directions—contributed by volunteers—so that blind people can get close enough to the stop for the bus driver to notice them.

Perkins's app is one of 29 projects that recently received a total of $20 million in funding from Google.org's Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities awards. Several of the winning initiatives rely on crowdsourced information to help the disabled—be they blind, in a wheelchair, or cognitively impaired. It's a commonsense approach to tackling big logistical projects in a world full of people who have snippets of downtime during which they might perform bite-size acts of kindness online. But moving these projects from being just clever concepts to extensive services, based on the goodwill of volunteers, is going to be quite a hurdle.

People with limited mobility may have trouble traversing the last few feet between them and a wheelchair ramp, automatic doors, or other accommodations that aren't easy to find (or may not even exist in some places). Wheelmap, based in Berlin, is trying to help by building online maps of accessible locations. Its website incorporates crowdsourced data. The site lets users type in a city and search for accessible amenities such as restaurants, hotels, and public transit.

DISABILITY ADVOCACY AND TWITTER: WHY USE IT?

https://goo.gl/j7Iafn

This article is aimed at youth with disabilities who will be attending the My Future, My Vote Summit organized by Yo! Disabled and Proud and the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers on May 25, 2016, Sacramento, CA. Alice Wong, Gregg Beratan, and Andrew Pulrang will be giving a presentation about #CripTheVote and a portion of our talk will focus on usage of social media.

Other folks who are curious about Twitter and disability advocacy may be interested as well.

Introduction

#CripTheVote is an online campaign that uses Twitter to have conversations about voting and disability issues. We also have blog posts and a Facebook group where we publish information about our upcoming events and news.

Social media is term that’s used a lot–you might hear about Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram as examples. Broadly speaking, social media are websites or apps that allow users to post information (text, photos, audio) and share it to the public or within a specific network of friends/colleagues.

This article will give a describe the pros and cons of using a social media platform such as Twitter and how to get started for first-time users.

Psychiatric Disability and Accessibility vs. Accommodation

http://goo.gl/3RdX4Y

I have written here on the blog and elsewhere about why and in what ways "accessibility" and "accommodation" are distinct approaches to the inclusion of disabled people at academic conferences, in classrooms, and in social and cultural environments more generally. I have argued, furthermore, that the former approach---accessibility---is superior politically, ethically, socially, culturally, and institutionally to the latter approach.

An article entitled "Conference Challenges for People with Psychiatric Disabilities" that appeared on the Chronicle's Vitae today draws out the implications of the distinction between accessibility and accommodation with respect to psychiatric disability in particular, though the distinction could have been drawn more vividly. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The Accessible Stall Episode 001: Oranges

http://goo.gl/b1o4Nr

Kyle and Emily tackle the most pressing issue facing the disability community to date: oranges. This episode was originally recorded on March 16th, 2016 in response to the controversy in the disability community surrounding these pre-peeled oranges sold by Whole Foods.

The primary topic in this episode is choosing the right moment and reasons for picking advocacy battles. A transcript for this episode is available for download at http://www.theaccessiblestall.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/The-Accessible-Stall-001-Oranges-Transcript-1.pdf.

Former Special Education Student Publishes Best-Selling Children’s Book

https://goo.gl/eKchl0

I want Nelson Beats The Odds to resonate with young people, particularly African-American males and students with learning disabilities,” Sidney said, “I was in special education and I know exactly how it feels to be stigmatized and labeled.”

In school Sidney struggled academically and behaviorally. He spent five years in special education after being diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Specific Learning Disability (SLD). Sidney enrolled in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Social Work program in 2011 to learn how to better serve at-risk youth. In 2015 Sidney self-published Nelson Beats The Odds , a graphic novel about a young man who struggles with the stigma of being placed in special education. The book became a platform for Sidney to share his childhood experiences and bring attention to the plight of students with disabilities.

Parenting and Caregiving Relationships

http://goo.gl/LBv3qm

Finding the balance between parenting and caregiving children with disabilities can be challenging — there’s a fine line between hovering and being there to assist when needed. The dynamics of the caregiving/care receiving relationship are complex. They are constantly changing as our children grow up; what’s nurturing and helpful for a five year old doesn’t fly at ten, what was okay at ten, doesn’t work at eleven, and so on and so on.

The media typically presents the perspective of caregivers, particularly parent caregivers, but rarely provides the perspective of the person with a disability who uses personal assistance. I was especially interested in listening to a podcast by a disabled person that included stories about both caregiving and care receiving.

Enter “Caring Relationships: Negotiating Meaning and Maintaining Dignity” featuring disability rights activist, Alice Wong. This podcast takes a look at the relationships between disabled people who use personal assistance and the folks that assist them.

Topps Baseball Cards "Pride and Perseverance" Honors Players with Disabilities

http://goo.gl/Jg1Hc1

The 12-card set features current and former Major Leaguers, including:
– Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who are both cancer survivors
– San Francisco Giants pitcher Jake Peavy, who is legally blind without his corrective lenses
– Houston Astros outfielder George Springer, who has overcome stuttering– New York Mets reliever Buddy Carlyle, who was diagnosed with diabetes in 2009
– Oakland Athletics outfielder Sam Fuld, who has dealt with Type 1 Diabetes
– Jason Johnson, a diabetic former pitcher who was the first MLB player to wear an insulin pump during regular season games
– Jim Abbott, who won a gold medal for the 1988 U.S. Olympic baseball team and threw a no- hitter for the New York Yankees in 1993, despite being born without his right hand
– Jim Eisenreich, who played 15 years in MLB and won the 1997 World Series with the then- Florida Marlins, who was born with Tourette’s syndrome
– Curtis Pride, a former 13-year MLB player, who was born deaf
– Pete Gray, a former outfielder who played for the St. Louis Browns in 1945 and spent six seasons in the minor leagues, despite having lost an arm in a childhood accident
– William Hoy, a former center fielder was one of the first and most accomplished deaf players in the major leagues, having played from 1888-1902

Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Detroit

http://goo.gl/EKkRkK

Back for the third year, Global Accessibility Awareness Day Detroit is a day for web professionals to gather together to learn about accessibility and how to make the web more accessible and usable by everyone. Events will be held around the world to raise awareness about web accessibility.

This year's event is jointly hosted by Refresh Detroit and Metro Detroit WordPress.

WHO IS THIS EVENT FOR?

If you're working on the web, creating, developing, or designing websites or content for others to use, this event is for you! Or if you want to learn how we can work together to make the web accessible to everyone, we'd love for you to attend.

Bookshare’s 400,000th Title Brings Unprecedented Access to Readers with Print Disabilities

http://goo.gl/I0LdBn

Bookshare has added its 400,000th title to the ever-growing online accessible library collection and we are celebrating this record-breaking milestone with you and our 400,000 members around the world!

Today, through Bookshare’s extensive collection, any person who cannot read traditional books due to blindness, low vision, dyslexia, and physical disabilities can read and enjoy a huge variety of academic, career, and recreational titles just like everyone else.

Glory Over Everything, the sequel to the New York Times bestseller The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, is the title that helped Bookshare cross the 400,000 threshold. This accomplishment represents an unprecedented level of access for people with print disabilities.

Universal Architectural Design and People with Disabilities

PDF File,,,,

http://goo.gl/V1rz2K

Recently, in December 2015, the Mary Free Bed YMCA in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, became the first building in world to receive formal GUDC Certification. Michael Perry served as the project’s lead architect, along with a team of architects, engineers and designers who worked closely with the GUDC. The new YMCA is a model for community, recreational, and rehabilitation facilities, and was designed to be an inclusive environment for people of all abilities.

Among its UD features, the new YMCA includes expanded accessible parking for bicycles, scooters and hand cycles, wider walking paths, hard surface viewing areas for wheelchairs of outdoor fields, oversized elevator cars with horizontal call buttons with braille, and a boldcoloured UD feature ramp for primary vertical circulation. Colour schemes and lighting also provide cues to people with all types of visual ability. The buildings wayfinding system is UD designed along with its acoustic techniques such as sound dampening and sound-absorbing ceiling bubbles. The facility locker rooms have ergonomically designed equipment, and there are zero-entry roll-in showers and pull-down benches, self-operated transfer stations at the swimming pools, and wheelchair softball fields. There is not a single step throughout the 120.000 square feet building on its thirty-six-acre campus.

At its best, UD facilitates equal participation in society by all.

Text Only Version (text is essentially inaccessible in the pdf)