Disability Futures

I was raised in an evangelical Christian household in rural Ohio and was homeschooled until the fourth grade for religious reasons. I recall that after I transitioned to public school, I asked to be excused from science lessons on evolution and was completely bewildered that my teacher was upset with the request. Church and religion dominated my childhood, but I did not then realize how different my life looked from the lives of those outside my particular enclave.

Because my dad is a pastor, I, along with my three siblings, was under a great deal of oppressive scrutiny within the church. My personality and behaviors were continually monitored both within and outside the family. Because of this, I had little privacy and felt that my parents valued the opinions of other people, or perhaps even their wants and needs, more than my fundamental needs or development. I desired recognition from my father as an authority figure and struggled mightily with the fact that I continually failed to meet his (often shifting) expectations. In that way, at least, my story is not an unusual one. But, atypically, since I was educated at home and my dad was an authority figure at the primary institution where I was socialized, I did not have a competing authority structure or system to provide insights about alternatives and opportunities for change.

I remember that I was obsessed with proper etiquette and bodily comportment—I thought all the time about making myself as unobtrusive as possible—and with abstract concepts like purity and goodness, a preoccupation that I now understand was racially-inflected, among other things. This was true even while I subverted rules and tested limits. I think that I wanted to prove that I was lovable even if I was “immoral;” but, I was, at the same time, also hyper-aware of rules and believed that one’s value came directly from rule-following. Long before I became a teenager, being appropriately feminine and growing into what the church understood as Christian womanhood was a major, daily issue that I had to confront, plan for, and control. I received the strong message that I needed to hold myself accountable to those norms or risk a variety of punishments, both immediately and in the future.

Morris Habitat for Humanity and members of the Netcong community will work with Lowe’s and the Borough of Netcong to impact the quality of life in the community for older residents through Morris Habitat’s Aging-in-Place project.

The grant from Lowe’s to the Morris Habitat Aging-in-Place is one aspect of five-year partnership with Habitat for Humanity International.  The partnership has been instrumental in helping more than 6,500 families nationwide improve their living conditions.  Each year, Lowe’s supports Habitat’s National Women Build Week and conducts hundreds of how-to clinics at stores to teach volunteers construction skills.

July 1 marked a significant victory for power wheelchair users, as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put into place a permanent policy that exempts complex power wheelchair components from Medicare’s competitive bidding process. The exemptions had been fought for by manufacturer, provider and disability advocates alike, including United Spinal Association (New Mobility is United Spinal’s membership magazine) because they allowed for better access to complex wheelchair components often necessary for those with neurological disabilities such as spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and cerebral palsy.

“It’s huge for 85 percent of people or so on Medicare who use power wheelchairs,” says Alexandra Bennewith, Vice President, Government Relations, United Spinal Association. “On behalf of United Spinal, all of our members and everyone who attended the Roll on Capitol Hill this year and previous years, thank you all for doing a great job with keeping this issue alive with policymakers in Washington, D.C. You helped make a difference for your fellow wheelchair users across the country!”

For those with neurologic disabilities, complex rehab components such as contoured backrests, tilt/recline systems, and specialty controls, in addition to many others, can mean the difference between hospitalization and living independently in one’s community. “Wheelchair bases are useless without the right features on them,” says Bennewith.

Higher payment amounts under Medicare for certain categories of powered wheelchairs and related components, known as Group 3 and above were already in effect, under temporary exemptions granted in 2015 and 2016, but the second expiration was set to expire on June 30, 2017. Once expired, complex rehab power wheelchairs and components would only be reimbursed at the much lower rate used for standard wheelchairs and components, eliminating the financial incentive for durable medical equipment suppliers to offer complex components and service. The new exemptions permanently remove these power wheelchairs and related components from Medicare’s competitive bidding process.

In a highly controlled comparison study, several over-the-counter hearing assistance devices performed almost as well as a conventional hearing aid that cost thousands of dollars more.

Congress is currently considering rare, bipartisan legislation that would allow these devices to be marketed as direct-to-consumer products subject to FDA regulation. At present, hearing aids can only be purchased through a licensed hearing specialist.

Hearing aids for both ears typically cost around $4,500, while PSAPs cost several hundred dollars or less.

The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 is being sponsored in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and in the House by Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

Reed told MedPage Today that the study findings lend support to the creation of the new regulatory classification for hearing aids.

Among the main findings:

• The hearing aid and four of the PSAPs improved speech understanding, compared to the unaided condition.
• The mean unaided accuracy was 76.5% and the hearing aid improved speech understanding accuracy to 88.4% (absolute improvement = 11.9%, 95% CI 9.8-14.0).
• Three of the PSAPs showed improvements that were within five percentage points of the hearing aid (Sound World Solutions CS50+ = 11.0, 95% CI 8.8-13.1; Soundhawk = 10.2, 95% CI 8.0-12.3); Etymotic BEAN = 7.7, 95% CI 5.5-8.9).
• Speech understanding was poorer with one device than in unaided testing (accuracy 65.3%, -11.2% difference, 95% CI -15.2 to -7.31).

Reed noted that the poor performance of the device that was not chosen for its favorable electroacoustic properties highlights the need for regulation of the products and greater transparency to consumers.

Jefferson Oaks, developed by Community Housing Network Inc. (CHN), is being built on the site of a vacant school building and campus, which will be transformed into 20 apartments and eight new townhome-style buildings with an additional 40 homes. Twenty-one of the apartments are set aside for supportive housing. When completed in 2018, the new community will include on-site support services and amenities such as a community room with a library, computer lab and meeting space, and a playground.

“We are very excited to start the construction of this new community in Oak Park and appreciate the work of UnitedHealthcare, Cinnaire and our other partners in helping make this groundbreaking possible,” said Marc Craig, president of Community Housing Network. “When completed next year, Jefferson Oaks will be a model community that brings quality homes with on-site amenities for individuals and families who want a wonderful place to live and play.”

UnitedHealthcare also announced a $3.7 million investment in Woodland Place Apartments in Hart. The new 24-unit apartment community, developed by Gryphon Group LLC and Oceana County Housing Commission, will include 12 units for people living with special needs and struggling with homelessness. The development is being built to U.S. Green Building Council LEED environmental standards. West Michigan Community Mental Health will provide supportive services and case management for residents. Woodland Place Apartments will open in 2018.

Drivers who are deaf or hard of hearing could get a special symbol on their North Carolina driver’s license to smooth interactions with law enforcement.

The Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday approved a bill creating the driver’s license designation and adding new training for law enforcement on how to interact with deaf people. The designation would be optional, so deaf people who don’t want it on their license could opt out.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Verla Insko of Chapel Hill, said the legislation was requested by a constituent whose hard-of-hearing son had “a very unfortunate interaction with a law enforcement officer.”

Senate Rules Committee members were largely supportive of the idea, sending the bill to the Senate floor. “I think this is a step in the right direction,” said Sen. Brent Jackson, a Sampson County Republican. “It might not be perfect, but we can tweak it.”

But some senators raised concerns that the bill doesn’t require applications for the driver’s license symbol to include a doctor’s note. They questioned if someone might pose as deaf in an effort to get more lenient treatment from law enforcement.

“This is a government issued identification,” said Sen. Michael Lee, a Wilmington Republican. “Anytime we put something on a government issued identification, we need to have done something.”

Amazon Alexa is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered voice assistant that works by understanding your voice commands to allow you to search the Web, create to-do lists, shop online, check the weather, and control smart-home products—without ever unlocking your phone.

tecla-e is for anyone who cannot easily use a smart device such as smartphones, tablets, computers or have difficulty using home appliances. This includes those with quadriplegia and other mobility impairments resulting from spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, ALS, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, brain injuries or stroke. The device can connect with up to eight bluetooth-enabled devices so users can easily switch from controlling their iPhone to controlling their thermostat, hands-free.

1. TECLA-E USERS CAN ACCESS ALEXA ANYWHERE THEY GO THROUGH A FULLY SWITCH-ACCESSIBLE APP

2. TECLA-E USERS CAN HAVE A CHOICE BETWEEN CONTROLLING THEIR SMART DEVICES THROUGH SWITCH ACCESS OR THROUGH VOICE ACTIVATION

You can use your voice whenever you're within earshot, but if you don't want to disturb someone nearby or just prefer silence, you can easily use assistive switches like sip-and-puff, buddy buttons, SCATIR switches, micro light switches, chin switches or joysticks or the built-in button on tecla-e to control your smart home devices instead.

3. TECLA-E USERS CAN LINK THEIR AMAZON ACCOUNT TO THE APP AND LOAD CUSTOMIZED PREFERENCES AND COMMANDS TO BE SWITCH-ACCESSIBLE.

After you've setup your preferences for Alexa on the Amazon website or its companion app, you can load them onto the tecla-e app by syncing both accounts. This way, you will have access to all of your smart devices and each of their commands all on one app! Now, instead of having to open and close different apps that control specific smart devices, you can control every device from one location.

Woo hoo! The Disability Visibility Project™ showed up and represented at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, Michigan, on June 17, 2017. The Allied Media Conference is:

“A collaborative laboratory of media-based organizing strategies…We define media-based organizing as any collaborative process that uses media, art, or technology to address the roots of problems and advances holistic solutions towards a more just and creative world.”

The disability rights movement changed my life. I have been benefiting from legislation fought for by disabled activists who came before me since I was a young child. Like Mike Ervin and various other activists, I am a former poster brat, a kid pimped out for profit by the machine that was MDA, While still cute enough to raise them tons of cash. For a long time, my identity was intertwined with what I thought I understood about my life as a disabled person.