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Equity of Access: Adaptive Technology

Frances S. Grodzinsky

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Conclusion

Accessibility is the key to equity, both at the university and in the workplace. It is our moral responsibility at the university to provide access to computer technology for people with disabilities. As Wahlstrom notes, “what we do with technology in our classroom resonates in the larger context.”(11) From an ethical point of view, the cases described above support the following arguments. For utilitarian ethics, given the fact that 19% of the population have significant disabilities,(16) providing them with adaptive technology, rather than denying it, would bring about more benefit for more people, allowing many more to be creative members of society. There would be a significant improvement in the productivity of the work force and the happiness of the community. From a deontological perspective, adaptive technology provides or restores to persons with disabilities their autonomy, their dignity, their self-respect. From a virtue-ethics perspective, adaptive technology enables people to flourish and reach their full potential as rational, responsible individuals. There is even an egoistic argument in favor of providing adaptive technology to persons with disabilities. Through disease, accident, or old age, every person is potentially someone with a serious disability. Out of self-interest, the egoist would therefore want society to provide adaptive technology to persons with disabilities.

In the age of information technology, a computer equipped with adaptive devices can be the equalizer that allows people with disabilities to participate in society and compete for jobs. However, such technology requires funding and policy changes. Norman Coombs warns that while the computer is seen as a democratizing force in society, it could benefit mainly the middle class. Unless there is a deliberate policy to the contrary, computing technology could leave the economic underclass further behind.(8) One long-term benefit that we can hope to realize from autonomous learning and empowerment for persons with disabilities is the creation of an assertive group of individuals who will lobby for more built-in adaptations in the development of computer hardware and software. It is a benefit to society to have people with disabilities actively employed and enjoying a quality of life heretofore unknown before the advent of computing.

Acknowledgment: The author would like to thank the National Science Foundation for grant number 955086, which facilitated the creation of an adaptive technology laboratory, and also thank Sacred Heart University for matching the funds. She would also like to thank Professor Barbara Heinisch, former director of the Center for Adaptive Technology at Southern Connecticut State University, for her help.

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