DisAbility, Computing and the Law:
What You Should Know
Tzipporah Benavraham
Accessibility has many faces, facets and aspects.
And access for a person with a major life impairment (disability) is a
matter of legal definition and resolve. The miracle of access to the printed
word has been revolutionized for disabled people through the use of the
computer. Miracles never thought possible are occurring daily in elementary
and secondary schools, as well as in colleges and businesses. To watch
a quadriplegic input computer data by use of an eyeblink switch inspires
and brings an enigmatic smile to us. To see a blind person read Braille
just output from a computer also poises our mind in wonderment. To see
a deaf person use a telephone with a TDD (Telecommunications Device for
the Deaf) brings dignity of self-determination to a population we would
never have thought could communicate so freely before. All this would
have been science fiction a few short years ago. Yet today the wonders
of technology are enabling many to achieve positions of independence.
However, as in all tangible things, law and regulation
have indeed found their niche in this amazing world of computer miracles.
And with the rule of law come the parameters of access, affordability
and use. Many laws and responsibilities have come forth from this remarkable
technological development called the adaptive computer. I wish to guide
you around the key points of this human interface between technology and
the disabled.
Go to: Laws, Regulations, Court Decisions and Disability Tech
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