Introducing students to adaptive computer devices: for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 199 0 (ADA), which goes into effect in July 1992 , mandates that employers accommodat e qualified people with disabilities. Provisions affecting employees in larg e corporations go into effect in July 1992. Accommodation may mean using adaptiv e devices, many of which are computer based. Computer science students should kno w something about adaptive computer aids ; however, information on this subject is no t easy to find. We decided to incorporat e this topic into our Systems Analysis an d Design course. One of the things we do in this class is t o give students the experience o f interviewing a user. We decided to combin e that exercise with an introduction t o adaptive computer devices. The procedur e was to give the students a very vaguel y defined problem and to have them look fo r the information they would need to write a specific proposal to solve the problem. Interviewing a subject was to be a part o f the process. Although the ADA covers all kinds o f disabilities, computer adaptations ar e particularly useful for visually impaire d people. Very few people are totally blind , and so "visually impaired" is often used , as visual impairment can range from a smal l abnormality to total blindness. Compute r adaptation is especially important fo r these people, since conventional computer s require sight for both input and output. The ADA estimates that there are 43 millio n people with disabilities in the Unite d States. Rehabilitative Services (1). This sam e source estimates that there are about 1 1 million visually impaired people in th e U .S ., and that about 3 .5 million of the m are severely impaired enough to nee d BULLETIN special adaptive devices, such as soun d output and braille printers. Many of the others can be accommodated by equipmen t that is widely available for othe r purposes, such as a large-screen, hig h resolution monitor. We decided to give the students som e practice in finding information on adaptin g a standard personal computer for use b y visually impaired persons. The microcomputers in the Northern Illinoi s University School of Law had been adapte d with speech synthesizers and scanners t o accommodate two blind law students. One o f these students, Mr. Jerry Diaz, was th …