ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605100092
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM RASPBERRY
For people with every kind of disability, whether sensory, cognitive, motor or communication, technology can provide tools to speak, hear, see, learn, write, be mobile, work and play - in short, to live as fully and independently as possible. |- Sen. Bob Dole.
ORDINARILY, I might not have paid much attention to Dole's little Senate speech last month. It provided no particular insight into his political philosophy. It didn't ``define'' his candidacy. It broke no new ground. Indeed, he gives some version of the same remarks this time every year, around the anniversary of the World War II injury that cost him the use of an arm.
But, as it happened, I had just seen a Pentagon display of some of the same technology Dole was talking about: computers with Braille terminals, computers that can read or respond to vocal commands, talking scanners, keyboards that amplify finger movement so that people with greatly reduced range of motion can operate them.
What I really saw, though, was what Dole was talking about: men and women - deaf, or blind, or mobility-restricted - holding down good jobs and doing useful work for their employer, the Department of Defense. One deaf young man told me his productivity had been increased a hundredfold by the use of Defense-supplied technology.
This is CAP - the Pentagon's Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program - and it's one of the more encouraging things I've seen come out of the government recently.
The program was set up six years ago as a response to new laws requiring that computer and telecommunications systems be made available to the disabled. But, according to Edwin Dorn, undersecretary of defense for personnel, it quickly became clear that the technology spawned by the program was a boon for the department as well as for its disabled workers.
``There is so much knowledge and skill and experience that we are now able to tap with this technology,'' he said. ``It's easy to see how it allows disabled employees to feel useful. What I can't stress too much is that it works for employers, too. Employers need to learn to make the best use of the people they have - or can get.''
The costs are surprisingly modest. The talking scanner - complete with monitor, soundboard and software - goes for about $5,000. The Braille terminal and software that allows a blind operator to read what's on a computer screen costs about $13,000. The most in-demand item on CAP's growing list is the teletypewriter for the deaf, available for $1,300 each. The entire budget for the technology is $2 million a year.
Nor is it limited to the 30,000 civilian employees at the Pentagon itself. It is available to all 800,000 Defense workers, half the federal work force. ``One of the things we're proudest of,'' says Dorn, ``is the fact that we make the technology and the training necessary to implement it available to all our facilities. All they need to do is come here, see what's available, tell us what they need - and we'll pay for it.'' There were nearly 2,000 such requests last year.
Stephen Joseph, the former New York City health commissioner who is now assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, notes that while some of the technology CAP offers was developed by the Defense Department - the voice-recognition technology started out in the Air Force, for instance - ``none of it was born here. It's right off the shelf stuff.'' His point: ``There's nothing to stop any other agency - or any large corporate employer - from doing the same thing.''
Much of the focus on making the workplace friendlier to the disabled has been on the removal of architectural barriers, including such often-expensive ``retrofitting'' as elevators, ramps, wide doors or special toilet facilities - even where there is little or no current demand. That's why such progressive legislation as the Americans with Disabilities Act remains controversial.
What caught my eye the other day is how inexpensively some of the barriers to employment for the disabled can be overcome. Technology is no substitute for skills, of course, but the widening availability of the technology might well lead the previously discouraged handicapped workers to develop the skills they need.
The potential savings are obvious - both in reducing the cost of support for the unemployed, and in increasing the pool of smart and experienced workers. But as Dole pointed out in his Senate talk, it's also worth something just to help all Americans to ``live as fully and independently as possible.''
Washington Post Writers Group
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB