Technology, Abilities and Disabilities
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Abstract Technology profoundly changes life for the disabledTechnology is about creating new abilities, as is education. Combining them is the best way to find a solutionThe disabled need to take empowerment to a new level, where they take charge of technological development for their needs
DescriptionStephen Hawking can only press a single button. Yet… He writes on his website: “I am quite often asked: How do you feel about having ALS. The answer is, not a lot. I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many.� Ability?The quality of being able to do something A natural or acquired skill or talent. (source: dictionary.com)For instance, if you own a car, you have the ability to travel at 100 km an hourWith a phone, your voice and ear carry thousands of kilometersEducation is all about imparting abilities Disability?My simple definition: the absence of an ability. What matters is, what level you reach, after adding a layer of technology.I speak Punjabi, cannot read it. Effectively, I am like a blind person, vis-à -vis the Punjabi language. With software for the blind, I can read Punjabi Once on the Internet, a person who is deaf-blind seems the same as everyone elseThere are as many disabilities as there are abilities: we are all disabled in almost every conceivable way The Quality ElementPeople have abilities to greater or lesser degrees (lots of us know English, few can write as well as Shakespeare)If you are great at one ability, e.g. an Olympic gymnast, that is worth a lot more than a thousand abilities at which you are mediocre.If you have one great ability, you are incredibly lucky – very few in human history have been great at more than one thing Stephen Hawking’s abilitiesHe is one of the world’s leading scientistsHe is also one of the greatest non-fiction authors in human history: only a communicator of unique skill can write bestsellers about astrophysicsHow many Stephen Hawkings has the world lost, because the local school didn’t have facilities for wheelchairs, or the blind? Stephen Hawking’s disabilitiesHe can only press one button: that is the only way he can writeHe also cannot speak. He has to write into his computer, then use the text-to-speech abilities of his computer to produce spoken wordsFor this he uses “Equalizer�, which allows this magnificent brain an output bandwidth of about 1 Hz. An information technologist’s view of disabilityInformation is like waterDisability is like faulty plumbing:Hardware fault, can be addressed via technology (that is technology: giving people new abilities)Software fault, e.g. your brain may not contain the software to interpret Punjabi. This can be addressed via educationSolution lies in combining “hardware� with “software�, i.e. technology with education Example: SpasticsOften motor and speech disabilitiesBecause of this, they find it hard to obtain a normal educationThe condition is diagnosable at a very young ageIf they could use a computer to type and speak, they could attend normal schoolCan we make communication software user-friendly enough for a two-year old? Open Source and the Blind“Print disabled�: the blind, the illiterate, or people who can understand a language, but cannot read itAccess software for them is very expensive: Jaws costs $900, and is an inefficient approach: first you write “graphic� software, then look for another software, e.g. Jaws, to interpret graphics for the blind user.Why not take open source software, add a few “speak� commands, and recompile?Such software could run on lower cost hardware Computers and the Autistic"The autistic mind works like a computer.. I've spent some time surfing the Internet, and I found that when I surf the Internet it works exactly like my mind.� – Professor Temple Grandin (http://autism.about.com/cs/adultswithasd/a/computermind.htm)'My coding just flies' Computerworld, April 14, 1997 Robots and Motor DisabilityIf a wheelchair cannot climb to your classroom, you send your robot up, with a camera to see, a mike to hear, and a loudspeaker to let you ask questionsPeople on wheelchairs could have a robot help them share thingsHow people with different kinds of disability might help each otherA blind person could take a snapshot or video of street signs with a camera phone, transmit it to a special call center, or a friend, where someone (who may be wheelchair bound for instance) tells her what the camera seesUntil such time as the interpretation of the picture or sound can be automated, human beings should get jobs at such call centersA camera phone can act as your eye, ear, tongue, with suitable backup support Current ActivitiesSoftware writing workshop for the faculty at the National Association for the Blind. After a couple of games we are writing a speaking Hindi text editor Starting work on a Linux version of eLocutor, with an interface accessible to small children, so that motor and speech disabled kids get an education Future DirectionThe disabled can write better software to address their own needs, than others canWe propose to set up an institute where people with different kinds of disabilities could learn the skills needed to create technological solutions to their own problems, and in the process learn valuable skills.Students will run the institute under our supervision -- so they can replicate such institutes -- growth is thus inbuilt SummaryTechnology profoundly changes life for the disabled (e.g. a computer makes books accessible to the blind)Technology (hw) is about creating new abilities, as is education (sw). Combining them is the best way to find a solutionThe disabled need to take empowerment to a new level, where they take charge of technological development for their needs
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