-
Entry into the AT field:
September 3, 1968
-
How I got into the
field
During my work on a Master's
degree in psychology, I became interested in the study of sensory perception.
Being blind myself, I realized that the scientific literature on the human
senses was heavy on research related to vision, but comparatively little
research had been conducted regarding the senses of touch and hearing, the
senses I used in all aspects of my life. My academic and career goals became
focused on contributing to such research. A psychology professor at the
University of the Pacific where I received my Master's degree told me about
research that was just beginning in San Francisco related to an attempt to
develop a "Tactile Vision Substitution System." I telephoned the scientists who
were collaborating on this research, Paul Bach-y-Rita and Carter Collins, and
volunteered to help in any way that I could. When the first prototype equipment
was fabricated, I was invited to join the project staff as a research
psychologist to direct its evaluation with blind subjects. The invitation also
included entry into the Ph.D. program in visual sciences within the University
of the Pacific's Graduate School of Medical Sciences located in the Pacific
Medical Center where the research was being conducted, specifically in the
Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Over the subsequent years, I became
proficient in evaluating emerging technologies developed for use by blind and
deaf individuals.
In 1975, I
joined Drs. Bach-y-Rita and Collins in forming a Rehabilitation Engineering
Research Center at the Smith-Kettlewell Institute related to blindness and low
vision, a center I directed for most of its first five years of operation.
During those years, I conducted national evaluations of some important
technology that soon became significant in the lives of thousands of blind
people: speech synthesis used as computer displays and optical character
recognition reading machines. Those research activities led to an invitation to
serve on a panel convened to advise the Science and Technology Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives related to the future of technological research
for people with disabilities. Our recommendations resulted in the passage of
legislation in 1978 that created the agency now known as the National Institute
on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) where I was named as the
first Deputy Director.
With a change of national
administrations in 1981, I returned to the private sector and joined the
research staff of the Electronic Industries Foundation. My primary efforts
there related to developing guidelines and policies related to the inclusion of
features in consumer electronics and information technology that would render
them accessible by people with disabilities.
In 1992, I was recruited by the
National Science Foundation to establish a program dedicated to the promotion
of science and math education and career development for people with
disabilities. That program, now called Research in Disability and Education,
continues to function.
-
Important event(s) that influenced
my early decision to get into the assistive technology field
The major event that produced my interest in
needs of people who are blind came when I was five years old and was blinded in
a home accident. As a teenager, I became a licensed ham radio operator and
became convinced that electronics could be a source of important tools for
blind people, especially for reading and for independent travel. Dr. Paul
Bach-y-Rita is undoubtedly the person who is most responsible for getting me
into the field of assistive technology because he invited me to join his staff
and to evaluate prototype equipment designed for blind people.
-
Why I chose the AT
field
My primary motivation was to
help develop useful tools that I could use to increase my own independence.
Secondly, I welcomed the opportunity to be near the cutting edge of emerging
technology.
-
My inspiration and
mentor
Dr. Emerson Foulke, a research
psychologist at the University of Louisville, who also was blind, was my role
model early in my first graduate studies. I met him soon after beginning my
career at the Smith-Kettlewell Institute, and he became a close friend,
colleague, and continued to be my mentor until his death.
-
Why the field is important to me
and the central focus of my work
My
work in the assistive technology field took two significantly different paths:
first, product evaluation, and, second, efforts to affect national policies
regarding accessible product design and incorporation of references to
assistive technology within federal legislation affecting people with
disabilities. Both paths are central to the development and proliferation of
assistive technology.
-
My memorable successes
In the area of product evaluation, I will always
feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to design and conduct the first
national evaluations of speech synthesis as a computer output display for blind
people and later the evaluation of the first model of the Kurzweil reading
machine. Related to national policy, I am pleased that I had the opportunity to
affect the adoption of Section 508 in 1986 and later to chair the national task
force convened to draft recommended standards for its implementation after it
was revised in 1998.
-
My most memorable
failures
Without question, my
greatest disappointment relates to my inability to convince consumer
electronics manufacturers to adopt design principles that would make their
products usable by people with disabilities. This failure came even after
requests by the consumer electronics manufacturing association to provide such
guidelines which appeared in four successive issues of its monthly newsletter.
The only way I could deal with this failure was to move on to new opportunities
and challenges.
-
Significant changes in the field
since I first entered it
The most
important changes that I have experienced relates to the technology itself.
With computer technology doubling in speed and power every 12 to 18 months, we
have seen tremendous improvements in the means of providing people with
disabilities access to information, the ability to speak, and control over
one's environments. Efforts to improve the availability of devices for people
with disabilities, as through the state Tech Act programs, also are
encouraging.
-
Most important advances in the
field
As stated above, the
proliferation of computer technology over the past 35 years has been marvelous
for people with disabilities. Both my work in product evaluation and in efforts
to affect national policies related to technological aids for people with
disabilities reflected these advances.
-
On the future of rehabilitation
engineering and assistive technology
I envision continued advances in technological
capability of emerging technology resulting in increased abilities for people
with physical and sensory disabilities. The use of implantable nanotechnologies
will be exciting to follow.
-
My role within RESNA and what it
gave back to me
I am proud to have
been one of the founding members of RESNA and having had the opportunity to
serve on its Board of Directors for several terms. RESNA's biggest impact on my
career relates to providing me collegial relationships with engineers and
scientists who work with other disabilities than those close to my original
research endeavors. As my career moved into policy issues, all efforts required
collaboration of people from many disciplines and disability categories. RESNA
provided those essential relationships.
-
On the future of RESNA
RESNA should continue to provide
cross-disciplinary pollination of ideas and collaborative efforts to improve
the design and distribution of rehabilitation engineering and assistive
technology solutions to problems faced by people with disabilities.
-
My suggestions for those just
entering the field
I would encourage
all young people just entering the field of rehabilitation engineering and
assistive technology to recognize that people with disabilities will always be
the greatest help in determining what is needed by them. Too often people
project their own thoughts as to what it would be like to have a particular
disability and thus what would be needed to address life problems. The
adaptation of human beings is often startling, and thus experience of those
with a disability must be the primary source of information regarding what is
needed by those with that disability.
