Persons With Disabilities

National Science Foundation (2002). Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering. Arlington, VA Division of Science Resources Statistics, NSF. 

National Science Foundation (1999). Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering 1998, NSF 99-338. Arlington, VA, Appendix Table 5-10. 

Demographics, race, culture, language, age ranges, income, employment, family composition, person with disabilities, tribal and border issues. 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Disability Preparedness Resource Center http //www. disabilitypreparedness.gov/ offers information for emergency planners and first responders to help them better prepare for serving persons with disabilities. 

For persons with disabilities and persons over the age of 50, a 36-month term of contract can be agreed from the outset. 

Persons with disabilities who may have impaired mobility should establish a buddy system to help ensure that any needed assistance will be available to them in an emergency. 

Regarding persons with disabilities (mobility, hearing, sight), each individual who requires assistance to evacuate is responsible for pre-arranging with someone else in their immediate work area to assist them. Anyone knowing of a person with a disability or injury who was not able to evacuate will report this immediately to a Floor Marshal, the Building Coordinator, or the Incident Commander. 

However, as much as the UN had previously addressed the issues of human rights, UNAIDS realized that the Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent UN Conventions (including one on Persons with Disabilities) were not specific enough to handle the challenges that people with HIV/AIDS faced. So in 2008, the organization set out to write a Diversity and Inclusion Policy that addressed these new challenges to human life... 

Modified vans and cars enable persons with disabilities to independently drive a vehicle. Wheelchair tie-downs and occupant restraints in personal vehicles and in public transportation vehicles are allowing people to be safely transported to their chosen destination. Fortunately, voluntary performance standards for restraint and tie-down technologies have been developed by a task group within the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE). Standards for car hand controls, van body modifications, and wheelchair lifts are also available from SAE. These standards provide the rehabilitation engineer with a set of took that can be used to confirm safety compliance of modified transportation equipment. Currently in process and stiU requiring several more years of work are transport wheelchair and vehicle power control standards. 

A component of living that is often overlooked by the professional community is the desire and, in fact, need of people with disabilities to participate in recreational activities. Many of the adaptive recreational technologies have been developed by persons with disabilities themselves in their effort to participate and be competitive in sports. Competitive wheelchair racing, archery, skiing, bicycles, and technology that enables people to bowl, play pool, and fly their own airplanes are just a few areas in which equipment has been adapted for specific recreational purposes. 

Any person that offers examinations or courses related to applications, licensing, certification, or credentialing for secondary or postsecondary education, professional, or trade purposes shall offer such examinations or courses in a place and manner accessible to persons with disabilities or offer alternative accessible arrangements for such individuals. 

Automatic speech recognition (ASR), in which the individual uses sounds, letters, or words as a selection method, is another alternative to keyboard input. In most such systems, the speech recognition is speaker-dependent, and the user trains the system to recognize his or her voice by producing several samples of the same element (Comerford et al., 1997). ASR system use is increasing in the mainstream commercial market for use on the Internet, dictation, general telephone use, and most other computer activities. Persons with disabilities will be the beneficiaries of this expanded use of ASR systems. These systems all use continuous ASR techniques in which the user can speak in almost normal patterns with slight pauses between words. 

Alternatives to the use of a mouse for computer input that are often used by persons with disabilities include trackballs, a head-controlled mouse, a continuous joystick, eye pointing, and flie use of the arrow keys on the numeric keypad (called mouse keys, see Table 30.2.).t Head control for mouse emulation employs an infrared system that detects a reflected beam to measure head position relative to a fixed reference point for the cursor (the center of the screen). As the user moves his or her head away from this point in any direction, the cursor is moved on the screen. Commercial systems I use a wireless approach in which a reflective dot is place on the user s forehead and serves as the reflective target. This allows the user to move around more freely. These head-controlled systems are intended for individuals who have limited arm and hand control and who can accurately control head movement. For example, persons with high-level spinal cord injuries who cannot use any limb movement often find these head pointers to be rapid and easy to use. On the other hand, individuals who have random head movement (e.g., due to cerebral palsy) or who do not have trunk alignment with the vertical axis of the video screen because of poor sitting posture often have significantly more trouble using this type of input device. 

---