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[Remarks by Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director, Telecommunications and Technology Policy, American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), on July 24, 2007 at a Brownbag Luncheon policy forum held at the Benton Foundation, Washington, D.C. The event was co-sponsored by AAPD, the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged (NCBA) and the Benton Foundation. The event was attended by over 30 representatives from various public interest groups such as the American Foundation for the Blind, CTCNet, EDUCAUSE, Senior Services America, Communications Services for the Deaf, SNAPVRS, the Telework Coalition and the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. Also speaking at the forum were Joy Howell, Director of APT's Broadband Changed My Life Campaign, who served as moderator of the discussion, and Daniel Wilson from the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged. Ms. Simpson’s remarks below are a summary of her statement, are not verbatim and have been edited for smoothness of reading.] Introduction What I’m going to present here today are a few facts, a few remarks, a few examples, and some policy concerns. Most of what I am saying is understood to be in comparison to narrowband dial-up to the Internet. Broadband Changes the Lives of Persons with Disabilities I want to make the following point to frame this discussion: there is a tendency to think that the benefits of broadband for people with disabilities are related only to health or healthcare, such as telehealth applications, but while there is likely some truth to that, the reality is that people with disabilities benefit the same way everyone else benefits from higher speed access to the Internet. I’m referring here to the main advantage, such as from the speed of upload and download broadband permits; and how that means all the fun stuff that broadband allows such as online gaming, EBay, Etsy, YouTube, Facebook, whatever online community there is that everyone else uses, people with disabilities are there too. What is important to note is that a person with disability doesn’t have to reveal they are disability – so there is more of a level playing field in regard to any attitudes or prejudices another person may have. Some Sobering Statistics This data is from the SIPP, the survey of income program participants, that is, people at the lower end of the income spectrum, and put together by the Rural Training Center for People with Disabilities in Montana. They don’t look at broadband, just overall Internet use. The good news is that in comparing 2002 and 2003 data people with disabilities are using the Internet more. For use of internet at any location: So that’s an increase for people with disabilities, although at a slower rate of increase when compared with those without disabilities. Now here’s the 2003 data that I find a bit upsetting: This is Internet usage by people with disabilities in households that have a computer: The same Montana Rural Training Center study reports that almost 40% of people with disabilities live in home with computer but only 24% use it (compared to 66% of those without disabilities in households with computers). And the number falls lower if you are in a rural area. So while we can and should get excited about broadband for people with disabilities we do need to be thinking of the factors affecting their lives. Some Difficulties with Broadband for Persons with Disabilities People with disabilities don’t care to use the Internet or have an unwillingness to try something new for all the usual reasons like the rest of us. Perhaps the needed adapted hardware and software are costly. Also, not here that using adapted hardware and software may take tech support and maintenance persons and effort that is difficult to get and keep. What I’m talking about here, for in instance, does the cable guy understand the deaf person when they do a big set up of cable modem service and the deaf person has their videophone equipment ready to link up? And when using computers to access the Internet in public locations – such as E-rate funded libraries and schools, there may have other problems such as inaccessible locations, door passwords and other gates that for those without disabilities are easy but may be insurmountable or just plain frustrating for people with disabilities. Another reason may be that Internet content may be frustrating or just plain ole inaccessible (technically). For instance, for blind users, the content may not have been not loaded to be read by screen readers For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, text heavy web sites may be difficult to understand as English is not their first language, American Sign Language is. Or perhaps the material is video, moving images, video clips. Think about those presidential campaign videoclips on Youtube – and you see there is no captioning or text version of the “message” there. Some Examples In community connecting. This gets back to a comment I made earlier and it is also significant for people with intellectual disabilities, those with learning disabilities and those with some mental health conditions. If it’s downloading slowly, what for people without disabilities may be an inconvenience acts a barrier to use for a person with a disability. The same disability community center also pointed that for people with mental health conditions and those with learning disabilities, they also reported that due to the greater information transactions and scope of information available, advocacy work was more successful – as they got more information out, more accurately, to more people -- and they neutralized discrimination through empowering people with disabilities. I also learned of a now closed down project called Patchworx project for children with illnesses and severe disabilities. This is where some hospitals were linked via broadband and the kids talked with each other, developed coping skills, found information and became more pro-active patients. Employment Using broadband for advancing employment of people with disabilities is a critical goal. We have 53% unemployed and 75% unemployed with severe disability, despite the gains in non-discrimination under the ADA and overall good economic growth. I was not able too find too many cases involving broadband and employment for persons with disabilities, although I know there are such projects out there. Here is one, however: this is where they conducted online training at the North Dakota Center for people with disabilities. This involved persons with mental retardation and other and other developmental disabilities. I also believe that Goodwill has had a project out West that utilized linking employers and prospective employees using broadband. This employment area is one where we need more reporting out of our successes. Key Factors That Advance Broadband use by People with Disabilities Speed of broadband The 24/7 availability of broadband Greater bandwidth Broadband is cheaper Video applications possible Just to be clear about these two different broadband video applications: Video relay service (VRS) is making a phone call to or from a sign language user via a relay center where the relay communications assistant voices the sign language spoken by the deaf person to the hearing person. The deaf user must have broadband for this, and a camera and Internet access. But this user can call anyone, even plain old wire line users this way. Here broadband has directly enabled phone conversations for persons who before had to rely on TTYs – which are far more cumbersome and time-consuming and they are not full duplex. VRS is almost as close to full duplex phone calling as we can get currently for persons who are sign language users. VRS is so successful that now we are seeing almost a dozen providers of video relay service since it was first authorized by the FCC in 2000. This VRS allows the over one million sign language users in America to make phone calls in almost real time, something us hearing persons have taken for granted for over a hundred years! Also, note that deaf people use broadband to talk directly to each, using their broadband service to connect with each other when both have video cameras hooked up on broadband connections. Here they are then, bypassing the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Note also, that this means of communication – permitted by higher speed broadband -- is empowering. Most of us are becoming aware of the emerging political power of this community. There was a time not long ago when Gallaudet University did not make front page news. Now it does. You can be sure that faster and speedier communications helped this visibility. Probably also all the wireless connection. The other video application is Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) which is another success story. This is where a broadband connection allows a business to meet some of its needs for interpreters. Most specifically, the rise in use of remote interpreting services at hospitals changes the lives of people with disabilities who use sign language. They can now speak more directly with health care providers rather than relying on notes being passed back and forth or having to have someone else speak for them I think we haven’t seen the full use of VRI yet, but it could grow, particularly in locations where there are few interpreters available or the need for immediate sign language interpreter is pressing. [Editorial note: in the Q&A session following, several persons made the point that in hospitals and other medical situations, that the availability of VRI did not release such settings from the obligation to have sign language interpreters available for on call for medical situations, although there seemed to be a general understanding that in an emergency situation VRI was better than no sign language interpreter available.] Emerging Broadband Policy Issues for People with Disabilities Public safety applications Health Information Technology (HIT) We are reading about online pulse checking, blood pressure, diabetes monitoring and other ways to do this, sometimes involving wireless connection. This replaces phone connection to health care providers and may offer much benefit to people with disabilities for whom making a phone call may still remain problematic, such as for persons with speech disabilities, persons with hearing disabilities, others who cannot speak due to temporary medical conditions. Similarly the expected growth in health information technologies (HIT) generally may benefit people with disabilities, who can benefit from better service delivery and lower costs, which are generally touted as the reasons for broadband HIT. However, as AAPD has started to monitor and review HIT proposals and implementation, there is to be some caution here for people with disabilities. Policy issues we are looking at include accessibility and usability of these technologies – not just from the consumer end but also the employees of health care delivery systems may be persons with disabilities who will have to interact with these systems. Think of health claims clerks or reviewers with vision disabilities who may be reading medical records using adapted equipment or software. Will these new HIT systems permit such interoperability if we don’t build this is at the outset of the system? Perhaps as a legal requirement. Likewise, in the HIT area, we are looking at the privacy issue, and issues about security not blocking accessibility and usability for people with disabilities, e.g., pass codes and biometric entry that may get in the way of say a nurse who is a short person, or say a claims clerk with severe vision disability. Similarly, there are doctors with disabilities who will be expected to use HIT. Care Condition Caveat Accessibility and Usability of web sites Just another note here regarding this accessibility & usability issue in re employment, a critical policy arena for people with disabilities. There is a trend to using internet/broadband for formerly what were face to face services Shift to Greater Number of Services Delivered via Internet Likewise a survey of over a 1,000 community colleges (a common higher education pathway used by persons with disabilities) they found that 87 percent of them had an online admissions process. Summar Pointy Thank you.
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