Introduction to this Special Issue
"Computers and the Disabled"


Computer telecommunications is rapidly reducing barriers to the modern world for many persons with a variety of disabilities. Technology is power and personal empowerment comes with the personal computer. When linked to electronic networks, the disabled become enabled as never before. Besides opening a vast new realm of opportunities and challenges in employment, education and social interaction, this newly found power redefines both the relation of the disabled person to the world as well as to himself or herself. New power brings a new sense of identity and worth as well. The numbers of persons who have been helped and the variety of ways that they use this new technology are countless.

This issue cannot be comprehensive but does provide a broad spectrum of people and disabilities. There are also an increasing number of organizations dedicated to increasing computer access, and this issue cannot cover them all. Many are computer manufacturers like Apple and IBM, and others are special organizations created for this purpose like Closing the Gap Inc. However, all the contributors to this particular issue are in one way or another connected with institutions of higher education. You might call this the "egg head" issue as well as the "disability" issue. Some authors are, themselves "handicapped", while others work to facilitate empowering the disabled in one way or another.

The authors share two main purposes in putting together this issue of Netweaver. First, they want to spread the good news of the reduced barriers for the handicapped brought about by recent technology. They are working to spread this news to the disabled themselves, and they desire to alert future friends and employers of the disabled of what new possibilities are available. Second, They intend to broaden the audience of people who will work together to expand and maintain the increased access to society for those of us with various so-called disabilities. We plan to move closer to equal access, and we want to guard against needlessly losing what has been gained.

Both Tzipporah Benavraham and Norman Coombs are blind educators who make extensive use of computer networking. Benavraham, besides being blind, has multiple sclerosis, and is ventilator dependent. She holds a UN University PhD in political science and is an Adjunct professor at the New School for Social Research. She helped establish the disability computer laboratory at Brooklyn College CUNY when she herself sued and won access to the lab. Tzipporah has won a congressional citation of merit for her work on the Americans with Disabilities act. Coombs lost his sight as the result of throwing sticks at the age of eight. He is now a professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He uses computer telecommunications in teaching some of his courses, and this contributed to his selection as the New York State Teacher of the Year in 1990.

Kathryn Schmitz is a Duke University graduate and is now a Senior Public Information Specialist at the National Technical Institute of the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology. Schmitz was born deaf, and she was mainstreamed in the public school system in Maryland. Before coming to NTID, she worked in the federal government (EPA and USDA) as a technical writer. Though hearing impaired herself, computer telecommunications puts her on an equal basis with other professionals in her field. Craig Smith is a C4-level quadriplegic working as an environmental research chemist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and School of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary. He was an active able-bodied teaching scientist prior to injury in 1976. He specializes in applications of computerized analytical instrumentation and in design and use of computerized databases in marine research.

Danny Hilton-Chalfen, Carmela Castorina, Darola Hockley and Jane Berliss are all intimately connected with EDUCOM's Project EASI, (Equal Access to Software for Instruction). EDUCOM is a national consortium of higher education institutions and a variety of technology related corporate affiliates. Project EASI was established in 1988 to address computer access needs of persons with disabilities primarily in higher education. Danny is chair of EASI and coordinator of the UCLA... lab for disabled students, and Carmela is the editor for Project EASI. Darola now works for Environment Canada and Jane is at the Trace Research and Development Center in Madison Wisconsin. Harry Murphy is the Director of the Office of Disabled Student Services at California State University Northridge. He has used this position as a springboard for impacting the world of adaptive technology for the disabled. He is the moving force behind the CSUM annual conference on "Technology and Persons with Disabilities". David Lunney is a professor of chemistry at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. When confronted with teaching a disabled student, he became involved in the problems
of helping disabled persons gain access to various types of modern scientific equipment. This led to his present involvement with the Science Institute for the Disabled.

Robert Zenhausern is a professor of psychology at St. John's University. His specialty is in the problems of the learning disabled. He believes that technology can assist these learners as well as the physically disabled students. His interest in using computer technology to facilitate these learners has recently expanded to exploring the uses of computer networks. He has established discussion lists both for the disabled learner and for those who teach them.

- Norman Coombs