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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
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Hi, I’m Josh Anderson and I’m lucky enough to get to manage the amazing people of the clinical assistive technology program at Easterseals Crossroads. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.
Josh Anderson:
Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update. A weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the In Data project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 492 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on October 30th, 2020.
Josh Anderson:
On today’s show, I am super excited to have Belva Smith, Craig Burns, Jim Reinhardt and David Frye on from our Clinical Assistive Technology team. They’re going to talk about some different accommodations they’ve done in the past. We’re going to take a little bit of time out to celebrate disability and employment month. We’ve spent the rest of the month focusing on AAC, which is a huge part of Assistive Technology, but really, and truly, especially here with my team, what we do every day is work with individuals and try to help them find jobs, keep jobs, and just be successful in work with the help of assistive technology. So I feel like it’s really a great opportunity to get these folks on and have them talk about some of the great things they’ve done.
Josh Anderson:
Please, don’t forget, you can always send us an email at Tech@EastersealsCrossroads.org. Call our listener line at (317) 721-7124 or drop us a line on Twitter @INDATAproject. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.
Josh Anderson:
Like this show? Check out Accessibility Minute, where we spend about a minute talking about something cool in Assistive Technology. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
Josh Anderson:
As I said in the opening, I’m super excited to have some of my team on today to talk about some of the job accommodations that they’ve done in the past. But I thought maybe to open us up, I would talk a little bit about disability and employment and some different tools and things that are there to help individuals. I suppose the first thing that I should bring up is something that I was taught a long time ago, but something that rings true in this work that we do. And that’s to really remember the individual in the entire process, while those of us doing the intervention and coming in to maybe help out with the job place accommodation or the assistive technology intervention, while we may have some expertise in the technology and different supports and some things that have worked in the past, we are not the experts on that individual.
Josh Anderson:
That individual is, so really, and truthfully their input is the most important part of the entire process. Their needs, their barriers and the different things that maybe they have working against them in the job are going to be unique to each individual regardless of disability. So it’s very important to take those things into account and to always work with and not for because really and truthfully, if the individual doesn’t like the intervention, it doesn’t really meet the need or it’s just too much equipment then, it can actually be more of a hindrance than a help. Something very important to take into consideration with any individual you’re working with really in any kind of manner.
Josh Anderson:
I also want to talk about some of the supports that are available for individuals with disabilities when it comes to employment. Vocational rehabilitation here in the United States is a great resource for individuals with disabilities. Funded by the FSSA, VR actually has a goal of helping individuals with disabilities find and maintain meaningful employment.
Josh Anderson:
How VR works can change by state to state. But most of the time you go through an intake process, get a vocational rehabilitation counselor, and that counselor can help you with a lot of different things, assistive technology included. They can also help by being an advocate, can help with medical or psychological profiles if they’re needed. They can also help with the other thing that I wanted to talk about, which is job coaches. Now we’ve had a few job coaches here on the show before, and this is actually where I came from. This is what I did before I moved into assistive technology. And a job coach can help an individual with a lot of different things from searching for jobs, creating a resume, practicing for interviews, and even sit in and assist with interviews, but also work as a bit of a liaison between the employer and the individual to maybe explain disability a little bit to them.
Josh Anderson:
While a lot of employers do their best to be inclusive, they may just have never met anyone with certain disabilities and they may have concerns or worries about how that individual might be able to do that job. Well, the job coach can help bridge that gap and really be an advocate and helper for that individual to kind of help them get the job. And then they can also come along on those first few days on the job, help with training, lend a hand and do some other things like that. That can really be a huge help because anyone out there who’s ever had to look for a job knows it’s a pretty strenuous process with, or without any kind of disability or barrier. Having an assistant kind of along the way can be a huge help.
Josh Anderson:
Also, since I’m having my team on today to tell just a few quick stories about some folks that maybe they’ve helped out and worked with on some different job accommodations. I want to go ahead and share a few stories of my own and it really, after doing this for quite a few years, I believe I’ve been in AT for going on eight years or a little over eight years. I can’t quite remember. There’s a whole lot of folks, looking back, I believe I’ve written 300 evaluation reports or something like that. It’s really way too many. And I must admit, I’ve probably forgotten more folks than I remember as far as working with, because really and truly in this position of assistive technology, we’re a moment in time. A person has a barrier, something they can’t do, they’re at work, we come in, we write a report, we train them on equipment, we recommend equipment, we do all these pieces, but then at the end we kind of disappear until something changes. Maybe a new database or a new need, then maybe we’ll come back in.
Josh Anderson:
And I believe we get into it a little bit more in the show later, but it’s always kind of sad that we don’t always know where folks kind of end up after that. Our hope is of course, that they’re very successful, but again, we’re there just to work with them for a short time and then kind of fade into the background. But enough about me, we really just wanted to take some time and really celebrate disability employment month here at the end of October, because that’s really in truthfully on the clinical team, what we do every day. Let me get into the interviews with the folks that are the boots on the ground, doing this every day of the week.
Josh Anderson:
My first guest today is Belva Smith. Belva, welcome to the show.
Belva Smith:
Thanks for having me, Josh.
Josh Anderson:
Can you go ahead and tell our listeners just kind of who you are and how long you’ve been here?
Belva Smith:
Sure. I’m Belva Smith and I’ve been at Crossroads, I think I’m going into my 15th year or thereabouts. I’ve kind of quit counting, but I am the Vision Team Lead. I have, since 2003, been working with individuals with different vision impairments to help them figure out what they need to be able to get a job, keep a job, go to school, just be productive in society, however they can without their vision.
Josh Anderson:
Excellent. And I know over those almost 15 years, you’ve done tons of different job accommodations and work with a lot of folks. Could you tell us about maybe one or two of your favorite, most challenging or most rewarding job accommodations?
Belva Smith:
Sure. I would say one of my most rewarding ones was a couple of years back I helped a young lady. She was a young mother, but she had never had a job due to her visual impairment. She had found as most people do transportation and just job searching in general to be very difficult. And when I first met with her, her goal was to do some sort of work from home. And of course that seems to be a common goal with folks with a visual impairment or any kind of disability, I think. Although, it’s kind of common now with the whole COVID thing. I was very concerned about her lack of experience. Also, her inexperience with any kind of assistive technology. She had used a computer, but it had been many, many years. As she had been focused on being a mom, technology just wasn’t a big deal for her.
Belva Smith:
We kind of had to start from the bottom with keyboarding and how to access windows using a screen reader. We did a couple of months of training on that and in the meanwhile she was doing some job searching independently and low and behold, several months after we had finished her basic training, she called me one day and said, “Hey, I got a job and it’s not working from home, but it will be working from home.” It was at a call center and the company that she actually was going to go to work for was so accommodating. Oh my gosh, they bent over backwards to assist us. By allowing us to use one of their computers and basically test Jaws with all the many different applications and programs that they would be using to do this call center job. We spent several weeks testing and once we found that we could, for the most part, make things work, she began working full time and we did a lot of on the job training because this wasn’t like she was going to one webpage and entering some data.
Belva Smith:
I mean, this girl has to go to many, many different databases and websites to get and gather information while having the caller on the phone. And for anyone who’s ever worked with an individual using Jaws, working in a call center where you’re listening to the caller in one ear and Jaws in the other ear, that’s a talent. That has to be… It has to be developed, but she did it. And within just, I think about six months, she had gotten all kinds of awards for being one of the best workers in the office. Ended up that she was able to then start working from home. Here it was her first job, her first re-introduction, we’ll say to technology and she landed her job, her dream job. That was very rewarding for me just to see how successful she could be.
Belva Smith:
And as far as I know, things are still going well for her. That’s the way we would like to see everything end.
Belva Smith:
Another one that I can think of Josh, now, this one does not have a single thing to do with technology. And it also isn’t necessarily vision related, but I had an individual who was short in structure and he was working in a pizza shop. And some of the things that he was set out to do was to get the dough ready and to make the breadsticks and just like most kitchens, everything in the kitchen was built for people of a normal/taller structure, so he was experiencing a lot of difficulty being able to get the dough into the bowl or the mixer. One of the things that we did for him is we just got a, it was called a medical stepladder.
Belva Smith:
And that was only because it had a handle, but it was about two-foot tall, I think. It had two steps and a nice size platform so that he had room to stand safely, but that got him up to the level of the work area that he needed to be. And then another couple of things that we bought him was just a standard pizza slicer or pastry slicer that would allow him to also quickly cut the pizzas when they come out of the oven, also slice the bread sticks before they went into the oven. And then one of the things that he also was tasked to do was to get things out of the freezer for the actual pizza makers, so he had to be able to go into the freezer and identify the sausage or the pepperoni. What we did with, for that task is we used his cell phone and just use an app called seeing AI.
Belva Smith:
And he would just go in and hold his phone up to the boxes and they would read off the name for him. I said, it didn’t really have anything to do with vision, but he was slightly low vision, not to the point that he was using a cane for mobility or anything like that. But low enough that for him to be efficient in the freezer we found using the seeing AI app was helpful for him.
Belva Smith:
That’s two of the things that come to mind for me. But as you said, there are many, many of them, and sometimes we tend to forget about some of the things that we’ve done, so I appreciate you bringing this challenge forward for me to actually look back and think back about some of the past things that we’ve been able to do, because usually once we get an individual where they need to be, we don’t get to hear from him again. It’s kind of nice to reflect.
Josh Anderson:
It really is. And I think that’s kind of, one of our goals. Our goal is independence, so if the person needs us for the rest of their life, that’s not really helping them that much, so it is amazing, but it would be nice sometimes if we could just get follow up. I’d love to hear what people are doing. And I know sometimes we do, but just some of them we’re there for that little moment in time, give them that little bit of assistance, work with them to accomplish their goals. And then I guess fade off into the sunset.
Belva Smith:
Exactly.
Josh Anderson:
Well, thank you so much Belva.
Belva Smith:
All right, Josh, you have a great day and thanks again.
Josh Anderson:
You too.
Josh Anderson:
Well, our next guest today is Craig burns.
Josh Anderson:
Craig, welcome to the show.
Craig Burns:
Thank you, Josh.
Josh Anderson:
Craig, when we get started here, can you go ahead and tell our listeners just who you are and how long have you been here?
Craig Burns:
Sure. My name is Craig Burns and I’ve been with the Mobility Cognitive Team for almost, well actually a little over eight years now, technically. And I’ve been the Team Lead for a couple of years.
Josh Anderson:
Very nice. And we’re so happy to have you. Craig, can you go ahead and tell us about your favorite, maybe most challenging or most rewarding job accommodation?
Craig Burns:
Sure. There was one, I worked with a guy that’s a quadriplegic, so he has two places he usually resides; in his wheelchair or his bed. We were trying to get him access to the internet, emailing. And so we were trying to find a set up that would be usable from both the wheelchair and from the bed. What we ended up with was a Microsoft Surface Pro 6, the newest one, with head Mouse Nano and the dragger utility. We also used, there’s another company, [inaudible 00:15:02] that makes bracket that worked well with the Surface Pro, so we could use that to attach to two different mounts, one mounts to his wheelchair and one mounts to his bed. And then we used a [inaudible 00:15:15] professional individual, and then he also got a wireless keyboard so that his aids could access the computer and type if they needed to get him replaced somewhere or restart the computer, they could do that.
Josh Anderson:
Oh, very nice. And I’m betting by combining Dragon with the head mouse nano, he was probably able to actually use his voice as well as dwell to click on things. Yeah,
Craig Burns:
Well that worked out really well. He has two ways to do that. One through the nano, he moves the cursor or the mouse pointer. It also includes a utility to allow him to make mouse selections, so you can say, I need a single right left click and you can pick that. And then he just dwells over the item that needs to be clicked on and it activates it. But sometimes he didn’t want to have that in the way, so when he was using Dragon, he would use that system, he would still use them head mouse nano to position the mouse where he wanted. And then he’d just say, “mouse click” and it would click a point or the place on the screen that he want to click to. That worked really well.
Craig Burns:
And he did find a few times when he had to use some things to get things started. We even used Cortana where we set up Cortana, so he could use that to start Dragon and then he could still pick the dragger utility by using Dragon and the mouse click command and different things like that. So if anything was shut off, he can still get to it.
Craig Burns:
And then we set up his Dragon, so he would have to turn it on when he turned on his computer, but it would always come up with the microphone muted or in sleep mode because what I found was when we tried to do it with Dragon coming up with the startup of the computer is that it puts it into the icon tray and it makes it really difficult for a person using a head mouse pointer to get to, because it’s just so small of an area.
Craig Burns:
He could get to it, but it was just an extra two steps or so to deal with that, so he had to be able to bring that up. Now, you just have to use a right click on the dragger, so then that would go away and it just became annoying. We just settled on, he can start it with Cortana or with the head mouse because the head mouse nano comes up right away. [inaudible 00:17:43] and he can get the dragger utility started. I think he even has that now set up so it comes up on start-up, so it’s always running. He has multiple ways to get things going once he gets stopped.
Josh Anderson:
Excellent. I think that’s a great example of using more than one accommodation just to make sure that that person has exactly what they need. And not only that with having those multiple ways, if something does fail, not work right or anything like that, you got some backups, he can still be able to access all this stuff you need.
Craig Burns:
Right. And he always has a staff available or not always, but most of the time. And so if you were really gets messed up, they can grab the wireless keyboard and just go to things. I use that because I don’t want them reaching between him and his device and touching the device to get back to where he was. They can just sit back behind him, use the track pad on the keyboard to move the mouse and then hit where they need to hit to get things going again.
Josh Anderson:
Excellent. Well, that is an awesome accommodation, Craig. Thank you so much for coming on and telling us about it.
Craig Burns:
You’re welcome, Josh.
Josh Anderson:
Our next guest today is Jim Reinhardt. Jim, welcome to the show.
James Rinehart:
Yeah. Hi Josh. Thanks for having me.
Josh Anderson:
Yeah, it’s great to have you on and get to talk to you today, Jim.
Josh Anderson:
Can you start off by telling our listeners just what team you’re on and how long you’ve been here at Easterseals crossroads?
James Rinehart:
Sure. I work in the System Technologies section. I’m on the Vision Team. Been with Easterseals Crossroads, about six and a half years now. Having a good time doing what we do.
Josh Anderson:
Good, good, good. And hopefully you’re here for a very long time from now on, although I won’t make you say you’re going to do that on the air, but Jim, the real reason I have you here today is, can you tell us about your favorite, most challenging or maybe most rewarding job accommodation?
James Rinehart:
Yeah, actually I have a couple of, I guess sort of favorites because it involves a little bit of a MacGyvering, like the TV show. I have a couple of folks that I’ve worked with that are low vision. They needed typically a lot of magnification on their computer, but both of them got to a place where the magnification that they needed to use, wasn’t really getting it done for them, but they also really weren’t ready to make the commitment to switch to a screen reader or in one case, the program they were using at work did not really accommodate a screen reader well.
James Rinehart:
What we did, in both cases, we employed a device called a [inaudible 00:20:11] Viewpoint and it’s a wearable basically like a CCTV except you wear it. And so what it allowed both of them to do was back completely out of the magnification on their computer. They were using one time magnification and then would have access to the entire screen with the viewpoint on and then be able to do the magnification they needed with that to see just the section of the section of the screen they needed to work with. That device also has OCR capabilities, so in one particular case, so they would view things like contracts and proposals and would be able to read that right off the computer screen. I’ll say in both cases, they were incredibly pleased with the outcome of it and really, really, really made their day as far as being able to continue to work successfully.
Josh Anderson:
That is excellent, Jim and I love it when the same kind of accommodation can actually help out more than one person. And those wearables are definitely becoming a big thing because even being able to use the computer or when you look away from the computer, you can still access everything else too. That’s really awesome. Well, thank you for coming on today, Jim and telling us all about those accommodations.
James Rinehart:
You’re more than welcome Josh.
Josh Anderson:
All right, folks, our last guest today is David Fry. David, welcome to the show.
David Frye:
Hello Josh.
Josh Anderson:
We’re very excited to have you on here today. David, before we start talking about accommodations, can you let our listeners know just kind of who you are, how long you’ve been here?
David Frye:
Well, I’ve been at Easterseals Crossroads for around eight years. I also worked in an AT lab in college and have pretty extensive computer background.
Josh Anderson:
That you definitely do, which makes you a great fit for here. Now, can you tell us about maybe your favorite, most challenging, most rewarding or just something kind of about job accommodations?
David Frye:
Job accommodations. They are very rewarding because a person might not even know that they’re in pain. They develop a problem and they think that a solution that didn’t exist five years ago, they just stopped looking and they just deal with the pain. And it can be a small thing from a seat adjustment ergonomically, to the adjustment of the height of a monitor because the majority of workplace absences are skeletal and muscular, so having poor posture has pretty much been the standard since the beginning of time. And now the paradigm is shifting to where something as simple as a sit/stand desk, which they do vary from $150 all the way up to several thousand, just depending on if it’s zero gravity or not. But small things like adjusting the brightness or the contrast or the lighting of a room can be a really simple and efficient fix that doesn’t cost any money, just time and knowledge.
David Frye:
But I worked with individuals that have all kinds of challenges. And one of my favorite ones is working with Dragon. And if people don’t know it’s a speech to text program that can also control the computer on windows, not so much Mac they’re in a transition with kind of replacing it, but I’ve worked with an individual that he was paralyzed from the neck down and he was a writer. He would dictate to his mother and then she would have to type it out. When I met with him, his goal was to be able to work more independently. She would send him up with Dragon on his laptop and he would be able to write his own books and edit them without having to inconvenience her.
David Frye:
Dragon, lots of individuals who had strokes and they just lost the ability to type or they’re trying to type with one hand and it’s daunting.
David Frye:
There was a gentleman who he had an accident in 1979 and he’d been working with one hand on the keyboard and it would take him an hour to compose an email. And he was really resistant to trying to learn Dragon because he’s not the most computer savvy person, but after we were able to work together for a couple of weeks, a light came on and he was amazed at it. And on the way home, he was sending me emails every two minutes saying “This is amazing. It’s going to change my life.” And it’s a small investment that can make you more productive or independent. And individuals that go from having a, what’s considered a normal workplace or task, and then they’re limited. It’s psychologically very heavy to try to adapt or to accept help. And we’re lucky that we get to work with a lot of different people with different perspectives and learning about their story as a person. We all have certain challenges and certain gifts and certain situations, but it’s not a burden to help people. And it does give back to you.
Josh Anderson:
You brought up a bunch of great points there, David, that I won’t have time to touch on all of them, but you brought up one that is probably one of my favorites. And one of the most rewarding, I think, parts of this job, and that’s working with an individual who maybe doesn’t like technology or just isn’t tech savvy, maybe a little bit intimidated by it, but kind of has that barrier that need, caused by a disability either acquired or kind of always there. And that aha moment, like you said, with the gentlemen who didn’t want to use the technology or anything, took them a really long time to write an email. And as you’re driving back, he’s emailing you every few minutes with a brand new one, getting them put together. I know that’s definitely one of the most rewarding parts of my job.
Josh Anderson:
And I’m glad to hear that it is of yours as well. Well, David, Hey, thank you so much for coming on here today and just talking about some of the important things to consider about accommodations and workspace, and we really do appreciate having you as part of the team and having you on the show.
David Frye:
Well, thank you, Josh.
Josh Anderson:
Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If you do call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject, or check us out on Facebook. Are you looking for a transcript or show notes? Head on over to our website at www.eastersealstech.com.
Josh Anderson:
Assistive Technology Update is a proud member of The Accessibility Channel for more shows like this, plus so much more head over to AccessibilityChannel.com.
Josh Anderson:
The views expressed by our guests are not necessarily that, of this host or the IN DATA project. This has been your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the IN DATA project at Easterseals Crossroads in Indianapolis, Indiana. Thank you so much for listening.