Technology Helps Disabled Workers

A Department of Defense program aids employees who are blind, deaf, or injured.

Grant Gross, IDG News Service

WASHINGTON-- For many people, technology is a tool that allows them to work more quickly and efficiently. For people with disabilities or those who have physical challenges, technology offered through the Computer/Electronics Accommodation Program at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), makes it possible for them to do their jobs.

The program, called CAP for short, has provided a wide range of assistive technology to DOD employees and other federal workers since the DOD established it in 1990. CAP uses technology to assist federal workers, including employees with hearing or sight impairments and even workers injured in terrorist attacks on the Pentagon--DOD headquarters--on September 11, 2001.

In many cases, CAP provides technology to help, and encourages federal agencies to hire, people with long-term disabilities, including people who have been blind or deaf for their entire lives. But other CAP clients are workers who encounter challenges later in life: repetitive stress injuries, loss of sight as they grow older, or war wounds that make it difficult to stare at a computer screen all day.

"Our mission is to ensure people with disabilities have the technology they need to do their jobs," says Dinah Cohen, CAP director. "We know if people live long enough, they will have a disability issue."

Technologies employed by CAP include speech-recognition software for people who have trouble using a keyboard, computer screen magnification programs for people with sight disabilities, and talking dictionaries for people with cognitive disabilities. CAP gives screen-reading software, or readers that print out the text of a screen in Braille, to people with sight problems, and it provides equipment such as fax machines for government workers who, because of injuries or disabilities, have permission to work at home.

CAP averages about 5000 requests a year from employees of the DOD and about 50 other government agencies and offices, and the program has filed about 40,000 requests in the past 15 years.

Communication Aids

For Jeffrey Dallos, who's deaf, CAP has provided captioning services for videotapes, a Web cam to be able to see sign language interpreters, and Text Telephone, often called TTY. Dallos, National Disability Program manger for the Office of Equal Opportunity at the U.S. Geological Survey, educates his agency's workers on disability issues and coordinates a training program for young people with disabilities.

"The technologies have helped me communicate with my colleagues, supervisor, and the public," he says in an e-mail. "Communication on a daily basis is an integral part of my job."

Because of the nature of his work, Dallos is familiar with assistive technologies, he says. But other workers with disabilities may not know where to find assistive technology, and the cost of such technology can be prohibitive, he adds.

"I could find the same technologies elsewhere because CAP procures from many different vendors," he says. "The only difference is that they are providing funds for the technologies. CAP gives managers and supervisors a greater value and not having to worry about using their office budget to get technologies. I believe that is the greatest value to any manager or supervisor."

Not all CAP assistance comes in the form of complicated software such as speech recognition programs.

For Major Stephen Redmon, a lawyer in the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, CAP has helped him recover from a neck disc injury. After going through a needs assessment with CAP workers, Redmon was fitted with an ergonomic computer workstation. Activities such as turning his neck or holding a phone between his head and shoulder aggravated the injury, but CAP's equipment, including a telephone headset and a document holder, helped him avoid those activities.

"The equipment allowed my pain to go away," he says. "Basically, it healed itself over time."

More information on CAP is available online. Government workers whose agencies have an agreement with CAP can apply for assistance online.