Factors Influencing Adoption of Wireless Technologies: Key Issues, Barriers and Opportunities for People with Disabilities

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For further information regarding this report contact:

Paul M.A. Baker, Ph.D., Project Director

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• Microsoft Word version of Factors Influencing Adoption of Wireless Technologies

Executive Summary

While the adoption of wireless technologies has become increasingly widespread, significant issues involving access to these technologies still exist for people with disabilities. This report identifies key issues facing disabled users of wireless technologies, including barriers to access and use, as well as opportunities for reducing those barriers.

The 2000 Census estimates that some 49.7 million men, women and children – almost 20 percent of the United States population – have a disability that to some degree impacts their everyday activities (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). While disabilities can involve sensory, physical, and/or cognitive conditions, and have varying degrees of severity, persons with disabilities are generally in some manner constrained in their participation in one or more normal life activities. A disabled person’s participation in his or her community and society at large can be significantly different than that of a non-disabled person. Disabled individuals face many types of educational, economic, social and technological barriers to full engagement in society. These barriers, can to some extent, be bridged by advances being made in disability policy and telecommunications policy to address the needs of the disabled community and foster a better community awareness of their needs.

Legislation has been enacted to ensure equal access to public goods, access and use of commercial products and devices, and enforcement of the civil rights of people with disabilities. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 are the two pieces of legislation that have received the most praise and attention in recent years. Their aim is provide people with disabilities better access to electronic and technology information and telecommunications services, respectively.

In this report the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies for Persons with Disabilities examines the role that advances in wireless communications and related technologies play in providing the disabled community increased opportunities for daily interactions; and more specifically analyzes accessibility policy issues related to the use of wireless communications and other information technologies. The advancement of universal design concepts and assistive technologies, including wireless technologies, and the “disability divide” that exists between users of telecommunications technologies, are focused on as means of promoting and ensuring equal access to services and products for people with disabilities. Compilations and overviews of current government initiatives, telecommunications policies, and Supreme Court rulings interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act are di scussed as are the barriers and opportunities to these related topics.

Overview

Mobile wireless (including “WiFi”, Bluetooth and cellular) technologies are rapidly emerging as an important medium to send and receive data, text, voice and video. Many routine daily activities – such as making doctor’s appointments, calling home, obtaining directions and purchasing goods and services – already rely on existing telecommunication tools. These technologies will enable cell phones and portable or wearable computers to function as universal remote consoles for accessing information and services and controlling appliances and devices with more accuracy and consistency than they do today. For example, a personal digital assistant may be used to conduct financial transactions, program a VCR, set a home thermostat, check the coffee pot, or locate and schedule public transportation. In short, wireless devices are becoming an integral part of daily life, and without access to these technologies, people with disabilities may find themselves increasingly excluded from many activities.

Public policy plays an important if frequently overlooked role for people with disabilities, in part because “people with disabilities…interface with so many different components of public policy systems, many of which are conflicting or inconsistent, such as employment goals and requirements for income assistance programs. The larger public policy context for disability and rehabilitation research reflects interlinking service delivery systems in which changes in one system often have a substantial impact on others. The dilemma for disability and rehabilitation policy is that the various systems are not mutually reinforcing.” (NIDRR, 1999)

Throughout this document, the expression “Facilitative Technology” (FT) is used to de scribe information, communication, telecommunication and wireless technologies that could potentially be utilized to benefit persons with disabilities, extending the more commonly used term “Assistive Technology” (AT). In general, AT devices, systems, and services are used to “increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.” This report identifies key issues at the intersection of disability policy and wireless technologies, barriers to access/use, and opportunities for reducing those barriers as well as pertinent information on the disability community, legislative and regulatory policies, and recent policy initiatives. Future updates will continue to assess developments in mobile wireless technology that can assist the disabled community.

The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Mobile Wireless Technologies for Persons with Disabilities (hereafter referred to as the Wireless RERC) is a five-year program that began in October 2001, sponsored by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the U.S. Department of Education under grant number H133E010804. The organizational structure for the Wireless RERC is built upon research, development, and training focused activities guided and evaluated by constituent advisory groups made up of consumers, rehabilitation professionals, and wireless industry representatives. This document has been developed under the auspices of the Policy Initiatives research project (R3) directive to provide a baseline assessment of Federal policies and regulatory initiatives that focus on promoting universal access to mobile wireless technologies and to explore innovative wireless applications, such as those related to information and communications provision, that can help meet the needs of people with disabilities.

The term “facilitative technology” (FT) as used in this document extends the concept of “assistive technology” (AT), shifting the focus from the individual, per se, to a focus on the interaction of the individual and the environment within which the individual operates.