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Accessible Fitness: Sports and Athletics Gaining Better Accessibility

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Accessibility in the News—8/11/17..

Wheelchair athlete races in marathon. | This week in Microassist Accessibility in the News features multiple stories on accessible fitness. Photo: Unsplash.com

Accessible Fitness: Sports and Athletics Gaining Better Accessibility

Disability advocates are striving to bring accessible fitness to anyone and everyone interested in sports and athletics all around the world.

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AITN Quote of the Week

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— Neil Milliken

National News (U.S.)

Putting heart into robotics: Easton LaChappelle

Source:  Microsoft  |  Technology, Innovation, Assistive Technology

When Easton LaChappelle submitted a robotic arm for his 8th grade science fair, he wasn’t expecting it to turn into something so much bigger. But on that day, after meeting a little girl whose basic prosthetic arm had cost her family more than $80,000, he found his purpose. Ever since, he’s worked with determination and Microsoft tools to create affordable and exceptional robotic technology that could go on to benefit people in need of artificial limbs, as well as building the business to make it all happen…

Eclipse Soundscapes Project

Source:  NASA’s Heliophysics Education Consortium  |  Leisure/Entertainment, Inclusion, Technology

On August 21, 2017, millions of people will view a total solar eclipse as it passes through the United States. However, for the visually impaired, or others who are unable to see the eclipse with their own eyes, the Eclipse Soundscapes Project delivers a multisensory experience of this exciting celestial event. The project, from NASA’s Heliophysics Education Consortium, will include audio descriptions of the eclipse in real time, recordings of the changing environmental sounds during the eclipse, and an interactive “rumble map” app that will allow users to visualize the eclipse through touch…

 E-Learning for All

August 3, 2017   |  Source:  Association for Talent Development &  PDF  |  E-Learning, Accessible Design, Digital Accessibility

There’s recently been renewed attention to the need to make e-learning “accessible.” That is, the need to make e-learning as usable by those who have disabilities as it is by those without. So what’s the best way to ensure that your e-learning is accessible? And, given that anything that adds to course creation time also adds cost, how can it be done in a cost-effective manner? The most effective and efficient way to make e-learning accessible is to incorporate accessibility into your overall course development process from the beginning…

 Accessibility Doesn’t Stop This World Adventurer

August 3, 2017   |  Source:  Travel Pulse  |  Mobility, Travel, Athletics/Entertainment

Part of the excitement of travel is getting out of your comfort zone. However, if you have accessibility issues, this can be more terrifying than exciting when on the road. Hearing stories about wheelchairs being damaged by airlines and people being dropped by employees enlisted to help them makes the idea of leaving home less than comforting for those with mobility issues. Adventurer and inspirational speaker Aron Anderson hasn’t let these stories stop him from seeking out some of the world’s most far-flung destinations…

Resident calling on officials to inspect buildings for accessibility

August 3, 2017   |  Source:  Milford Daily News  |  Building/Facilities Access, Accessible Design, Disability Rights  |  Massachusetts

A local man is urging officials to inspect buildings to make certain they are up to modern building codes, especially for accessibility for those with disabilities. Harold Rhodes said doing so would improve safety and the quality of life. He believes a number of local places fall short of compliance. But officials say the task – which would include a lengthy review of over 550 publicly and privately owned buildings – would tax resources, strain town departments and could be costly…

For Rural Veterans, New Approaches to Health Care

August 3, 2017   |  Source:  Route Fifty  |  Health/Medicine, Government, Discrimination

On this long drive, across two state lines and endless fields of corn and cattle, Lynn Graham thinks about how it may be the quality of life, not the quantity, that matters. Graham, 55, has stage 4 liver and colon cancer. It is an 85-mile drive, cutting through Arkansas on mostly country roads, to the closest U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs medical center in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he is being treated. For this appointment, the Air Force veteran borrowed his mother’s car and is driving himself. But his second round of chemotherapy is supposed to start next week, and he doesn’t know how he will get there. He’s starting to think, since the chemo may not work anyway, it’s not worth the stress…

How Many Americans Have A Disability? A New Survey Indicates The Number Is Higher Than You Think

August 4, 2017   |  Source:  Bustle  |  Awareness, Disability Rights, Inclusion

One of the largest minority populations in the United States is a group whose voices and stories are not often heard in conversations about inclusivity. People with disabilities represent about 12.6 percent of people living in the U.S., yet representation of disabled people, especially in media, does not always reflect the full reality of their lives. A recent report from Pew Research Center lists seven facts about Americans with disabilities, helping give a clearer picture on who we need to be including in these conversations…

Blind man sues Keys resort over ADA claim

August 5, 2017   |  Source:  Florida Keys News  |  Blindness/Visual Impairment, ADA, Lawsuits/Litigation  |  Florida

A legally blind Miami man with cerebral palsy who has filed about 70 similar lawsuits is suing Hawks Cay Resort on Duck Key in federal court, claiming its website fails to allow him access. Juan Carlos Gil wants Hawks Cay to redo its website so that screen-reader software he uses can be used to access it. Gil also seeks compensation for his time and suffering, saying he tried to plan a vacation to the Keys resort but was stymied by the website’s limitations…

Revised Standards Ensure Accessibility in eLearning

August 6, 2017   |  Source:  eLearningInside News  |  Education, E-Learning, Accessible Design

The development of eLearning has created opportunities for a highly diverse population of learners. Today, instructional designers and course developers can use a variety of interactive multimedia to help students reach learning objectives, eliminating the need for rote memorization and repetitive courses consisting only of text and images. But all of these options come at a price: accessibility. The same multimedia interactions that have been lauded as the new standard for education often mean that learners with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities are left behind…

Why Web Accessibility Is Good Policy and Good Business

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  CMSWire  |  Digital Accessibility, Web Design, Businesses, Legislation/Policy

Is your CMS, website or app accessible to those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairment? I didn’t think so. The good news? That particular shortcoming is widespread among online brands, so you’re not alone. But that’s also the bad news. One in five Americans lives with a disability, which means that your target audience is almost certainly made up of people who are struggling in one way or another to access web content…

 Microsoft Eye Control Makes Accessibility Widely Available to Disabled

August 4, 2017   |  Source:  eWeek  |  Technology, Accessible Design, Innovation

 Renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking is famous for his plain language explanations of physics. But he’s also known for his ability to communicate and conduct research using a tablet computer that he controls with only his eyes. Hawking does this with a custom-built eye tracker provided by Intel that allows him to pick out words for speech as well as to control his Lenovo Yoga laptop computer that runs Windows 10…

Two New York Federal Judges Refuse to Dismiss Website Accessibility Cases

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  Seyfarth Shaw &Lainey Feingold &National Law Review  |  ADA, Digital Accessibility, Lawsuits/Litigation  |  New York

Two New York federal judges recently said that the ADA covers websites (even those not connected to a physical place) and one held that working on improving the accessibility of one’s website does not make the ADA claim moot. The number of district court judges siding with plaintiffs in website accessibility cases is increasing. On June 13, a Florida federal judge issued the first web accessibility trial verdict against grocer Winn Dixie for having a website that could not be used by the blind plaintiff.  Two days later, a California federal judge held that a blind plaintiff’s website accessibility lawsuit against retailer Hobby Lobby could proceed to discovery…

Hotels That are Accessibility All-Stars

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  TravelPulse  |  Building/Facilities Access, Accessible Design, Inclusion

It’s late. Your flight is delayed. All you want is a hot shower and comfortable bed. But where can you find a roll-in shower that meets your needs and a staff that sees you, not your disability? Whether you’re fighting your way out of the scenario listed above or you’re in the early stages of planning a trip overseas, here’s a helpful list to propel yourself headlong into your next adventure…

BCCC improving campus for students with disabilities

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  WITN  |  Higher Education, Building/Facilities Access, Accessible Design  |  North Carolina

Beaufort County Community College is working on a number of improvements around their campus, but they say right now, their highest priority is to increase the accessibility of the campus for people with disabilities. It’s all thanks to a $6.5 million bond the school received last year to support facility upgrades. “This is a priority for us so that students of all kinds can get around campus and have the same access as any other student as far as campus goes,” says Mark Nelson, the college’s vice president of administrative services. “We have had an ADA coordinator take some input from students with disabilities and made some suggestions to us, and that’s what we tried to include in our plan.”…

Is This an ‘Ominous’ Message for the Disabled Under Trump?

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  Daily Beast  |  Disability Rights, Lawsuits/Litigation, Advocacy

The Justice Department has dropped its appeal of a key disability rights lawsuit—and advocates say they fear this means people with disabilities could see their rights rolled back under President Donald Trump. The lawsuit at issue is in Richmond, Virginia, where a sheriff’s deputy, Emily Hall, had to temporarily leave her job to get surgery for a heart condition in September 2012. After her surgery, she tried to return to work but wasn’t physically capable of taking her old position. The sheriff’s department told her she could apply for a less strenuous job. When she applied, she didn’t get that position, according to court documents…

Machine Learning To Understand Every User And Anticipate Their Needs

August 7, 2017   |  Source:  Business 2 Community  |  Innovation, Universal Design, Technology

Machine learning empowers computers with the ability to learn by themselves, as opposed to being explicitly programmed. In other words, computers have intuition instead of just following rules. The ideas have been around for 60 years or so, but it’s safe to say that machine learning is presently a hot topic, and is having a big impact on mobile-first businesses. Nowhere was this more apparent than at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2017). One of the main themes throughout WWDC 2017 was the further development of device-based machine learning to anticipate customer needs. And just as importantly, to surface relevant information or an interaction to solve those particular needs…

New York Could Chides Other Approaches to Web Accessibility

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  BNA Bloomberg  |  Digital Accessibility, Web Deign, ADA  |  New York

A federal district court has added fuel to an ongoing debate among courts over the extent to which the Americans With Disabilities Act covers business websites. The court ruled that the ADA applies to a claim that art supply chain Blick Art Materials LLC failed to make its website accessible to blind people. The court criticized the approaches of other courts in the process, particularly a narrow approach that requires a link between a website’s alleged inaccessibility and enjoyment of the physical store…

Class action: Groupon violates ADA by not offering comparable deals accessible to disabled

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  Cook County Record  |  ADA, Discrimination, Mobility

 A man with spina bifida has accused Groupon of discrimination for not offering comparable products accessible to those with disabilities alongside other offered deals, including discounted hotel stays and football tickets. Andrew Huzar said he was trying to purchase a Groupon Getaway Deal on July 30, 2015, for a stay at a Red Lion Hotel in Harrisburg, Penn., but discovered the website offered no options for rooms that incorporated accessibility features for people with physical difficulties. He emailed Groupon to inquire about wheelchair-accessible rooms, and though the company responded promptly, the answer was negative…

Only with your help can Google Maps build a better map for everyone

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  TechRadar  |  Travel, Accessible Design, Technology

It’s hard enough to just find a good local taco joint. But for some, locating a restaurant that can also accommodate for a disability requires a herculean amount of research and planning. Thankfully, the world of technology has a solution. Google Maps has long been putting its users to task by quizzing them about their favorite destinations. From questions ranging from a bar’s drink offering and vibe of the atmosphere to the availability of family bathrooms, answering these questions isn’t just an exercise in testing your memory…

UPS to Pay $2 Million to Resolve Nationwide EEOC Disability Discrimination Claims

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  EEOC  |  Discrimination, Awareness, Lawsuits/Litigation

International shipping giant United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) has agreed to pay $2 million to nearly 90 current and former UPS employees to resolve a nationwide disability discrimination lawsuit filed in 2009 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as well as to conciliate related administrative charges, the agency announced today. The EEOC charged that UPS violated federal law failing to provide UPS employees with disabilities reasonable accommodations that would enable them to perform their job duties. The EEOC further alleged that UPS maintained an inflexible leave policy, whereby the company fired disabled employees automatically when they reached 12 months of leave, without engaging in the interactive process required by law…

Website accessibility in the tourism industry: an analysis of official national tourism organization websites around the world

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  Figshare  |  Digital Accessibility, Web Design, Travel, Disability Rights

To analyze the accessibility of official national tourism organization websites of countries around the world, in order to establish possible common patterns and rankings of those with exemplary practice through to those with the highest number of issues. The purpose for undertaking such an analysis is to provide a quasi-indicator of inclusive organizational practice for online accessibility for both destination managers and their accessible tourism consumers – domestic and overseas people with disability visiting the websites…

Spokane schools swept up in nationwide barrage of ADA website accessibility complaints

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  The Spokesman Review  |  ADA, Digital Accessibility, Web Design  |  Washington

A civil rights complaint filed by a Michigan woman is prompting Spokane Public Schools to make its website accessible for users with disabilities. The complaint is one of more than 1,700 that education-activist Marcie Lipsitt has single-handedly filed nationwide in a year and a half blitz. “I don’t file complaints to be a jerk,” she said. “I file them to fix problems.”…

National Parks in California Will Become More Accessible to Those Who Are Visually Impaired or Blind

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  Digital Journal  |  Leisure/Entertainment, Blindness/Visual Impairment, Accessible Design  |  California

In their continuing efforts to “audio describe the world,” researchers at the University of Hawai’i will collaborate with Google, the American Council of the Blind, and the National Park Service to audio describe print brochures at 15 park sites throughout the state of California. This latest phase of the UniDescription project will focus on description of the primary print brochures available in California’s national parks, distinguishing it as the first state in the country to feature such widespread accessibility for people who are visually impaired or blind…

Paralympic hero Karen Darke is cycling across 7 continents

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  CNN  |  Paralympics, Mobility, Sports/Athletics

Karen Darke was paralyzed from the chest down in a climbing accident more than 20 years ago, but it hasn’t stopped her winning Paralympic gold or continuing her life as an extreme adventurer. For Darke, 46, it’s rarely about the destination; it’s about the journey that takes her there. The Briton won the gold medal for hand cycling at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. But the real prize, she tells CNN Travel, was the “inner gold” — “a discovery of what is possible when the power of thought, clear intention and good people come together.”…

Bieber Tourways settles lawsuit over bus accessibility

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  Reading Eagle  |  Lawsuits/Litigation, Transit/Transportation, Discrimination  |  Pennsylvania 

Bieber Tourways, a transportation group based in Kutztown, agreed Wednesday to change its practices to resolve allegations that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a news release. Under federal law, large operators like Bieber Tourways must ensure that 100 percent of the buses in their fixed-route fleet are readily accessible to individuals with disabilities, including those who use wheelchairs. The settlement arises out of an investigation into whether the company complied with this requirement on its services between Philadelphia and New York City…

Where All Bodies Are Exquisite

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  NY Times  |  Awareness, Arts/Entertainment, Health/Medicine  |  Pennsylvania

It’s 2009, and I’m in Philadelphia to deliver a talk at a conference. During a long break, I decide to visit the Mutter Museum. I teach anatomy, and the Mutter houses a collection of so-called medical curiosities. I examine the wall of skulls, the cases full of skeletons, and go downstairs, where preserved specimens wait for inspection. And there I am confronted with a large case full of specimen jars. Each jar contains a late-term fetus, and all of the fetuses have the same disability: Their spinal column failed to fuse all the way around their spinal cord, leaving holes (called lesions) in their spine. Some extrude a bulging sac containing a section of the cord. These balloons make the fetuses appear as if they’re about to explode. This condition is called spina bifida…

Is Your Website a Place of Public Accommodation under the ADA?

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck  |  Digital Accessibility, ADA, Web Design

What do glasses retailer Warby Parker Retail, Inc., delivery service Grubhub, pizza company Domino’s and media streaming giant Netflix have in common, besides having significant online services? The answer is that they have all been recent targets of lawsuits based upon the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) for allegedly not having ADA-compliant websites. In recent months, the number of ADA lawsuits against companies based upon their websites has increased exponentially. Targets include everything from large publicly traded companies to boutique retailers and mom-and-pop shops. This issue is not new. However, due to the burgeoning use of the internet and related technologies, the responsibility of companies to accommodate disabled individuals using their websites has become a prevalent issue…

For Louisiana families with disabled children, a new website: Exceptional Lives

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  NOLA.com  |  Digital Accessibility, Inclusion, Parenting  |  Louisiana

When Robbie Marcus was born 22 years ago with cerebral palsy, his mother was advised to buy a book about the disorder. “That was it,” Anne Marcus said. Today, caregivers of children with developmental disabilities have the entire internet at their disposal, and the sea of information is even more daunting. So with a goal of providing trustworthy content and resources to help parents and caregivers of children with autism and other development disabilities, Marcus teamed up with Jay O’Brien to found Exceptional Lives, a free, Massachusetts-based website now available in Louisiana at Exceptional Lives-Louisiana…

We Don’t Need a Government That Sides With Businesses Over People With Disabilities

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  Rewire  |  Government, Businesses, Discrimination

Things continue to get worse for vulnerable communities under Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ). Last month, the DOJ dropped an appeal in a disability rights case that could have had far-reaching and beneficial consequences related to workplace accommodations for individuals with disabilities. This isn’t the first time that the DOJ has reversed course on Obama-era cases. It was clear when President Donald Trump tapped Jeff Sessions to be attorney general that Sessions would be terrible for vulnerable communities, such as LGBTQ individuals, immigrants, and people with disabilities…

12 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Going to College with a Disability or Chronic Illness

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  Self  |  Higher Education, Awareness, Mobility

Your first year of college is usually full of nervous excitement, over-the-top school spirit, and awkward getting-to-know-you games. In between eating all the free pizza your stomach can hold and staying up late to finish papers, it’s easy to get swept up by the constant action and forget about taking time to care for yourself. But focusing on your needs is incredibly important as you settle into the college experience—especially if you have a disability or chronic condition. As a disabled woman who uses a wheelchair, the start of college proved to be a crash course for me in figuring out how to balance academics and socialization with self-care…

Jack Fact —  Smart devices are such an essential part of our everyday lives that it’s hard to imagine what we would do without them. According to Forbes, nearly 11 billion devices connect to the Internet now, and by 2025 this number will increase to approximately 80 billion devices.

International News

 Two Blind Sisters See for the First Time

  |  Source:  National Geographic- India  |  Blindness/Visual Impairment, Innovation, Awareness, Health/Medicine  |  India

Sonia and Anita, two sisters living in India, have been blind since birth, but a simple eye operation makes it possible for them to see their mom for the first time. The nonprofit organization 20/20/20 provides free operations to these sisters–as well as thousands of other people in developing countries. These procedures empower people in impoverished communities to create better futures. In this short film, Blue Chalk Media shares the sisters’ poignant story and captures their initial experiences after the bandages come off…

Encouraging Dyslexic Children to Discover Their Full Potential

August 2, 2017   |  Source:  Virgin- England  |  Cognitive, Parenting, Education  |  England

Summer gets me reflecting on my childhood. I was always on the lookout for new experiences. My parents encouraged me to be adventurous and to follow my passions, and let me learn from my mistakes when things didn’t go quite to plan. t wasn’t easy. Few parents would have allowed their 16-year-old to drop out of school and start a business. But they did it because they recognised that I thrived when I could do new things and do them my way – and that’s still true today. Watch the video below to hear me share my story and my experience with dyslexia in an interview with Made By Dyslexia…

Crowne Plaza Glasgow: access review

August 3, 2017   |  Source:  Disability Horizons- UK  | Travel, Accessible Design, Awareness  |  United Kingdom

 If you have a disability, travelling is rarely straight forward. So that’s why we’ve teamed up with Carrie-Ann Lightley from Tourism for All, to bring you a series of articles to help make travelling easier and more accessible. This month she’s sharing an access review of the Crown Plaza Glasgow. It’s been a few years since I’ve visited Glasgow, so when Trailblazers asked me to host an accessible tourism workshop at their Glasgow event it gave me the perfect opportunity to return. This would be my first event Trailblazers’ Tourism Ambassador, and I was looking forward to meeting Scottish members and chatting about all things disability, access and travel…

On accessibility, Ontario needs less secrecy, more action

August 6, 2017   |  Source:  Toronto Star- Canada  |  Advocacy, Government, Inclusion  |  Canada

David Lepofsky just wants to make sure the province is doing what it promised to do. A disability advocate and lawyer, Lepofsky has worked tirelessly since the McGuinty Liberals passed the landmark Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) in 2005, holding the government to account as it moves toward its goal of a fully accessible Ontario by 2025. Too often, however, what he has found is failure – and too often the province has tried to keep him from discovering the frequently disappointing truth…

Are we creating buildings without access ramps?

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  Bizcommunity.com- South Africa  |  Building/Facilities Access, Discrimination, Awareness  |  South Africa

Digital has long been built with the “perfect” human in mind. These users have 20/20 vision and read with high literacy. The experiences digital enables are geared for an able-bodied person with two hands, two working legs and perfect hearing. But let’s think about it, amongst your loved ones, how many wear spectacles? Or have a learning disability? We are failing our South African audiences with the work we create. In a Rhodes study of 70 South African business websites, only 4.3% complied with the minimum standards from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium…

Autonomous wheelchairs arrive at Japanese airport

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  Engadget- Japan  |  Mobility, Technology, Innovation  |  Japan

Passengers with limited mobility will soon be able to navigate airports more easily thanks to Panasonic’s robotic electric wheelchair. Developed as part of a wider program to make Japan’s Haneda Airport more accessible to all, the wheelchair utilizes autonomous mobility technology: after users input their destination via smartphone the wheelchair will identify its position and select the best route to get there. Multiple chairs can move in tandem which means families or groups can travel together, and after use, the chairs will ‘regroup’ automatically, reducing the workload for airport staff. The chairs also use sensors to stop automatically if they detect a potential collision…

‘No compassion’ in accessibility policies at AtlanticFest, says Bishop’s Falls family

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  CBC- Canada  |  Legislation/Policy, Mobility, Awareness  |  Canada

A 27-year-old man living with muscular dystrophy is calling for a major music promoter to change his policies on accessibility. Bishop’s Falls native Michael Roberts says it’s unfair that the upcoming AtlanticFest concert in Grand Falls-Windsor would not agree to provide free access to a caregiver to attend the concert with him and his mother. It wasn’t right, disabled people should have the same rights as normal people do,” Michael Roberts told CBC News with the help of his mother, who was reading his lips…

Disability and travel: travelling from Cambodia to Vietnam by boat

August 8, 2017   |  Source:  Disability Horizons- Vietnam  |  Travel, Blindness/Visual Impairment, Disability Rights  |  Vietnam

Alexa Huth, who is visually impaired, is an expat who moved to Japan from the US. Since then she has backpacked in Burma and travelled to Korea and Beijing. Today she tells us about her most recent experience, going from Cambodia to Vietnam… by boat. I’ll be honest, I’m not much for packaged tours. I like that they get you exactly where you need to go and often they are much more efficient than wandering around on your own and hoping to see everything. Still, sometimes they can feel a bit forced and you spend a lot of time at “tourist traps” being goaded into buying something…

Para-athlete who slept on train floor to get top NCPEDP-MUDA award

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  Economic Time- India  |  Paralympics, Sports/Athletics, Discrimination, Awards/Recognition  |  India

Acclaimed para-athlete Suvarna Raj — who made headlines in June after she was forced to sleep on the floor of a long-distance train — has been selected for the prestigious NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award for 2017, an official said here on Wednesday.  Suvarna, 34, hailing from Nagpur and settled in New Delhi after marriage, is an internationally renowned table-tennis player though she was afflicted by polio when she was only two years old.  While travelling on the Nagpur-Nizamuddin Garib Rath, she was compelled to sleep on the floor after the railways and co-passengers refused to give her a lower berth in exchange for the upper berth allotted to her…

Retirement village overhaul makes ‘ageing in place’ a reality

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  Starts at 60- Australia  |  Aging, Housing, Inclusion  |  Australia

A ‘silver tsunami’ of increasingly healthy and savvy older Aussies who want to age in place is changing the face of the residential retirement sector. About 184,000 people currently live in retirement villages, but within just eight years that number will have more than doubled, according to consultancy Grant Thornton. And the longer-term outlook is for numbers to continue to grow, as older people make up an increasingly large proportion of the population, and a growing number choose to live in retirement villages, as has been the trend since at least 2010…

Is my website accessible? And what exactly does that mean?

August 9, 2017   |  Source:  Human Resource Director- Australia  |  Digital Accessibility, Web Design, Accessible Design  |  Australia

Some people believe that having an accessible website means that it’s ‘live’ and you can access it from a computer or mobile device. Others think about ramps, lifts, access maps and disabled toilets for the physical location that a website might be pointing visitors to. The truth is, being ‘accessible’ online is a whole lot more than that. And that ‘whole lot more’ is simply not clearly understood by the majority of people who build, code, design, write, or project manage websites. There are so many facets to an individual website. Each has differing amounts of informational content, ecommerce, and links to other sites – so ensuring a website is accessible means that all of the things you can read or view or put in a shopping cart from the site needs to be accessible.

Meet the deaf nutritional coach who’s fighting for greater accessibility in fitness

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  Metro- UK  |  Deaf/Hearing Impaired, Sports/Athletics, Inclusion  |  United Kingdom

India Morse, AKA YouLeanMeUp, is a fitness blogger and nutritional coach, with an Instagram to make even the hardiest couch potato try a session at Gym Class.So far, so standard. Who isn’t a wellness influencer these days with a penchant for avo toast and #coffeebeforecardio selfies? But India is a blogger with a difference. She was born deaf, and is using her online fame to try and make the fitness industry more accessible to people with similar disabilities…

Interview with Matt Hampson, Ambassador for Parallel London

August 10, 2017   |  Source:  Disability Horizon- UK  |  Inclusion, Mobility, Sports/Athletics  |  United Kingdom

Matt “Hambo” Hampson is a former England Rugby Union prop who, at the age of 20, was paralysed in a near-fatal routine scrum session. Despite having severed his spinal cord in the accident (which took place twelve years ago in Northampton) Matt is now busier than ever and living life to the full as a C4/5 tetraplegic. In 2011, Matt decided to establish a charitable foundation in his name, to inspire and support others who have suffered similar catastrophic sports injuries. A mentor, fund-raiser, columnist, award-winning author, rugby coach, patron and ambassador; Matt truly epitomises the foundation’s ethos – ‘Get Busy Living’…

Disabled Egyptians Make Prosthetic Limbs for Poor

August 10, 2017 Source- Reuters- Egypt  |  Mobility, Inclusion, Advocacy  |  Egypt

An Egyptian development organization that manufactures products for the disabled has opened a workshop in Cairo to make prosthetic limbs for the poor, staffed by workers with disabilities who could otherwise struggle to earn a wage. The Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services aims to foster social and cultural development in Egypt and has been given $91,000 in funding by the Japanese government. Its prosthetic limbs department, which has been operating for six months, aims to produce 200 limbs this year and increase output in future…

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  • Accessible Elearning Development — Does your online training reach all learners, whether they’re your employees, resellers, students? Let us help you design effective, engaging training that works for everyone.
  • Accessible Website and Application Development — An inaccessible website or application is increasingly seen as violating the ADA. Let’s talk about creating an online presence that reaches all your customers and reduces your litigation risk.
  • Audit and Testing Services — A thorough accessibility audit against recognized accessibility standards will show you where you may be under-serving your customers and putting your organization at risk.
  • Accessible Document Services — Digital assets such as Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, and audio and video files need to be accessible to individuals with disabilities, too. We can help you establish creation processes or remediate historical documents so that they meet accessibility standards and are usable by people with disabilities.
  • Remediation Services — Whether for a time-sensitive response to a legal action, or for proactive remediation, we can fix what doesn’t meet accessibility standards.
  • Accessibility Training — Contact us to get your teams introduced and informed about accessibility best practices.Please contact us for any questions you have about our accessibility services and how we might support your organization.

Digital Accessibility Digest

One of our three industry blogs, Microassist’s Digital Accessibility Digest is the “umbrella” for much of our accessibility content. It features commentary, guidance, curated news, and event information.Accessibility in the News is a regular feature of the Digital Accessibility Digest.

To receive Accessibility in the News in your inbox, before it hits our website, subscribe below. As a bonus, the newsletter version also includes information on upcoming conferences, training opportunities, and resources.

Have Questions?

Please contact us for any questions you have about our accessibility services and how we might support your organization.

Photo by Seth kane on Unsplash


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