Accessibility in the News —1 /28/2022.

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Feature Stories

Federal School Mask Ruling Provides Mixed Results for Iowa Schools

January 25, 2022 | Source: Iowa Starting Line & OurQuadCities & ACLU & Iowa Capital Dispatch & KCCI & WRAL & WOWT

Iowa schools will be able to implement universal masking rules where necessary to protect students with disabilities, but a statewide order blocking Iowa Republicans’ ban on school mask mandates is unnecessary, a federal court ruled Tuesday. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found that a lower court’s order blocking Gov. Kim Reynolds’ ban on school mask mandates across Iowa was too broad, but the judges agreed that under federal law, requiring masks was a reasonable accommodation schools can enforce to ensure students with disabilities can safely attend school…

National News (U.S.)

He Was Given 6 Months to Live. Then He Changed D.C.

January 14, 2022 | Source: Politico

As he waited inside Room 2358c of the Rayburn House Office Building, the realization set in for Brian Wallach that he had five minutes to shape the rest of his life. Not save it. He had been given his death sentence nearly two years ago when, at the age of 37, on the day his newborn daughter came home from the hospital, his doctor told him he had the progressive neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. No, this was a chance to accomplish what he’d set out to do after that diagnosis, to make something of this final chapter, something that would materially impact others with this horrible, fatal illness…

How $1.4 million grant is making Augusta buses more accessible

January 20, 2022 | Source: WRDW

There are more than 100 bus stops in Richmond County that are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, meaning those with disabilities struggle to use them. We went to one bus stop in Augusta that was not ADA accessible. There was no way for wheelchair users to get up the stairs and under the cover for protection from the rain. There was also no sidewalk in front of the bus stop. “Many of our bus stops are very, very old, maybe decades old, and back then there were no ADA requirements,” said Oliver Page, Augusta Transit deputy director…

How one young actor is using American Sign Language in animation

January 20, 2022 | Source: Salon

At only 12 years old, Shaylee Mansfield is already breaking new ground with the animated series “Madagascar: A Little Wild.” Despite her youth, it still took her a while to get here. In an interview with Salon, she said she started acting “by accident,” but according to her mother, Mansfield was “born with a camera.” At a young age, she began making videos with her family for their YouTube channel ASL Nook, which teaches American Sign Language (ASL) and aspects of Deaf culture. Mansfield was born deaf to deaf parents. Her younger sister is hearing…

Quality of life: Community support increases accessibility for Incline Village high schooler

January 21, 2022 | Source: Sierra Sun

Nearly two years after Bryan Behren, 17, received a successful spinal fusion surgery at Stanford, his caretakers finally possess the time and tools to return the teenager to the slopes of Alpine Meadows. “The TetraSki was designed for significant disabilities,” mother Norah Behrens said, referring to a wheelchair with a joystick made for veterans, those with limb differences and even paralysis. The state of the art sporting equipment enhances Bryan’s life, but only if his family can get out of the driveway…

Disabled Music Professionals Launch RAMPD Advocacy Organization

January 21, 2022 | Source: Billboard & The Hollywood Reporter & Black Enterprise

Recording Artists and Music Professionals With Disabilities (RAMPD), an organization that advocates for disability inclusion and access in the mainstream music industry founded in May 2021, has already met with leaders from top music companies and non-profits and is fostering partnerships with the Recording Academy, WomenInMusic.org, NIVA and more. Among other initiatives, the organization recently partnered with the New York City mayor’s office, the Music Inclusion Coalition and Blonde Records to make the first-ever WAVY Awards…

Building an Accessible Digital World

January 22, 2022 | Source: IEEE Xplore- Sarah Horton

In his September 2020 “Software Engineering” column, “A Brief History of Software Professionalism and the Way Forward,” Phil Laplante poses the question: Society expects a standard of competence, professionalism, and accountability from its doctors, nurses, and other professionals who hold lives in trust. Yet anyone can write software that can appear in or interact with critical systems, so what does “software professional” mean, and what are society’s expectations for those individuals? As an accidental technology professional, this question resonated for me…

Uber manager sobs on stand during trial over wheelchair accessibility

January 24, 2022 | Source: Courthouse News Service

An Uber manager cried on the witness stand Monday when confronted with claims that the ride-hail giant doesn’t care that much about making its service accessible to people who need motorized wheelchairs to get around.

“I think that’s untrue,” Uber’s manager for premium products Connor Fagent said, choking back tears. “I’ve devoted most of my time at Uber working on the program and putting a lot of effort to try to make it work … and I take a lot of pride in my work.”…

Tennessee State University grant will help students with intellectual disabilities prepare for job market

January 25, 2022 | Source: The Hill

Tennessee State University plans to use $284,000 in grant funds to help students with intellectual and development disabilities prepare for the job market. The funds were awarded to TSU along with three other institutions of higher education from the state’s Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. TSU will distribute the funds over two years to create a non-degree certificate program called TigerEDGE, which is aimed at helping young adults with disabilities experience college life while also preparing for the job market, the university said…

There’s one population that gets overlooked by an ‘everyone will get COVID’ mentality

January 26, 2022 | Source: NPR

Ten-year-old Chase and 11-year-old Carson have alert minds and radiant smiles, but very uncooperative bodies. The two brothers have a rare genetic disorder called MEPAN syndrome. They can’t sit, stand, walk or talk. For their parents, Danny and Nikki Miller, this means wheelchairs, electric lifts, diaper changes and spoon feeding. Before the pandemic, the Marin, Calif., family relied heavily on several types of therapists and individual aids — and the boys’ skills were slowly improving. But when COVID struck, all that support went online or stopped entirely…

‘You don’t look disabled’: UC Berkeley students with disabilities grapple with being seen, understood

January 26, 2022 | Source: Daily Californian

“Feel better soon,” said one UC Berkeley professor to campus School of Social Welfare graduate student Rosa Enriquez upon discussing her disability. Amid the flurry of hellos and farewells exchanged by students and instructors are a general unawareness and misconception about disability, according to Enriquez. Crossing visual boundaries, disability can be everywhere or nowhere without anyone knowing it, and no two disabilities are the same. During her time as a Disabled Students’ Program, or DSP, specialist from 2012-14, Hahva Gallagher worked closely with students with invisible disabilities, which are often neurological and therefore not physically apparent…

Chats with the Chief: Making the world more accessible for disabled Veterans

January 26, 2022 | Source: VAntage Point

In this week’s Chats with the Chief video, VHA Chief of Staff Jon Jensen sits down with Dr. Rory Cooper, founding director of the VA Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL). The vision of HERL is to “create a world where all people with disabilities have unencumbered mobility and function so that they can fully participate in and contribute to society.”…

Groups seek to shape final rule to ease hearing aid accessibility

January 26, 2022 | Source: Roll Call

The Food and Drug Administration is working to finalize a rule that would make it easier for many adults to get hearing aids, a policy change five years in the making that is sparking intense lobbying. The change comes after a 2017 law required a regulation for selling over-the-counter hearing aids. Implementation was delayed in part because of the agency’s shift in 2020 to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, but the FDA issued a proposed rule in October. Now, interest groups and the lawmakers who worked on the law are pushing for the FDA to finalize the policy as hearing loss policies garner more interest in Washington…

D.C. explores the future of accessible public space

January 26, 2022 | Source: Axios

As the pandemic stretches into a third year, disability advocates are exploring how to best use public space for accessible outdoor dining and social distancing. Why it matters: Streateries and extended sidewalks are pandemic-driven pilot programs meant to allow people to safely dine and socially distance from others, but as the pandemic continues, these programs may take new and more permanent shapes. D.C.’s streatery program is set to expire on Feb. 28, but DDOT is still working on an approval process that would allow restaurants to continue their programs permanently, a spokesperson told Axios late last month…

How to cope with SAD or seasonal affective disorder

January 26, 2022 | Source: NPR

When Dr. Norman Rosenthal moved to the U.S. from South Africa, he felt less energetic during the harsh winters. He noticed that other people felt the same way. “Just like the autumn leaves, they became depressed on schedule,” says Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “In spring, the condition reverses itself.” He studied the problem, published the first research on the syndrome and coined its name: seasonal affective disorder, or SAD…

Sight Through Sound- Lifelong pianist’s memoir explores fulfillment despite blindness

January 26, 2022 | Source: The Northern Virginian Daily

Daniel L. “Dan” Bowman, 80, has some difficulty sitting up straight. As he made his way through the living room of the home he shares with his wife, Ferne Bowman, he explained he’d forgotten many of his “big classics” he used to be able to play on the piano. He memorized the songs he’d learned with Braille sheet music over the years. When he sat down at the Yamaha, he didn’t skip a beat before diving into an elaborate and beautiful cover of the traditional folk song “Oh Shenandoah.” By his playing, it was evident he still had major skills…

Where did that sound come from?

January 27, 2022 | Source: MIT News

Understanding The Importance Of Hearing: What Causes Deafness And Its Treatment?

January 25, 2022 | Source: The HealthSite

The human brain is finely tuned not only to recognize particular sounds, but also to determine which direction they came from. By comparing differences in sounds that reach the right and left ear, the brain can estimate the location of a barking dog, wailing fire engine, or approaching car. MIT neuroscientists have now developed a computer model that can also perform that complex task. The model, which consists of several convolutional neural networks, not only performs the task as well as humans do, it also struggles in the same ways that humans do…

Jack Fact — According to the National Institute of Deafness and Communications Disorders, about 28.8 million adults in the United States could benefit from using hearing aids, but fewer than 1 in 3 (or 30%) have ever used them. Even fewer adults between the ages of 20 to 69 who could benefit from wearing hearing aids have ever used them (approximately 16%).

Hit The Road Jack — Wheel the World Launches Accessible Group Tours for People with Disabilities& Why Aren’t Newer Disney Attractions More Accessible?

International News

Disability activists flag concerns in new accessibility guidelines

January 22, 2022 | Source: The Hindu

A month after the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) released revised accessibility guidelines, disability rights activists have raised concerns over the changes, including handrail heights, from the 2016 version, as well as sought clarity from the government on which version would be applicable for auditing public buildings. The Harmonised Guidelines and Standards for Universal Accessibility in India 2021, which carries the publication date of “December 2021”, was shared by the CPWD on its website and social media on December 29, 2021…

Paving the way towards accessible fashion in Azerbaijan

January 22, 2022 | Source: OC Media- Azerbaijan

On 3 December 2021, one catwalk in Azerbaijan stood out among others: Kekalove Adaptive’s fashion show. Held in Baku on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the show was made unique by its models — all of whom had disabilities. Kekalove Adaptive is the brainchild of Mahammad Kekalov — who in 2019 decided to launch an accessible fashion brand with clothing lineups that cater to the needs of people according to their disabilities…

New campaign highlights public transit accessibility features

January 24, 2022 | Source: London News Today- Canada

The London Transit Commission (LTC) is asking its riders to consider the needs of others as it launches a new campaign aimed at raising awareness of accessibility features on city buses. The LTC is one of several transit systems across the province participating in the EnAbling Change campaign from the Ontario Public Transit Association. Through on-board messaging and social media posts, the campaign will highlight accessibility features such as priority seating and service animal policies. It will also encourage riders to consider giving up their seat to individuals with visible and non-visible disabilities…

Accessible hotspots ‘a game-changer for disabled people’s lives’

January 24, 2022 | Source: Bay Of Plenty Times- New Zealand

Tauranga City Council has launched its Accessible Hotspots project, which aims to make facilities and attractions in a specific location more accessible to people with disabilities. An accessible hotspot is a geographic area with a concentrated number of accessibility features and facilities. The work is being done in collaboration with the council’s Disability Advocacy Group. The northern area of Mount Maunganui will become the first Accessible Hotspot…

Government testing identifies accessibility issues on 99% of public sector websites

January 25, 2022 | Source: PublicTechnology.net- UK

Government research conducted over the past two years found that about 99% of public sector websites contained accessibility issues representing a potential problem for users with physical or cognitive impairments – as well as a breach of regulatory requirements. Regulation introduced in 2018 requires all newly developed public sector websites to meet the demands of version 2.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – a set of internationally agreed online accessibility standards. Pre-existing sites were given until September 2020 to do so…

Hearing-impaired more attentive to visual clues

January 25, 2022 | Source: The Hindu- India & News Meter

A sample of congenitally hearing-impaired individuals born to hearing-impaired parents show greater attentional orienting to visual cues than individuals with normal hearing, according to a study conducted by the school of medical sciences of University of Hyderabad on Monday. The study conducted on “Attention capture by brief abrupt – onset cues in hearing-impaired individuals” by Prof. Ramesh Mishra’s lab at Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences has been published by the prestigious journal Neuropsychologia which is an interdisciplinary journal for cognitive neurosciences, said an official release…

UWindsor president hopes pandemic experience leads to better accessibility for learners

January 26, 2022 | Source: CBC- Canada

During the annual state of the university address, University of Windsor president Robert Gordon touched on how learning could develop after the pandemic, saying the institution should listen to student concerns regarding increasing accessibility to learning. “I’m truly hoping that the positive lessons that we’ve learned, how we’ve been able to kind of work through these really daunting challenges over the past 20 months, will build into how we as a university become a true leader in supporting student experience and allowing all of our students to thrive within their academic programs as well,” he said on Wednesday…

Deaf employees are the focus of gelateria

January 26, 2022 | Source: Play Crazy Game- Brazil

Entrepreneur Breno Oliveira, 28, has already faced discrimination in job interviews for being deaf. In 2016, he decided to open his own business, an artisanal gelateria in Aracaju (SE), which has 80% of its employees deaf. The ice cream shop is called Il Sordo (The Deaf, in Italian) and earned BRL 900,000 in 2021. “I was always minimized in interviews, it seemed that I was not capable, many people did not accept my deafness”, recalls the businessman, who previously worked as a Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) instructor…

SBI changes recruitment norms; won’t hire women more than 3 months pregnant; rules not changed for disabled

January 27, 2022 | Source: National Herald- India

In a blast from a regressive past, the State Bank of India’s revised guidelines for employment, circulated on January 12, 2022, state that a woman candidate who is more than three months pregnant will be considered temporarily unfit and she “may be allowed to join within four months after the delivery of the child”. Additionally, the recruitment guidelines continue to discriminate against people with disabilities. The pregnancy-related amendment is a stark change from the bank’s earlier guideline which stated that women candidates could be appointed in the bank up to six months of pregnancy, provided the candidate furnished a certificate from specialist gynecologist…

How Ethnicity Can Affect Your Eye Health

January 27, 2022 | Source: The African Exponent- East Africa

Worldwide, around 285 million people suffer from a degree of sight loss, with around 39 million registered as being blind. Sight loss can be caused by a number of factors – including ethnicity – and can be devastating. Considering studies show that some eye health problems are linked to ethnic backgrounds, it begs the question whether there’s a link between BAME treatment in hospitals, leading to cases of GP negligence, and eye disease. Of course, this is a question for more expert minds so, in this article, we’ll explore some of the eye issues faced by people from different ethnicities. We’ll do this by exploring some of the most common eye problems, so take a look…

British Sign Language to become recognised language in the UK

January 27, 2022 | Source: The Guardian- UK

Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis urges MPs to make British Sign Language official ahead of debate

January 27, 2022 | Source: ITV- UK

British Sign Language (BSL) is on course to become a recognised language, after the government backed a proposal by a Labour MP. The private member’s bill, introduced by Rosie Cooper, aims to improve accessibility for deaf people and would see the promotion of BSL when making public service announcements. It would also see the launch of an advisory board of BSL users to offer guidance to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on how and when to use it and look at increasing the number of BSL interpreters…

Deaf people deserve a chance in the workplace

January 27, 2022 | Source: Health-E News- South Africa

More than two-thirds of deaf South Africans are sitting at home unemployed and unable to make a living. Organisations supporting these people have come out and asked for more backing in the hope of turning these figures around. In 2018, the Deaf Federation of SA revealed that 70% don’t have jobs. Activist Kamohelo Teele is doing his best to change this. The 29-year-old is currently serving as the National Spokesperson for the South African Deaf Youth Development Project (SADYDP). Founded in 2013, the organisation focuses on two core issues: unemployment and an education system that is unable to accommodate the deaf community…

Deaf rescue dog learning ‘sign language’

January 27, 2022 | Source: In Your Area- UK & The Toys Matrix

Rocco, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, is being taught by dedicated staff that even without his hearing, the world can still be a wonderful place. At nearly eight years old, Rocco first arrived at the RSPCA’s Llys Nini Animal Centre in Penllergaer in February 2020, after being brought in by an RSPCA inspector following concerns for his welfare. Thought to be partially deaf at the time, and underweight, the friendly food-loving Staffie was soon in much better health. He was even the first dog to be rehomed by the centre following the introduction of Covid restrictions three months later…

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