Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program Brings Valuable Assistive Technology Tools to Federal Employees with Disabilities

VA Puget Sound Health Care System clinical psychologist Wendy David maintains a demanding schedule of counseling, public presentations, program design, and many other duties—all require lots of reading and writing. David, who is blind, keeps pace by applying energy, creativity, and a powerful array of assistive technology tools.

Wendy David, clinical psychologist for the Veterans Administration (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System, has spent a lot of time developing her people skills. She works with people all of the time—but, because she works in one of today's typical information-intensive environments, she needs to know a good bit about technology too. And, because she is blind, she's learned even more—about assistive technology. The assistive technology tools David uses in her work have been provided through her employer and a federal program called CAP (Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program).

In her job, which is focused on trauma recovery for female veterans, David maintains a rigorous schedule conducting individual and group psychotherapy, making presentations to colleagues, designing new programs—and lots of reading and writing. She has worked for the VA for 12 years and holds a master's in psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Tools Allow Computer Input and Output to Fit Individual Needs

"I know that if I didn't have assistive technology I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing—there is no way," David says. "I literally could not do my job without my assistive technology—I just depend on these tools totally."

David uses at least six assistive technology tools at various times in her work. Her main assistive technology for reading and writing on her computer is the screen reader Window-Eyes by GW Micro. Window-Eyes is a software program that presents graphics and text as speech—it verbalizes, or "speaks," everything on the screen including names and descriptions of control buttons, menus, text, and punctuation.

David reads and writes Braille so she also uses a Braille Lite 40 note taker available from Freedom Scientific. A Braille display on the note taker allows her to read what has been input or downloaded to the device. David uses a Juliet Pro Braille printer by Enabling Technologies to print out Braille to be used just as a print document would be used by a sighted individual. Recently David also added a BrailleNote personal digital assistant, by Pulse Data, to her tool kit. She uses it to take notes, and it's capable of output in Braille or speech. For Braille translation, David uses the Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT) for Windows software from Duxbury Systems and she uses a DECtalk speech synthesizer.

Computer Assistive Technology for VA Employees Provided Through CAP

According to Claudia Zink, EEO-Disabilities Manager for the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, employees who need assistive technology to perform the essential functions of their job have a process to help them obtain it. "At the VA, a person needing accommodation would start the process with his or her immediate supervisor—explaining what job functions could better be performed with accommodation. The individual would not have to know at this point what accommodation is needed—just that something is needed. The supervisor would then contact the EEO office and the EEO officer would help initiate the 'reasonable accommodation process.' The individual and supervisor would be interviewed to document the tasks the individual needed to perform and then the VA would look for resources for accommodation. One of those arenas would be the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP)," she says.

The CAP program was new to the VA in 2001, but it has been used by other governmental agencies since it was established in 1990 as a centrally funded program for providing assistive technology accommodations and services to Department of Defense employees with disabilities. Because of its success, Congress expanded CAP's constituency and budget in 2000 and authorized the organization to serve other federal agencies. Among other services, CAP can purchase assistive technology to make computer and telecommunications systems accessible to employees with disabilities. David received her BrailleNote through this process.

Development of Assistive Technology Improves Communications

David says that it's important to keep up-to-date on accessible technology improvements, and she says the development of assistive technology over the time she has used it has been "just incredible. The best thing about it," she says, "is that assistive technology is becoming more portable—that's really important. I do a lot of traveling and to be able to take a BrailleNote with me and to be able to hook-up to e-mail, the Internet—just like anyone else can with their laptops—in a hotel, or another office—that's just amazing. For so long blind people could only work at one workstation and that was it—nowadays that just isn't practical. To be able to carry things with me reasonably, feasibly—and to be able to use resources in different work sites—that's just so great!"