Re: Accessibility and learning/cognitive disabilities

In a message dated 11/1/01 2:05:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
j.chetwynd@btinternet.com writes:


> Very few people with Learning difficulties have significant disposable
> income. They thus are becoming seriously excluded for a number of reasons:
> Socially
> Financially within the predominantly capitalist states.
> Technologically.

       I think this statement could be applied to those with *any* 
disability. While efforts such as ADA along with associated actions such as 
Section 508 do help, it's very hard to break through the social and financial 
barriers especially. Technology, on that note, is odd. We could do a lot 
here, and very easily; However, we need to persaude Industrial Design 
students (especially) at art schools, corporations, etc. to go about 
improving technology to assist in achieving equality in the first 2 (social 
and financial) issues. Not enough, IMHO, has been done in that aspect. If we 
can educate those in COLLEGE, whether in Comp Sci, in IT majors in general, 
in Industrial Design, in Social Work, or so on, we could make the task of web 
accessibility or simple understanding of the issues faced by the disabled 
MUCH easier.

       Perhaps it's because I'm currently *applying* to colleges, but I'm 
wondering if perhaps we could gain more by a focus on that, on getting the 
"future crop" of tech professionals to integrate accessibility-friendly 
coding/design into their techniques?

       John