ATN Interviews the ADA-CAT’s Don Spaeth Donald M. Spaeth is the AAC Institute (Augmentative and Alternative Communication)product manager and is involved with marketing the Americans with Disabilities Act - Compliance Assessment Kit (http://www.aacinstitute.org/ADA-CAT), a screening tool to allow individuals without advanced training to assess the architectural barriers of the built environment. He was interviewed by John M. Williams, founder of Assistive Technology News. ATN: How long have you been working in the disability area?
Spaeth: I began my formal career in rehabilitation technology back in 1979 when I approached the Dean of Research at San Francisco State University and proposed an interdisciplinary Masters’ degree that would draw curriculum from the departments of Rehabilitation Counseling, Special Education and Design and Industry. The term “Rehabilitation Engineer” and the organization Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America were less than three years old at the time. During my first years, I prototyped a wheelchair propelled with a chain and sprocket drive that received a design award. For my Masters’ thesis, I built and programmed a computer station, operated with a joystick that permitted an individual with disabilities to program music. Think of a player piano with the sequence of tones stored in computer memory instead of punched holes in paper scroll-a word processor for music processor for music notes.
My first post-Masters’ position was with Children’s Hospital at Stanford. I worked as a research assistant maintaining a database and wrote software to generate bar graphs and calculate statistics. I wrote the source code as application software when such software as Excel was not available.
ATN: What motivated you to get into the disability field?
Spaeth: Commitment to the rehabilitation field began in my childhood. My father died suddenly when I was seven and I grew up outside the traditional boyhood norms of little league and high school high jinks. It was my uncle, who had cerebral palsy and mental retardation who was a singularly, bright window in my early youth. He read to me books that he could barely comprehend; played ball with me when he could scarcely catch. I inevitability outgrew him but never forgot his kindness. No mainstream glamour or glitz, then or now, has ever held the same luster or constancy as my uncle.
The years following my bachelor’s degree in 1969 in industrial arts were an exploration. I tried my hand at industry and insurance work. I trained and became an ambulance paramedic and worked the streets of San Francisco for six years - preferring the night shifts because the calls were less predictable and the people (be they patients, street people or medical staff) unique. I became interested in counseling and volunteered time on the suicide prevention hotline. There, I met another volunteer who had substantial vision impairment - a man who could not qualify for a driver’s license so instead he rode a motorcycle. It struck me as both risky and courageous that he refused to forfeit his mobility. He is the one who first taught me the politics of disability. “In Western cultures” he once told me, “People with disabilities are pitied, patronized or ignored.”
At first, I found his attitude pessimistic, Then, I began to understand and soon admire the strength of character required to live with a disability. The role is not voluntary and in addition to whatever logistical demands a disability imposes, you are involuntarily tagged with the rank of “minority” and “non-conformist."
Over the years, I have discovered that people who cope best with disability have acquired the capacity to reinvent themselves. My personal champion is John Callahan, who died last summer at the age of 59. He is described by Bruce Weber as: “A quadriplegic, alcoholic cartoonist whose work in newspapers and magazines made irreverent, impolitic sport of people with disabilities and diseases and those who would pity and condescend to them.…Like his friend Gary Larson, creator of “The Far Side,” Mr. Callahan made drawings with a gleeful appreciation of the macabre that he found in everyday life. He was, however, a man who lived his life with disadvantages, some of them self-wrought, and he viewed the world through a dark and wicked lens.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/arts/design/28callahan.html) ATN: How did you become associated with the AAC Institute and the ADA-CAT program? Spaeth: I was employed by the Prentke Romich Company, from1989 to 1994 as a software designer and product manager and have a long standing friendship with Barry Romich and Katya Hill who are the officers of the AAC Institute. I also have known Denis Anson, the inventor of ADA-CAT for well over a decade, as we have shared a long standing professional interest and comradery in computer access. The opportunity I had last year was to work with long time friends and bring out a novel product for which there is no precedent.
ATN: What are your goals with the ADA-CAT program? Spaeth: My biggest challenge is communicating that ADA-CAT is two separate technologies that work in unison. The first technology is the set of standard and dedicated measuring tools and the second is special method of instructional support. Most of us have experience measuring things and have experienced using computer-based instructional support. But how many of us have done both at the same time? The concept of “occupational teleprompting” or “virtual coaching” is not really a part of our everyday thinking yet. Although the speech teleprompter has been around a number of years, it isn’t really a virtual coach because the speaker can’t interact with it except to change the line scrolling speed. The speaker is mostly a text-to-speech synthesizer with vocal prosody as a bonus. I credit the Air Force for developing wearable control interfaces so that the pilot, gunner and missile launch technician became one and the same person.
ATN: What do you think is the biggest hurdle challenging the success of the ADA-CAT program?
Spaeth: Two things.
First, getting past the first impression that ADA-CAT is a bag of measurement tools that could be picked up at Lowe’s for 25 percent of the price. The tools are what we can photograph; it’s more challenging getting our potential customers to appreciate the value of the on-demand, on-location technical support. The ADA architectural regulations are sufficiently complex to be daunting to someone who doesn’t do assessments every day. Having a virtual coach in the form of a website that has a familiar user interface means never again having to leaf thru a thick manual wondering if the standards have changed since it was published. The website supports customized checklist merging and context sensitive help modules for any item should the need arise. An Internet capable cell phone means the website can by your side as you conduct the survey.
Second, getting across the idea that ADA-CAT is part of the solution to physical accessibility not part of the problem. Many local governments and business owners are understandably frustrated when contemplating expensive renovations to a building during a tight economy. But ADA-CAT can accomplish precisely the opposite. By assessing your environment and knowing exactly what ADA standards you need to improve upon gives you the ability to establish a remediation schedule of your own choosing.
ATN: If a complaint is filed, you can respond. Spaeth: Yes. We learned that last year when we did our in-house architectural barriers assessment. We currently are correcting the dimensional clearances in the lavatories. Next year we plan to fix that door entrance with the steep ramp; meanwhile we’ve posted a sign encouraging customers to request assistance from our staff. We interviewed some of our disabled patrons, and they said they preferred being helped up a ramp versus being assisted in the bathroom. That was the basis of our priority list.
Remember, the ADA Act has frequent use of the word “reasonable.” No one is served if enforcement of ADA regulations results in the closure of a public park or drives a restaurant out of business.
ATN: How do you plan to accomplish these goals?
Spaeth: The virtual coaching features and the customized measurement tools need to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Conference demonstrations or short courses are the traditional methods but travel is costly and less frequent these days and the attendees often do not have the authority to make purchase decisions. So we are looking at webinars and social networking to help get the message out.
ATN: And, what message would that be?
Spaeth: ADA-CAT is like a good fire extinguisher. It prevents accessibility problems from fulminating into injuries, bad public relations and lawsuits. It costs $649 and can be used for architectural compliance screenings by in-house personnel. How much of your attorney’s time will $649 buy?