Tuesday, January 26, 2010

AT and the Evolving DS Service Model

Like many Disability Services offices my department is examining how it does what it does. This is not new and many offices have been doing this for several years now. The basic thrust of these evaluations is to move from a medical model definition of disability to a social model definition. Without getting too into this (and it is a field of study) the medical model focuses on the individual and treats disability as an impairment, while the social model attributes “impairments” to an inadequately designed environment. The medical model leaves “prescriptive” decisions to “experts” rarely consulting the person with a disability; while the social model puts the opinion of the person with a disability first and foremost. As I said, this is a field of study and my two sentences hardly do it justice, if you want to learn more, then web search “disability medical model” and “disability social model.”

What this means to most DS offices is a move from “clearing paths” for individual students with disabilities to promoting a campus environment in which most paths have had the barriers removed. For example, rather than hunt down a classroom for a student in a wheelchair, invest time in ensuring all classrooms are wheelchair accessible. If this sounds like something you are not going to accomplish overnight, you’re right. And if it sounds like you’re putting your campus on the path toward Universal Design, you’re right again.

There are a number of reasons for doing this. Not the least of which is higher education’s commitment to inclusion and diversity. Read through your school’s mission regarding inclusion and how can you not want to revamp how students with disabilities are treated? There are, however, other reasons for considering this change. Not only are the service models built on social and cultural assumptions that are being challenged, and the older models are not really sustainable. The old model cannot handle the increasing numbers of people and the broadening definitions of disability.

Of course a change like this does not occur on a campus easily or without the support of other departments. And we have found that there are quarters on our campus that are quite comfortable with the older definitions and service models. To be fair, there are also departments who ask, “What took you so long?” Just remember this is a transitional process and incremental gains are good gains.

What We Can Learn from AT

Now having set the stage, let me discuss AT’s place in all this. At my school AT has already started down this path and the reasons are rather pedantic. Fifteen years ago the typical personal computers in student labs ran a handful of programs and replicating them in an AT lab was not too difficult. Now, however, the typical computer is running dozens of programs in general student labs and the departmental labs run highly specialized software dedicated to an academic field. There is simply no way an AT lab could keep up with all this diverse technology. And even if you could technically, you would not have the lab assistants that could help students to the depth that a specialist in a departmental computing lab could.

Sustainability has forced AT out of our AT lab and onto computers all over campus. Basically I have had to learn to partner with the IT people on campus. And my campus is highly decentralize which means I’ve had to deal with various personalities and attitudes over the years. Add to that the systems change efforts that I and other AT coordinators have had to promote around accessible web and electronic documents and you get a fairly good dress rehearsal for what many DS offices themselves about to embark on.

Another preview of things to come is the advocacy of accessible web and electronic documents. AT coordinators find themselves trying to convince campus communicators to produce accessible electronic publications, but it is frequently a steep up-hill battle.

One problem with the new model (as far as “others” are concerned) is that it shifts the work and responsibility from one office (the DS office) and distributes it among the campus community. I have actually had web designers suggest that I should retrofit accessibility on their campus sites rather than them build it in to begin with! That would be hilarious if it if it hadn’t been a sincere suggestion.

Universal Design includes, but also extends well beyond, technology. The deployment of AT into mainstream computing labs does serve, however, as a great map for at least one method of moving toward access or all.

Universal Design and Access is the obvious direction for human interface development. It is inevitable, but DS programs can quicken the pace of adoption. Colleges and universities are immense organizations, but they’re usually more flexible than business organizations in implementing new ideas. DS offices are great motivators for the campus implementation of UD and the AT area may have some insight into dealing with some of the essential stakeholders on campus.

There are two take-aways from this. One, is that your AT people may have some useful input and advice as your office embarks on modernizing “disability services’ on our campus. And two, is that the old rationales of legal consequences, higher moral obligations etc. just aren’t as persuasive as they once were. Spreading Universal Access is going to take more sophisticated organizational change methods.


WebAIM Training
I'll be attending WebAIM's accessibility training on February 17 and 18. I plan to "twitter" from the training. Follow me at jbailey on Twitter during the training.