Rubi Gatica, Italy Gatica, Danya Archilla
Laura Metzger
ENGL 1302
March 17, 2015
New Technologies
and People with Disabilities Response
Today
in the real world, technology has seeped into everyone’s everyday life. To
helping a person navigate through a city to helping researchers and scientist
innovate a cure in the medical field. Technology has come a very long way
through the past 25 years, and though it has become a part in our lives, it has
become a beacon of hope to people who have physical disabilities.
The
blind have always been able to move along their disabilities, with the help of
a walking stick or the aid of their fellow peers and even the helpful paw of a
dog. Though a group of fellow scientist at the University of California in
Santa Barbara and the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
have recently been developing a device that could help make a blind person’s
day easier. The device is named The Personal Guidance System and it uses the
Global Positioning System, real world sounds and a virtual map. In short, the
person would put the earphones on and listens to the sounds around him and the
Global Positioning System creates the virtual map to help the person navigate
through the streets. The device all fits in a regular backpack and weighs no
more than 30 pounds.
Technology
not only helps the blind, it can also benefit people with hearing impairments
that cannot use a cellphone. The owners of Phoenix Management Inc., Jo Waldron
and Shirley Crouch, have invented a type of system named HATIS, Hearing Aid
Telephone Interconnect System. This system can connect to a headphone jack in
any device, and the HATIS will amplify the sounds coming from the device. The
people with hearing impairments can now use their devices with the help of
HATIS.
Another
way that technology has helped people with disabilities is people who are
quadriplegics. Quadriplegics are people who have suffered spinal cord injuries
and are unable to move their arms and legs. Though it seems there was no hope
for people with this disability, researchers and scientist from the United
States and Australia have come together to invent a way for quadriplegics to be
able to use their hands. They have created a device named Neuroprosthetic Hand
Grasp System. Though the device can only be used by people who may still move
their shoulders and elbows. This system can help them be able to get ahold of
things such as pencils, pens, cups and so on. Doctors and physicians place
sensors on the patient’s shoulders, so when they move their shoulder, it
signals a control unit that sends radio signs to a device in the upper chest.
Then the device in the upper chest sends electric waves to wires that are
connected to the arms muscle and hands. These wires are very much like nerves
that help make it easier for quadriplegics to grab things.
So
in fact, technology can be used in everyday life and can help people with
physical disabilities. It can be life changing to people with these
disabilities, and make a disabled person life much easier and easy going.
Works Cited
“New Technologies Aid People With Disabilities.” Today's Science. Infobase Learning, May
1995. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
<http://tsof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?wid=95142&ID=17763>.
