Trace R&D Center receives $3.3 million to research disability access to telecommunications

The National Institute on Disability & Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education, has awarded a five-year, $3,375,000 Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) grant to the Trace Research and Development Center, working in partnership with the Technology Assessment Program at Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.

The focus of the Telecommunications Access RERC is to identify strategies for making standard telecommunications systems more accessible for older people and people with disabilities. The RERC's research program has taken on new significance and immediacy because of the Federal Communications Commission's new regulations requiring all standard telecommunications products to be designed for accessibility and usability by people with disabilities, wherever it is readily achievable.

Professor Gregg Vanderheiden (right) and Neal Ewers of the Trace R&D Center with an enhanced-access kiosk. (35K JPG)

Principal investigators on the grant are Gregg C. Vanderheiden, Trace director and professor of BME and industrial engineering, and Judith E. Harkins, associate professor of communication arts and director of the Technical Assistance Program at Gallaudet.

Technologies being addressed by the RERC include customer premises equipment of all types (phones, video phones, pagers, messaging systems, etc.), telecommunication systems and services (voice mail, interactive voice response systems, etc.), network topologies, telecommunications standards, and next-generation multimedia telecommunication systems (virtual meetings, telecollaboration, etc.). The RERC's primary mission is to find ways to make these standard systems directly usable by people with all types and degrees of disability, and to work with industry and government to implement access strategies.

"Telecommunications will be changing and advancing dramatically over the next five to 10 years," says Vanderheiden. "The purpose of this center grant is to see to it that people with disabilities—and all of us as we age—will be able to take advantage of these new technologies, allowing us to all live more independently and fully."

Access strategies will include design changes or added features for standard products, as well as ensuring compatibility with current assistive technologies such as TTYs, assistive listening devices, alternative input devices, and devices with alternate displays. The RERC's research program will include both current and future technologies. In its applied research and development program, the RERC will work on proof-of-concept models and pre-standards research and development. The RERC's transfer and technical assistance program will focus on standard-setting, developing of model implementations, resource and reference tools, and providing technical support to industry, government and consumer groups.