The RESNA Kid

The landmark Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was the first "rights" legislation in the United States to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. This important piece of legislation provided the impetus for the growth of the assistive technology field, as more people with disabilities needed AT tools to participate in society.

 

RESNA was formed in 1979, and held its first conference in 1980. How should we measure our progress? This is a question now asked with increasing urgency, due to tightening federal budgets. For people working in assistive technology, it is often a frustrating question, since the type of research generally in favor (randomized, blinded, large-scale trials) does not work well for our field.

 

But there is another measure, one that every clinician who works with clients knows and understands: the successful social integration of people with disabilities in everyday life. The ability to go to school with one's peers, attend college, get a job, and live independently is the ultimate measure of health and well-being.

 

Meet Andy Berk. He is 33 years old, a lawyer, and lives in Los Angeles, CA. When he was three years old, his parents took him to the RESNA Conference in their hometown of San Diego. This is his story.

 

Andy, tell us about you.

Andy Berk

I'm an attorney with Disability Rights of California. I live on my own in downtown L.A. in a loft in the old El Dorado Hotel (which is now condos). It's a beautiful building. Charlie Chaplin used to party here. I went to UC-Berkley for college, and to law school at UC-Davis, near Sacramento. I was a White House intern for Bill Clinton. I lived in Arlington, VA for three months during my internship.

 

I owe a lot to RESNA. My first rehab engineer when I was 8 years old, Ken Kozole, was a RESNA-certified ATP.  (Editor's Note: Ken Kozole, ATP, now practices at the Shiners' Hospital in Salt Lake City, UT.) He built my custom seating. We spent many happy hours fastening things to my wheelchair and then seeing how quickly they fell off. Ken is a great rehab engineer because he listens to consumer input and thinks outside the box.

 

What equipment do you use?

My chair is an Invacare Storm Mark IV with an ASL system. My chair is a dinosaur - from 1999. I use the ASL head controls to drive my chair, open my door, answer the phone, and use my computer. I have a computer with Dragon Professional Version 11, and I use "Utter Command," an add-on program to Dragon which was showcased at the Closing the Gap conference one year. The basic Dragon platform assumes the user has command through the mouth; "Utter Command" addresses those barriers, and allows the user to do things faster.

 

All of this equipment helps me live independently. I own my own home, I live on my own; the technology is essential to making that process work.

 

Andy and friends coming home from school

Tell us about growing up as a kid using assistive technology.

 

I got my wheelchair at about age nine. I already had an established peer group and my chair allowed me to build on that. I took it to Boy Scout Camp. When I was a pre-teen, the mall was about 3 miles away from my house. My friends were on bikes and rollerblades and I would be in my chair, and we'd take the bike lane to the mall, all of us rolling together.  That was classic integration. More 

Ken Kozole, ATP, on "The RESNA Kid"   

Policy update: Complex Rehabilitation Technology bill introduced  

After three days of debate, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Commerce-Justice-Science FY 2013 appropriations bill that includes a provision prohibiting the Justice Department from using funds to enforce accessibility standards for swimming pools, both for new construction and existing pools. This is the latest challenge by the hotel industry to the ADA requirements, which were supposed to go into effect this month. 

Representative Hoyer(D-MD) and Representative Nadler(D-NY) are among the few who made statements in opposition to the amendment and the precedent it would set. The next step is to prevent a similar amendment from being introduced and/or passed in the Senate.  

Baltimore Harbor

RESNA 2012 is only 6 weeks away! Time to make plans to join approximately 400 of your closest RESNA friends in Baltimore June 28-July 3,2012. Members enjoy substantial discounts on registration fees for all pre-conference, general conference, and post-conference sessions. More 

Recently announced

•  Closing plenary speaker on Monday, July 2 is Hermano Igo Krebs, PhD, Principal Research Scientist and Lecturer at MIT.  Dr. Krebs is a pioneer in the design, development and testing of robots used in rehab therapy. More
• The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wheeled Mobility will conduct its State of the Science Conference in conjunction with RESNA 2012 on July 1 and July 2. Registered conference attendees will be able to attend the plenary session, featuring speakers Doran Edwards, MD, Advanced Healthcare Consulting, LLC and Rita S. Hostak, Vice President, Sunrise Medical, as well as three workshop sessions. This is an opportunity for clinicians and practitioners to impact research agenda priorities for the next five years. More
• Three new workshops have been added to the schedule. "Getting Ready: The Role of AT Reuse and Providers in Emergency Preparedness" will provide practical tips on preparing consumers and communities for emergencies and/or disasters. "Are you Ready? Apps for Emergency Preparedness" will examine existing apps related to emergency preparedness for people with disabilities. "What's New in RESNA Standards Volume 4: Wheelchairs and Transportation" will discuss these voluntary industry standards. More

Important Dates 

• May 18 - Early bird registration deadline
• June 7 - Hotel room reservation deadline

Networking Events

• June 29 at 4pm - Tour of Kennedy Krieger Institute
• June 29 at 7pm - First Timers Orientation & Mixer
• June 29 at 8pm - SIG/PSG Open House Reception
• June 30 at 6pm - Exhibit Hall Reception
• July 1, time TBD - Baltimore Aquarium Social Night 
• July 2 at 12pm - Awards Luncheon

To visit the conference section of the website, click here.  

Jamie Prioli, SIG Committees Chair

RESNA's Special Interest Groups are smaller committees within RESNA that allow members to network, share information, and collaborate. We are looking for individuals interested in serving in the role as a SIG Chair and/or Vice-Chair for a committee.

Mary Ellen Buning, PSG Committees Chair

There are two important ways to find your niche in RESNA. One is to look for others who share your interest in a particular area of AT such as treatment oucomes or augmentative and alternative communication with a Special Interest Group (SIG). The other is to link up with others who share your professional background or role/function within a Professional Specialty Group (PSG).  

RESNA has professional specialty groups (PSG) for: Manufacturers & Suppliers, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Rehabilitation Engineers and Technologists, Speech Language Pathologists and Educators. You can belong to a SIG as well as a PSG. More