ADA Technology Corporation

	Examples
	ADA Tech Network: About the Network Social Innovations Technological Innovations	ADA Tech Students Connect: Needs of the Students Project's Details Future of the Project

Severely disabled wheelchair-bound students in Lowell public schools are currently only receiving a part-time education.

Wheelchair-bound students with serious medical conditions such as cerebral palsy and quadriplegia are able to learn at public schools in a "non-restrictive environment". Their impairments do not inherently include mental retardation or a complete loss of vision or hearing. The fact is, many severely disabled wheelchair-bound children are smart and intelligent with the capacity to learn. They are legally entitled to a full-time education. But, in the Lowell community, they can not exercise this right. The local community and school system lacks the resources and knowledge needed to help these students.

Access to Information technology is more crucial to the learning process for severely disabled students than their non-disabled peers. The severely disabled depend heavily on information technology. Their disabilities limit their communication to the extent that learning through online communication is often their only choice. Severely disabled wheelchair-bound students must have handicap-adjusted computers with adaptive devices in order to read and use learning materials.

Greater resources are needed for severely disabled students to access and use technology, and most importantly, to receive the same education as other students. Government funding for public schools averages approximately $6.500-8.500 per student each year; this includes special needs children. The estimated cost of enabling one severely disabled student to effectively use computers and the Internet is approximately $35.000 to $55.000 a year. This figure is what parents spend on private or home based educations for their severely disabled wheelchair-bound children to ensure there are well educated and prepared to enter college. Students in the local community come, primarily, from low-income and/or immigrant families. They, therefore, can not afford hardware, software, or a private education on their own. There are no local or public schools resources to help them; they are trapped in this situation receiving part-time schooling. Subsequently, they are deprived of higher education and employment opportunities. The result is obviously seen in local higher education institutions. Very few wheelchair-bound students with severe motor disabilities, like cerebral palsy, attend these institutions. UMass Lowell, specifically, does not have even one severely disabled wheelchair-bound student enrolled.

Tools and technologies that can help people with even very serious impairments access and use computers and the Internet are largely unknown. They have appeared recently or are still in development stage and are not used in the community.

ADA Tech Students Connect project, that is able through access to technology to address and overcome a variety of challenges that wheelchair-bound students with multiply disabilities are experiencing and facing in their education, is what the community and severely disabled students desperately need and need now.