by Kirk Aranda, YO! Disabled & Proud Youth Advocate It’s that time of the year once again everyone! It’s time to celebrate Disability History Week 2014! Disability History Week (DHW) is a fun and exciting time where youth from the program Youth Organizing! (YO!) Disabled and Proud go into classrooms or auditoriums at their local…
At the September Ability Tools Southern Regional Meeting, held at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey, my colleagues and I got the chance to learn more about Google Glass and what this new technology could potentionall mean for people with disabilities. We also even got a chance to actually try out Google…
This week’s blog post comes to us from Laura Hall who works with the Michigan Assistive Technology Program. Many of these AT items can also be found to borrow for FREE for 30 days in California at our Device Lending Libraries. Check them out and happy back-to-school! Enjoy! Living and working near a college town,…
The following short closed captioned video provides a great, simple and easy AT idea for executive function or episodic memory loss. The idea? Use Twitter – a free program/app – to tweet to yourself about your daily activities. Then, you can search them easily if you don’t remember something that you did or what happened…
Here at Ability Tools, we enjoy following other assistive technology blogs, forums, and reviews from various sources. Here are a few for you to check out! 1. Bmeerz: This is an ambitious AT reviewer that offers many different reviews/demos of AT devices in a video format on Youtube. You can click on CC to open…
by guest blogger Laurie Hoirup, author of I Can Dance: My Life with a Disability Within the business world, financial success is the driving force for both concept and product design. Numbers matter and sadly, for the disability community, those numbers can have a detrimental effect upon independence and ability. Technology is a wonderful asset…
Disability Capitol Action Day 2014 took place on May 21st in Sacramento and we thought it would be nice to share some photos from this successful and enjoyable event! The day started off with a Solidarity March from the Capitol Rose Garden to the West Lawn. Participants made signs to express what they thought was…
by Nubyaan Scott, Program Coordinator Joe Xavier is the newly appointed Director of the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR). He recently took some time to talk with us about his background, hopes for the future, and his thoughts on Assistive Technology (AT). Take a few minutes to get to know Joe; we’re sure you’ll find it…
What are you doing on Wednesday, May 21st? If you can make it to Sacramento, come join the disability community for the 11th annual Disability Capitol Action Day (DCAD). DCAD is one of the nation’s largest and most diverse cross-disability annual days of unity. Recognizing the important issues facing people with disabilities and their allies…
Do you have any gently used AT sitting around in your closet or garage? Donate it for Earth Day! It is that time of year again… time for some good old-fashioned spring cleaning! Why not use Earth Day as your impetus to get organized, clean out that garage, basement or closet, and reduce, reuse,…