By Carly Pacheco, Deputy Director of FREED Center for Independent Living Get your pencils, get your books, and don’t forget your assistive technology (AT) — it’s back-to-school time! I am an AT nerd, I’ll admit it. As a past Special Education Teacher turned Independent Living Center Deputy Director, I have seen firsthand how all…
Republished from: AT3 Center News and Tips Page Written by: Eliza J. Anderson June is National Aphasia Awareness Month. Let’s #TalkAboutAphasia and #AAC! The term “aphasia” is unknown to most people, yet the condition is familiar. An estimated 2 million Americans have acquired aphasia as result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury or progressive neurological disorder. These are…
Written by: Luke Hsieh, Assistive Technology Advocate Community Access Center For this top five countdown, I will be ranking my my five favorite assistive technology devices from high-tech to low-tech. By September next year, I will have worked a full decade as an assistive technology specialist for an Independent Living Center. The first generation iPad…
By: Kyla Aquino Irving- Communications and Marketing Manager, CFILC Adriana Mallozzi, CEO and Founder of Boston area-based Puffin Innovations, is on a mission to empower people with disabilities by providing innovative assistive technology (AT) devices. Adriana grew up with a disability at a young age and was exposed to AT by an occupational therapist…
Written By: Vilissa Thompson, LMSW, Creator of Ramp Your Voice! As someone who is proudly disabled as a wheelchair user, little woman, and who is hard of hearing (HoH), assistive technology (AT) allows me to exist and be a part of my community with fewer barriers. To not have the AT I depend on means…
Written By: Patrick Cokley, Administrator, the Lead On Update In addition to a repository of cat photos, the Internet is often a resource for telling about products and services that we cannot live without. Though many of this information goes toward keeping Amazon and Pinterest afloat, there are often times where this advice is…
AT Advocates are community based information and referral specialists who can assist consumers with a variety of assistive technology issues. They work at Independent Living Centers in California. Ability Tools wouldn’t be the program it is without these advocates and all their hard work. With the New Year approaching we asked our advocates to tell…
Written by: Megan Cowdell, Program Coordinator, CFILC Here at Ability Tools and our parent organization, The California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC), we have used and worked with our fair share of assistive technology. In this second annual blog you will find testimonials from some of our staff on their favorite AT devices this…
Written by: Kevin Hansen, Voice Options Program Manager During the time that the Voice Options Pilot Project has been running we have seen a significant impact in the lives of the participants that have received services from this program. This pilot project was funded by the California Public Utilities Commission and officially started on January…
An eye-opening app produced by a non-profit startup in Copenhagen hopes to change life for people who are visually impaired. Hans Jørgen Wiberg, who is visually impaired himself, came up with the idea for the application. Through his work at “The Danish Association of the Blind” he recognized, that visually impaired often need help to cope…