Dorine Spencer does not laugh like somebody who has had 29 eye surgeries and two strokes. Nor does she look like someone with a reconstructed face.
And she does not have the attitude of a person who lost her job as director of social services at a nursing home and rehab center in La Grange last year because she could no longer “do my documentation in a timely manner.”
With her seeing-eye golden retriever, Senator, and her computer instructor at her side, Spencer told of how she ran out onto a West Side street after a ball when she was 2. She did not see the car speeding towards her.
“I ran, my mother screamed, that was it.”
Now 46, Spencer’s vision became progressively worse, and she is now in her fourth month of a six-month one-on-one program at Donka Inc., a Wheaton-based non-profit computer training facility for the disabled. The program’s goal is to get disabled working-age adults back into the workforce.
Donka is primarily for people “who are normally functioning but become disabled between the ages of 20 and 50,” said Leanne Stavenger-Vos, the center’s executive director. “They’re still in their productive stages of life.”
Each of the 14 computers in Donka’s lab is equipped with assistive technology that helps students interact with the Microsoft Windows operating system and business productivity software.
Spencer’s PC, for example, is equipped with JAWS screen-reading software, which enunciates the text as it is entered and displayed on the monitor.
At another computer, 65-year-old Uldis Ievans uses a word processor called Intellitalk, which magnifies the text he enters so he can see it better.
Ievans, who worked as a research scientist for Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. before he suffered a stroke in August, is learning how to write again.
Behind him, Carlotta Hickman sits at a PC equipped with a Kensington Expert Mouse, a large trackball device that helps her precisely position the cursor.
That would be a difficult task for the 50-year-old former nurse if she were using a conventional mouse, because she has limited use of her hands due to a degenerative disc in her neck.
“The reality is that there is not a job out there where you don’t use a computer,” Hickman said. “This training will help me get back to work.”
In all, about 300 people have completed the Donka program since it launched in 1987. And the organization faces the same problems today as it did in its early days.
“Programs like Donka tend to be overworked and underfunded,” said David Dikter, executive director of the Chicago-based Assistive Technology Industry Association. “It’s a shrinking world of return-to-work centers, but there’s a growing world of need.”
Budget restraints loom
Donka must purchase technology and pay its workforce of nine on a $300,000 annual budget.
The program, which occupies 1,500 square feet of rent-free space at the DuPage County Convalescent Center, is free to students. One out of four students that come through the computer-training program are residents of the center.
Stavenger-Vos said that foundation grants make up the largest part of Donka’s annual funding, about 35 percent.
Another 10 percent comes from the state and DuPage County, but these contributions, she said, may fall victim to budget cuts.
“We’re not at risk for not surviving,” she said, “We’re at risk for not continuing to grow. There’s so much more we’d like do.”
Donka has a job-placement specialist on staff to help students re-enter the workforce, but without additional funds, Donka cannot implement a full-scale job placement program for its students.
“There are so few community programs for people that end up disabled between the ages of 20 and 50,” said Stavenger-Vos. “Many of them end up tucked away in corners.”
More area programs needed
Willie Gunther, executive director of the Springfield-based Illinois Assistive Technology Project, agrees.
“Donka is a good program, but we don’t have enough good programs in the state,” he said.
This problem will become more apparent with the number of handicapped adults needing to re-enter the workforce as the general population ages.
“It’s a Baby Boomer workforce that has used technology to become successful,” Dikter said. “And as these people encounter disabilities they’re going to need to continue using technology.”
Indeed, Spencer, who has bachelor’s degrees in social work and psychology from St. Francis University in Joliet but lost her job because of her failing vision, believes the training she is receiving at Donka will make all the difference.
“I love it,” she said. “I feel much too intelligent and independent to be on disability [pay]. This training will allow me to be a productive member of society.”
Then she paused, took a breath, and added, “I’m not a handicapped person. I’m an able person.”
PC devices provide windows of access
An instructor at Wheaton-based Donka Inc., Judy Lampa is adept at matching the right technology to her students’ physical challenges.
After rattling off a wide range of third-party assistive technology products–including speech recognition software, screen readers and head-mounted mouse devices–that help people with disabilities use a PC, Lampa described one of the biggest ironies in assistive technology:
The most common piece of assistive technology (it’s on nearly every Microsoft Windows-based computer) is also one of the least known.
Microsoft’s accessibility options, found in the Windows control panel, optimize the operating system to make it easier to use for those dealing with disabilities.
“You can blow up all the icons to make them easier to see,” she said. “Or you replace audio alerts with screen flashes for people with hearing issues.”
The accessibility options also allow users with motor difficulties to assign multikey combinations like Control+Alt+Delete to a single key.
“A lot of times, assistive technology is not very expensive, but it makes all the difference in the world,” said Gail Wetta, Donka’s development coordinator. “It reduces the frustration.”
The Kensington Expert Mouse Pro Trackball (www.kensington.com), for example, retails for about $110.
The device features a large trackball, four programmable mouse buttons that can eliminate double-clicking, and six “DirectLaunch” buttons that can bring up any Web site or application with one touch.
For those with vision problems, the JAWS for Windows screen-reading software (www.freedomscientific.com) uses speech synthesis technology to audibly communicate what is on the screen.
When active, JAWS reads each letter as it is entered, allowing the user to assess his or her typing accuracy. The software even uses different tonalities for capitalized letters.
For more expensive products like JAWS, which retails for about $900, people with disabilities can turn to the Springfield-based Illinois Assistive Technology Project (www.iltech.org) for help.
The agency is a federally funded non-profit organization that provides loans of $500 to $40,000 for people who need to purchase assistive technology.
“We will work with a lower credit score and a higher debt-to-income ratio than a bank would,” said Sue Castles, the agency’s loan program coordinator. “We try to take things like medical bills into consideration.”
The agency charges 3.5 percent on every loan. Out of 61 applications for loans submitted so far this year, 34 have been approved.
The agency also lends assistive technology devices for up to six weeks to allow applicants a trial period before purchasing.
— Alex L. Goldfayn
