Considering the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Topic area Workplace Issues
Target audience General, middle school to graduate school students, with a general knowledge of computer usage
Activity type worksheet, reading assignment, out-of-class activities, group activities, evaluation
Time required One class hour to review the requirements of the ADA and an additional two hours outside, in pairs and groups.
Attachments Worksheet-Part I
Worksheet-Part II
Additional materials A summary of the ADA requirements, gloves, masks, or other devices of the student's ingenuity to simulate disabilities.
Background needed to complete the assignment Following the reading of the summary article on ADA requirements, there are no specific skills needed to complete the requirement. Some students may be hesitant to role-play in disabled situations. Thus one of the activities is planned to use a second students as an observer and safety manager.
References
  1. Boyer, Kevin. 1996. Computers and Ethics, IEEE Computer Society Press, p. 368.
  2. "The American with Disabilities Act Public Law 101-336", President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, http://www.pcepd.gov.pubs/fact/ada92fs.htm (last accessed 98/08/05)
  3. "Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)", Florida Agricultural Information Retrieval System, http://128.227.103.58/txt/fairs/26808 (last accessed 98/08/05).
Last modified August 1998
Abstract:
The intent of this series of activities to sensitize students to the special problems of accessibility of computers and computer facilities for disabled students and faculty, and the workplace requirements imposed on organizations by the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

Goals for the activity:
To increase the sensitivity of able bodied students to needs and obstacles of disabled students and faculty, and to evaluate the conformance of their institution's computer facilities to the ADA stipulations. To begin to build bridges between the legal requirements and ethical considerations.

Knowledge / skills / attitudes to be developed (behavioral objectives):
To develop an awareness of the needs of others, and especially of the needs of the disabled with respect to computer usage.

Procedure:
In the class on Disability Issues, outline the ADA requirements, and possibly invite the institution person responsible for equal opportunity or disabled students to speak to the class. If the class does include some disabled students (do not forget that some students that are officially classified as disabled are not obvious and do not want their disabilities known) consider having them discuss the issues of access and accommodations.

  1. Read the ADA summary documents (A) provided, and answer the questions on Worksheet Part I.
  2. Out-of-class, in pairs, conduct a role playing exercise to sensitize students to the needs of handicapped students.
  3. Out-of-class, perform an audit of the conformance of local computer facilities to the ADA and develop a report on any needed modifications.
  4. Following the first three activities answer the questions on Worksheet Part II.

A follow-up class could include a return visit of the person on campus responsible for ADA conformance to present and discuss the groups' findings and recommendations.

(A) The ADA itself is approximately 50 pages long

Assessing outcomes:
Students will submit four reports — the answers to the worksheet questions, and the two reports from the assessment activities.

Additional remarks:
Most states have an "Assistive Technology" division or activity within their state agency that deals with the needs of the disabled. Consider getting a person from that agency who deals with the computerized elements of AT to talk to the class.

Author contact information:
J.A.N. Lee
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0106
E-mail: janlee@cs.vt.edu

Page maintained by: kwb@csee.usf.edu