Today, about 1 in 5 people worldwide are living with at
least one disability, and most people will experience a disability of some form
during the course of their lives. So says Disabled World (disabled-world.com/health/#ixzz2MNSvG2XY),
launched in 2004 as a source of independent news articles and reviews about all
types of disabilities and assistive devices. Disabled World (disabled-world.com/)
offers advice and information for those with chronic or genetic disabilities,
as well as disability through accident, illness, or the natural process of
aging. Daily news comes from press releases, journalists, and organizations. No
medical or health expertise is claimed, although contributors may have
extensive experience in the subjects covered. The site is managed and content
curated by two individuals, Lynn and Ian Langtree, based in eastern Canada.
Terminology
What is "disabled"? An article attributed to Wikipedia,
titled "Disability or Disabled--Which Term is Right? (disabled-world.com/definitions/disability-disabled.php#ixzz2MNbf2yBf),
discusses the sensitivity in the U.S.
and U.K.
toward various terms covering "functional limitations that affect one or
more of the major life activities, including walking, lifting, learning,
breathing, etc." It acknowledges the effects of laws in various countries
and the preferences of groups representing affected people themselves, and
comes down unequivocally for "disabled persons" living with various
conditions of "disability."
The definitions don't stop there. Indeed, there is a whole
page, Glossary and Definitions of Disability Health and Medical Terms (disabled-world.com/definitions/),
which lists general and specific glossaries. Links are provided to glossaries
of conditions (paraplegia, quadriplegia, and hemiplegia, for example) as well
as to the bureaucracy of disability ("Disability Alphabet Soup: Sorting
Through the Maze of Legal Abbreviations") and to terms that are useful
when buying assistive devices ("Stairlift Glossary of Terms"). Each
glossary gives its date of publication and author; those glossaries that are
not authored by Disabled World itself are often provided by representatives of
professional or commercial organizations, but affiliations of authors are
disclosed.
Navigation
Though I often use Ctrl+ to increase the size of type on
websites, I am still able to read without screen reading software. Therefore I don't
know whether the Disabled World site meets all current standards of visual
accessibility, but I find it clear and easy to read (without increasing the
font) and easy to move around. Across the top of the homepage are several tabs:
Disability Information, Medical, Health, Travel, Sports, News, Community,
Videos, and Products. Immediately below these large topic areas is an A to Z
list of All Topics; there are hundreds.
The homepage itself gives top space to its mission
statement, definition of disability, and several links to informative articles for
those who are "newly disabled by accident or illness." Further down
are headlines for the most recent news. When I checked in early March the top
stories were:
- Handheld Talking Graphing Calculator for Visually Impaired, from Orbit Research
- Wireless Brain Sensor has Many Applications, from Brown University
- Helping Speech and Stuttering in Children with Down syndrome, from University of Alberta
- 30% of Adults Receiving Government Assistance Have a Disability, from U.S. Census Bureau
- Sequestration Cuts Will Have Devastating Impact on People with Disabilities, from National Organization on Disability
Each story was shown on a full page with the ability to
print, email, add comments, and post comments or a notice to Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, etc. Related content that had previously been published in Disabled
World was also identified, and in some cases additional information was
provided. The sequestration article, for example, gave a brief description of
the sequestration battle, labeled as a "definition."
All story pages also contained ads from Google Ad Choices.
Although the spots--at the top right of the article, the bottom middle, and the
bottom right--are clearly labeled as advertisements, they are tiresome and not
particularly pertinent (but most Cyber readers are probably not plagued by the
limited selection presented to me: "Work from home in Spain,"
"Save money; live overseas," and virtually anything printed in
Spanish). Such annoyance is the price we pay for "free" sites.
Assistive Devices
The most interactive sections of Disabled World are
Products, Videos, and Community. Click on any of these tabs from the main pages
and you will get a new top navigation bar that lets you choose from among just those
three. I went looking for Products. The Product page (products.disabled-world.com/)
immediately presented thumbnail photos of 60 devices--writing instruments,
playing cards, light switch enlargers, large button universal TV remotes, arm
extender reachers, and more. Click on a product picture to go to its page, and
then click again for more information. Purchases are made from the supplier,
not from Disabled World, but Disabled World has approved the merchants (products.disabled-world.com/suppliers)
and apparently reviews them, as one source had been declared "no longer
recommended" on the supplier page.
I soon realized that there is a product category listing in
the right column of the product pages (it replaces those annoying ads). The
most efficient way to review products is to click on the product category name.
If you are new to caregiving or disability status yourself, you will benefit
from browsing the categories and be intrigued by the many different types of
assistive devices currently sold. The Dressing Aids category, itself just one
of over 20 categories, opened up to all sorts of dressing, grooming, and
bathroom aids. Of course you would go here for bathroom grab bars, long-handled
sponges and brushes, wipes and other toiletry supplies, but did you know you
could buy zipper pull-ups, special jewelry fasteners, adaptive nail clippers, and
an "autodrop eyedrop guide" if you can't see well enough to hit the
mark when inserting your own eyedrops? The pages on canes and cane accessories
(products.disabled-world.com/category-444.html)
show a huge variety of decorative and adjustable ones, in addition to the more
prosaic, and are just the thing to examine if you are trying to help someone
accept the use of a cane for the first time.
Disability Videos
As I was looking at some of the Mobility Products photos (products.disabled-world.com/c/11/mobility-products.html)
I realized that I needed more description than I could get from a flat page.
That's when I remembered the Video tab. On the Video homepage (videos.disabled-world.com/)
I found a selection of thumbnail images of "recently viewed" and
"new" video clips with title; clicking through to the individual
video page lets you view the video itself and presents information about it,
statistics, and related links. The Disabled World collection of short video
clips (all free) includes demonstrations of assistive technology, classroom discussions
of disability topics, general health topics, and inspirational videos of
sports. Quality varies: some videos are professional, some are homemade. Many
use Flash format and will not display on an iPad. Videos for those with hearing
disabilities include British Sign Language (BSL), American Sign Language (ASL),
and captioning.
As with assistive devices, there is a detailed subject list
of nearly 40 categories to the right. Some of the topics that benefit
especially from a video treatment include the following:
- Accessible Homes and Ramps
- Adaptive Driving and Hand Controls
- Apps for iPhone Android and Mobile Devices
- Disability Travel Films
- Lifts Hoists and Transfer Devices
- Sign Language Videos
Community
Click on the Community tab from the main menu or the
Disability Community tab from the submenu and you come to Disability Community
Q & A, where almost 100 questions have been asked and answered in just two
months. Registration is required to participate here. This new community
replaces an older forum, and reference is made to Disabled World's Facebook
presence (facebook.com/Disabled.World)
and the fact that most users keep in touch that way.
In addition to Facebook you can set up an RSS feed of the daily
news or catch up on Twitter (https://twitter.com/DisabledWorld).
Although I find it annoying that every time I viewed a device or article or
video on Disabled World, I was asked to comment, it is obvious that Disabled
World has been successful in creating its social community and is working to
spread the word.
A Pearl of a Site
Because it is broad in scope, covering every type of
disability and touching on regulations and culture in several English-speaking
countries of the world, it should not be expected that Disabled World be
totally comprehensive, and it is not. It is, however, an excellent starting
point for those new to this world. It provides immediate practical help and makes
you more aware and sensitive to issues of disability. Experienced searchers
will recognize it as a research pearl. It speaks to you in language you
understand and meets some needs right away. If you must extend your research,
you will be able to do so much more efficiently because of the awareness of issues,
resources, and terminology that you have gained in Disabled World.
Susanne Bjørner
provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers.
Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.
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