Assistive technology is pricey, and many individuals with disabilities stay on mounted incomes. Disabled assistive tech customers additionally should cope with gear that was typically designed with none capability to be repaired or modified. However assistive tech customers in the end want the performance they want—a wheelchair that isn’t continually needing to be charged, maybe, or a hearing aid that doesn’t amplify all background noise equally. Assistive tech “makers,“ who can hack and modify existing assistive tech, have at all times been in excessive demand.
Therese Willkomm, emeritus professor of occupational therapy on the College of New Hampshire, has written three books cataloging her greater than 2,000 assistive expertise hacks. Wilkomm says she goals to maintain her assistive tech hacks costing lower than 5 {dollars}.
She’s come to be recognized internationally because the “MacGyver of Assistive Expertise” and has offered greater than 600 workshops and assistive tech maker days throughout 42 states and 14 nations.
IEEE Spectrum sat down with Willkomm forward of her newest assistive tech Maker Day workshop, on Saturday, 31 Jan., on the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) convention in Orlando. Over the course of the dialog, she mentioned the evolution of assistive expertise over 40 years, the pressing want for reasonably priced communication gadgets, and why the DIY motion issues now greater than ever.
IEEE Spectrum: What obtained you began in assistive expertise?
Therese Wilkomm: I grew up in Wisconsin the place my father had a machine store and labored on dairy and hog farms. At age ten, I began constructing and making issues. A cousin was in a farm accident and wanted modifications to his tractor, which launched me to welding. In school, I enrolled in vocational rehabilitation and realized about rehab engineering—assistive expertise wasn’t coined till 1988 with the Technology-Related Assistance Act. In 1979, Gregg Vanderheiden got here to the College of Wisconsin-Stout and demonstrated artistic issues with storage door openers and communication gadgets. I assumed, wow, this may be an superior profession path—designing and fabricating gadgets and worksite diversifications for folks with disabilities to return to work and stay independently. I haven’t regarded again.
You’ve created over 2,000 assistive expertise options. What’s your most memorable one?
Wilkomm: A tool for castrating pigs with one hand. We found out a technique to design a tool that match on the tip of the hog crate that was foot-operated to carry the hind legs of the pig again so the process could possibly be accomplished with one hand.
Assistive Expertise’s Altering Panorama
How has assistive expertise advanced over the a long time?
Wilkomm: Within the Nineteen Eighties, we fabricated gadgets from wooden and early electronics. I grew to become a [Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America, a.k.a. RESNA] member in 1985. The 1988 Technology-Related Assistance Act was transformational—all fifty states lastly obtained funding to assist assistive expertise and wishes in rural areas. Again within the ‘80s, we have been soldering and making battery interrupters and momentary switches for toys, radios, and music. Gregg was doing a little issues with communication. There have been Prentke Romich communication gadgets. These have been a few of the first digital assistive technologies.
The early Nineties was all about cell rehab engineering. Senator Bob Dole gave me a $50,000 grant to fund my first cell unit. That cell unit had all my welding gear, all my fabrication gear, and I might drive farm to farm, arrange exterior proper in entrance of the tractor, and fabricate no matter wanted to be fabricated. Then round 1997, there have been cuts within the college programs. Cell models grew to become actually costly to function. We began to take a look at extra environment friendly methods of offering assistive expertise providers. With the Tech Act, we had demonstration websites the place folks would come and check out totally different gadgets. However folks needed to get in a automotive, drive to a middle, get out, discover parking, come into the constructing—plenty of time was being misplaced.
Within the 2000s, extra challenges with decreased funding. I found that with a Honda Accord and people crates you get from Staples, you would have your entire cell unit within the trunk of your automotive due to advances in supplies. We might make battery interrupters and momentary switches with out ever having to solder. We are able to make switches in 28 seconds, battery interrupters in 18 seconds. When COVID occurred, we needed to pivot—do extra digital, ship stuff out to folks. We have been in a position to serve extra people throughout COVID than previous to COVID as a result of no person needed to journey.
How do you retain prices beneath 5 {dollars}?
Wilkomm: I purpose for 5 {dollars} or much less. I get tons of corrugated plastic donated totally free, so we spend no cash on that. Then there’s Scapa Tape—a really aggressive double-sided foam tape that prices 5 cents a foot. If you happen to fabricate one thing, and it doesn’t work out, and it’s a must to reposition, you’re out a nickel’s price of fabric. Shopping for Velcro in bulk helps too. Then Instamorph—it’s non-toxic, biodegradable. You’ll be able to reheat it, reform it, in 5 minutes or much less as much as six instances. I’ve created about 132 totally different gadgets simply utilizing Instamorph. Loads of issues I make out of Instamorph don’t essentially work. I’ve a bucket and I reuse that Instamorph. We are able to get six, seven gadgets out of reusable Instamorph. That’s how we preserve it beneath 5 {dollars}.
What key legislation impacts assistive expertise?
Wilkomm: Undoubtedly the Expertise-Associated Help Act. Within the college system, nevertheless, it solely says “did you contemplate assistive expertise?” In order that laws actually must be beefed up. The third piece of laws I labored on was the AgrAbility laws to fund assistive expertise consultations and technical help for farmers and ranchers. The newest Expertise-Associated Help Act was reauthorized in 2022. Not an entire lot of adjustments—it’s nonetheless assistive expertise gadget demonstrations and loans, gadget reuse, coaching, technical help, info and consciousness. The opposite factor is NIDILRR—Nationwide Institute on Unbiased Residing and Rehabilitation Analysis, funded beneath [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a.k.a. HHS]. Funding the rehab engineering facilities was fairly important in advancing the sphere as a result of these have been large, multimillion-dollar facilities devoted to core areas like communication and employment. Now there’s a brand new one out on artificial intelligence.
A Imaginative and prescient for a Higher Assistive Tech Future
Over greater than 2,000 hacks to enhance usability of assistive applied sciences, veteran DIY maker Therese Wilkomm has earned the moniker “the MacGyver of assistive tech.” Therese Willkomm
What deserves extra focus in your subject?
Wilkomm: The provision-and-demand downside. All of it comes right down to money and time. We have now an elderly inhabitants that continues to develop, and a disability inhabitants that continues to develop—excessive demand, excessive want for assistive expertise, but the assets obtainable to satisfy that want are restricted. Just a few years again, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation had a contest. I submitted a proposal much like the Blue Apron approach. Folks don’t have provides at their home. They will’t purchase two inches of tape—they’ve to purchase an entire roll. They will’t purchase one foot of corrugated plastic—they’ve obtained to purchase an 18-by-24 sheet or wait until it will get donated.
With my third book, I created options with QR codes displaying movies on the best way to make them. I used Christopher Reeve Basis funding to buy provides. With Blue Apron, anyone desires to make dinner and a field arrives with a rooster breast, potato, greens, and recipe. I assumed, what if we might apply that to assistive expertise? Any individual wants one thing, there’s an answer on the market, however they don’t have the cash or the time—how can we shortly put it in a field and ship it to them? Individuals who attended my workshops didn’t need to spend cash on supplies or waste time on the retailer. They’d watch the video and assemble it.
However then there have been individuals who stated, “I would not have even 5 minutes within the college day to cease what I’m doing to make one thing.” So we discovered volunteers who stated, “Hey, I could make slant boards. I could make switches. I can adapt toys.” You have got individuals who need to construct stuff and individuals who want stuff. If you happen to can cope with the money and time subject, something’s attainable to serve extra folks and supply extra gadgets.
What’s your greatest imaginative and prescient for the longer term?
Wilkomm: I’m very enthusiastic about communication. December fifteenth was the passage in 1791 of our First Amendment, freedom of speech. But folks with communication impairments are denied their primary proper of freedom of speech as a result of they don’t have an reasonably priced communication gadget, or it takes too lengthy to program or study. I simply want we might get higher at designing and fabricating reasonably priced communication gadgets, so all people is awarded their First Modification proper. It shouldn’t be one thing that’s good to have—it’s one thing that’s wanted to have. If you lose your leg, you’re fitted with a prosthetic gadget, and insurance coverage covers that. Insurance coverage also needs to cowl communication gadgets and all of the assist providers wanted. With voice recognition and computer-generated voices, there are super alternatives in assistive expertise for communication impairments that have to be addressed.
What ought to IEEE Spectrum readers take away from this dialog?
Wilkomm: There’s super want for this ability set—working along side AI and materials sciences and the sphere of assistive expertise and rehab engineering. I’d like folks to take a look at alternatives to volunteer their time and in addition to pursue careers within the subject of specialised rehab engineering.
How are DIY approaches evolving with new applied sciences?
Wilkomm: What we’re seeing at maker festivals is extra folks doing 3D printing, switch-access controls, and these five-minute approaches. There needs to be a wholesome steadiness between what we will do with or with out electronics. If we want one thing programmed with electronics, completely—however is there a sooner means?
The opposite factor that’s attention-grabbing is ability improvement. You used to need to go to school for 4, six, eight years. With YouTube, you may study a lot on the internet. You’ll be able to develop abilities in belongings you by no means thought have been attainable with out a four-year diploma. There’s primary digital stuff you may completely study with out taking a course. I believe we’re going to have extra folks on the market doing hacks, asking “What if I modify it this fashion?” We don’t have to have a swap.
We have to have a look at the individual’s physique and the way that physique interacts with the digital gadget interface so it requires minimal effort—whether or not or not it’s eye management or motion control. Having gadgets that predict what you’re going to need subsequent, which can be continually listening, realizing the way in which you speak. I like the truth that AI appears in any respect my emails and creates this entire factor like “right here’s how I’d reply.” I’m like, yeah, that’s precisely it. I simply hit choose and I don’t need to kind all of it out. It accelerates communication. We’re residing in thrilling instances proper now.
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