For Henry Wesley, Assistive Technology Is A Lifeline To The WorldAnd His Civic Duty – Forbes

Henry Wesley

Henry Wesley is a 75-year-old Black man who has cerebral palsy. He was left at 3 at New York Citys Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, where he would be subject to harrowing mental and physical abuses over the next 23 years.

As it turns out, Wesley was not alone.

A February investigative report by Benjamin Weiser in The New York Times shed light on the institutions history of abuse. For decades, the state used the facility as a warehouse for children and adults with developmental disabilities, Weiser wrote. They were left unattended, naked, or in rags. Some were strapped in beds or chairs; others were left to rock endlessly on filthy, locked wards. He also reported there were 97 allegations of physical abuse by group home workers against Willowbrook alumni, as well as 34 allegations of psychological abuse and hundreds more of neglect and other mistreatment, like improper use of restraints or seclusion, medication errors, and theft.

Now, more than a half-century since first arriving at Willowbrook, Wesley has been married to wife Jean for 26 years. They live together in a nursing home, enjoying leisure activities such as attending county fairs, visiting Niagara Falls, and having brunch with friends. Disability advocacy also is important to Wesley; he, along with Jean, like attending advocacy-themed conferences. I enjoy public speaking about my past, and using my experiences to educate the public about previous treatment of people with disabilities, he told me in a recent interview.

As a person with disabilities, Wesley has extensive use of various assistive technologies. First and foremost, the electric wheelchair he uses to get around gives me independence and even has a charging port to charge my devices, he said. Gadget-wise, Wesley uses an iPad to FaceTime friends and co-workers, and utilize social media to keep in touch with people. He also has a computer in his room, with which he uses an adaptive stylus to type on.

As someone who is non-verbal, a crucial player in Wesleys use of technology is the Tobii Dynavox I-series device. The Sweden-based Tobii Dynavox is a household name to those who work in assistive technology adjacent fields, such as AAC specialists and speech & language pathologists. The company makes display-centric communicative products targeted at people with limited or no speech and/or who have gross-motor delays. In early October, Dynavox and Google announced a partnership whereby the formers devices, which run Snap Core First software, would gain support for Google Assistant. Dynavox CEO Fredrik Ruben said at the time the collaborationwhich took nearly a year to bear fruitmade sense because many Dynavox users already were using third-party text-to-speech tools to communicate with not only Google Assistant, but also its namesake smart home devices like the Google Home Hubs. Many of our customers had been using text-to-speech to communicate to Google Home Hubs, Minis, or other smart speakers but this integration would free them from thatenabling access to Googles rich collection of information, entertainment, and control resources from wherever they are with their device, Ruben told me.

For Wesley, his Dynavox enables better communication with the support staff at his group home, and in general. Many of the staff that support me can easily understand my wants and needs, but utilizing my Dynavox is a great help for me to communicate everything in more detail, he said. The Dynavox is particularly useful to him because he has limited dexterity in his hands, he added.

Aside from Dynavox, Wesley said he uses products from four of the Big Five technology titans: Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. He believes voice-first computing is wonderful, and the pandemic-fueled reliance on live-streaming virtual events means more disabled people can be included in attending them.

Wesley touched on other topics pertaining to technology during our interview over email. One such subject was the November presidential election. The actual process of voting can be inaccessible for myriad reasons, from hard-to-navigate paper ballots and voting machines to literal disenfranchisement of disabled voters by way of blocking access to curbside voting. For Wesleys part, he feels voting is important because he [finds] meaning in anything that allows me to feel included. He continued: Its also important for me to have other people see that people with disabilities are human and can do the same things as everyone else. I also feel its important to vote for someone who has my best interest as a person with disabilities.

Wesley said the experience for him voting in this years election was pleasant, adding everything went smooth and was easily accessible.

In the end, he reiterated how the democratic process empowers him.

Voting is important to me because I am able to be included, and I am able to use it as a teachable moment to the public that even though I may have a disability I am not any less of a person or less capable of doing the same things as those without disabilities, he said. I can also choose to vote for the best candidate that I feel will have my best interest at heart. Voting has not always been accessible for people with disabilities, but it sure has come a long way in being inclusive.

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For Henry Wesley, Assistive Technology Is A Lifeline To The WorldAnd His Civic Duty - Forbes