Texas store trains disabled people to become more tech savvy

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In the picture, Crintis Gray teaches his boss, Computers Made Easy owner David Vaughan, how to use computer applications for the blind.

David Vaughan opened Computers Made Easy a year ago with the hope of teaching senior citizens how to navigate the tech world, from laptops to cellphones.

But it didn’t take Vaughan long to realize that the services and instruction he provided seniors could also work for the disabled.

"It’s not just showing them how to use it but also what to use it for," said Vaughan, who found that some of his disabled clients had computer skills but did not know how to apply them.

Once they understand how computers can help them with everything from staying in touch with caseworkers to pursuing a favorite hobby, Vaughan said, their lives change.

"They feel more connected to society, so they don’t shut themselves in. They get out more," Vaughan said.

The store, tucked into a corner of the Westcliff Shopping Center not far from Texas Christian University, was recently named the 2008 Small Employer of the Year by the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities.

"That was because of Crintis," said Vaughan, giving the credit to Crintis Gray, a young man he is proud to call his employee. Gray is blind.

Computers Made Easy is not a modern-day computer store. It’s more old-school — a cozy, strip-center shop.

"I always wanted to open a business in this exact spot because I grew up around here when it was [former Fort Worth Mayor] Bob Bolen’s Toy Palace," said Vaughan, who was motivated to start his business because so many older relatives were asking him for computer help. "So it always had fond memories."

That air of nostalgia is apparent even before you walk through the door. Vaughan has a vintage TV console playing classic 1950s shows in a display window by the entrance.

Once inside, you find yourself in a beehive of diverse activity. A full-service post office takes up one side of the store. Across the way, the guys in computer repair are busy pointing, clicking and staring at their screens. None of this seems to bother the store’s resident border collie, Comet, who is sleeping comfortably on his pillow near the door.

Behind all this is a classroom area where, depending on when you come by, you might see any number of groups learning computer skills. On one recent visit, the room was filled with eager students, wheelchairs and a lot of German shepherds. It turned out to be a demonstration of special software for the disabled. The instructor and most participants are blind.

Still farther back are some small work areas, including one where you are likely to find Crintis Gray at his keyboard.

"Crintis had been looking for work for four years and had basically been deemed unemployable," Vaughan said.

So when Gray contacted Vaughan, Vaughan thought Gray wanted help. Instead, he wanted to be help.

"And he already knew the software," Vaughan said. So Vaughan hired Gray as a part-time employee to train other blind computer users.

"I’m very patient with everyone I train because I’ve gone through this myself," said Gray, who uses his computer to write poetry, listen to music and surf the Internet. "I just tell them not to be scared of it."

Obviously, the 30-year-old Gray and his students — whom he teaches one-on-one — use computers a bit differently than sighted users. He never uses a mouse, for example, and instead moves around the screen with keyboard commands. Special software reads every word on the screen aloud. And computer content can even be printed in Braille.

Vaughan, whose store is state-certified to serve the disabled, is also one of Gray’s students.

"When he teaches me, all the lights are off, the monitor is off, and I even wear a blindfold," Vaughan said.

He does this so he can know the software the same way his clients do.

Software for the disabled is sometimes stunning.

"We don’t have this yet, but there is technology out there that allows a disabled person to stick a little mirror on their forehead and then move the mouse around by turning their head one way or another," said Vaughan, whom Gray is also teaching to read Braille.

That innovation could be especially useful for another type of disabled computer user Vaughan serves — people with cerebral palsy, such as Amanda Becton, who is an occasional employee at Computers Made Easy.

In her case, a decidedly low-tech solution worked wonders.

"With Amanda, it was just a matter of getting the biggest No. 2 pencil we could find and teaching her how to depress the keys with that," said Vaughan, who also helped Becton get a computer. "I think she got up to about 30 words a minute like that."