Saturday, October 9, 2010

Ari Ne'eman of the National Council on Disability says Websites, mobile apps will improve the lives of people with disabilities

From The Hill's technology blog:

Ari Ne’eman (pictured), the country's first presidential appointee who openly has Asperger’s syndrome, says Web sites and mobiles apps can be used to improve services for the disabled.

"We’ve barely begun to tap the potential of handheld networked devices to assist with the kinds of deficits in executive functioning and life skills that many of us on the spectrum face," he said in an interview with Wired.

President Obama nominated Ne'eman to the National Council on Disability (NCD), an advisory panel that aims to make sure that people with any form of disability are taken into account in public policy.

He stressed the value of the Internet for improving services.

"There should be websites or apps that enable disabled people to rate their service providers and record their experiences, like the websites that already exist for college students to rate their professors," he said. "The Internet has proven to be very important for autistic people, because it’s given us a chance to connect with each other and start to form a culture of our own."