VOLUME XXXIII NO. 16
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF UTD — WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM
OCTOBER 21, 2013
The Mercury is proud to present this special edition celebrating Disability Awareness Month. Regular coverage of News, Life & Arts and Sports included inside.
From the editor’s desk: LAUREN FEATHERSTONE Editor-in-Chief
At a university that prides itself on diversity, it is important to recognize all the aspects that make our students unique — seen or unseen, beneficial or challenging. UTD has made strides to give students who might
have previously been left out the opportunity to attend and thrive at college, and in doing so the disabled have become abled. This significant shift in accessibility has largely increased the number of students, staff and faculty at our campus with disabilities to a portion of the population that is greater than that of many other universities. Students have become empowered by
their disabilities, which has led to innovative research and other invaluable contributions to UTD. This progress and these people are what we as a staff wanted to bring to light in this special edition for Disability Awareness Month. Working together, despite differences, can reveal strengths previously unrealized.
And so it is our responsibility to continue improving technologies for people with disabilities, as well as the way we interact with them, so that every person and diverse thought can flourish. Awareness and education are vital to bridging the barriers between people. The more we know about each other, where one comes from and what that person has to
Asperger’s students features attract ascendant University individuals; population sees significant growth
ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE Web Editor
When he filled out his SAT forms with his top four college choices, Christopher Creamer had three universities listed, all in New York, where he lived. The last one was a school in Texas that his uncle had once told his mom about. As fate would have it, the school in Texas offered him the best financial aid and Creamer landed 1,500 miles away from home at UTD as a computer science major in 2009. “I don’t remember it like it was yesterday, but part of my family’s visit included meeting with Kerry Tate (director for the Office of Student Accessibility) and her staff,” he said. “We were impressed then, and we still are today. Kerry really knows what she’s doing, and I think word’s getting around about that.” Creamer, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, a type of autism spectrum disorder, is now back in New York as a java developer, having graduated from UTD earlier this year. During Creamer’s time at UTD, the Office of Student Accessibility, or OSA, grew from serving 461 students in 2009-10 to 858 students with disabilities in 2012-13. In that same time, the number of students with Asperger’s has grown from a handful to 308, a population that has seen the single largest growth in the past five years, Tate said. In comparison, Texas A&M, which has 2.5 times
more students than UTD, had only 1.5 times more students registered with their Disability Services office in fall 2012, of which only 20 were in the autism disorder spectrum. Students with autism spectrum disorders comprise only 1.6 percent of Texas A&M’s registered disabled population, compared to almost 36 percent with Asperger’s at UTD. A comparison with other schools shows similar statistics — UTD has more students with Asperger’s than most other schools, Tate said. “I called UNT a couple of weeks ago, and I asked them how many Asperger’s students they had registered with them or on the spectrum and they said around 30,” she said. “And we have about 258 this (fall) semester.” Tate attributed this unique characteristic at UTD to a number of reasons, including the fact that UTD is connected through DART and many students with Asperger’s don’t prefer driving. While word-of-mouth helps bring more students with Asperger’s to the university, UTD’s advanced engineering, brain science and ATEC programs, among others, also play a significant role in drawing students with Asperger’s to the campus, Tate said. “I think it’s the gaming; they relate to gaming,” she said. “Individuals with Asperger’s don’t have to communicate while gaming, so it takes them into a world where
Life & Arts Editor
With only 20 percent of people with disabilities employed in the U.S., there is a growing concern about changing attitudes among employers, especially in Texas. According to the U.S. Department of Labor statistics on employment among people with disabilities, there is a 14.1 percent unemployment rate. This rate is double the national average of unemployment among people without disabilities at 7.1 percent.
Kerry Tate, director of Student AccessAbility, said the number is notable to employers across the country. “The number is high because the unemployment rate is so high anyway, but I think you’ll be surprised how many people with disabilities are unemployed,” she said. In the U.S., there are 36 million people with at least one disability, which is around 12 percent of the population according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage of people who have disabilities also increases with age and they tend to have a better track record
REHABILITATION INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO/COURTESY
Bionic gear in early stages of development, could improve lives MIGUEL PEREZ Mercury Staff
LINA MOON/GRAPHICS EDITOR
for the jobs they do have, Tate said. “Once they have taken that risk of getting a job, they are very dedicated to that job,” she said. “It’s very good for individuals with disability to be hired on because then you know you won’t have to pay for any turn over.” In order to help the case of unemployment further, employers are given an incentive to hire people with disabilities in Texas. Tax breaks on the individual hired or having a federal agency pay part of that individual’s salary are some rewards offered. In order to better the chances of find-
Prof utilizes robotics to create leg prosthetics
Advanced prosthetics that mimic leg muscles have the potential to help amputees walk independently.
Unemployment rate doubled for disabled SARAH LARSON
deal with day-to-day, the better chance we have at overcoming societal obstacles that inhibit the greater human race. Therefore, it is not only people with disabilities, but in fact the entire population that can become abled in this movement. Know the issues, know the people and know the progress that has been made to put an end to the stigma of disabilities.
ing employment, people with disabilities are encouraged to complete high school or pursue a college education. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 13 percent of people 25 and older with a disability have a bachelor’s degree or higher. This compares with 31 percent for those with no disability. “There’s definitely a lag,” Tate said. “But you’re going to start seeing that number climb because a lot of people now have access to education, whereas
Robert Gregg uses his background in robotics to create and develop technologies that could help people with lowerlimb impairments. Gregg, a mechanical and bioengineering professor, oversees the Locomotor Control Systems Lab in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, which is developing high-performance wearable gear that could improve the mobility of people with physical disabilities. Gregg’s research focuses on wearable robots and prosthetics, among other research interests. “These types of technologies could be used to improve the mobility and therefore the quality of life for individuals with physical impairments,” Gregg said. Gregg studied electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley before pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. “That motivation all came from my Ph.D. work on walking robots where I was working on these essentially autonomous systems like the Honda Asimo (a human-sized walking robot),” Gregg said. “I thought, ‘How could I use these technologies to actually help people?’” Gregg said he’s encountered disability throughout his life, and he’s always been aware of physical impairments. When Gregg was a Ph.D. student, his father was diagnosed with congestive
From Callier Center patient to director of AccessAbility
Kerry Tate draws on personal experience to improve disability services MADISON MCCALL Mercury Staff
Kerry Tate’s parents recognized the slow development of speech in their young daughter at the early age of one year old. Not only was the child’s speech not developing on track but the young toddler was not responding to verbal cues. Kerry Tate, who is now the director of the Office of Student AccessAbility, was then diagnosed with severe sensorineural hearing impairment. Tate first came to the Callier Center for Communication Disorders at 3 years old to get assistance with her hearing impairment. She continued to go to the Callier Center for assistance through her high school and college years, and said the Callier Center offered insightful advice to handle the day-to-day communications with her teachers and professors. CONNIE CHENG/STAFF “They were very good at working with our family,” Tate As the director of the Office of Student AccessAbility, Kerry Tate empowers students said. “I really had such a great outcome here.” with disabilities by removing stigma and barriers to achievement in the classroom.
As director of the Office of Student AccessAbility, she said one of the programs greatest successes was the name change of the office. When she was a young high school student, the school counselor did not believe she would succeed in higher education institutes, Tate said. By removing the word disability from the title, the program removed the stigma attached to young students affected by disability. “We wanted to get the word disability out of the way,” Tate said. “We wanted it to be AccessAbility because it is access and ability.” Tate said another success was bringing Delta Alpha Pi, an international honor society that recognizes students with disabilities and their success, to campus. One of the main focuses for the office is offering a supportive environment for all students and teaching advocacy skills that could last a lifetime. The AccessAbility team offers encouragement to students that have not developed their ability to communicate their needs to others.