disability

On Wednesday, Neuralink introduced the first human subject to receive the company’s brain implant, a 49-year-old man who has been paralyzed from the shoulders down for eight years after a diving accident.In a brief livestream on the social media platform X, the man said he’s able to play online chess and the video game Civilization using the Neuralink device. “If y'all can see the cursor moving around the screen, that's all me,” he said during the livestream as he moved a digital chess piece. “It's pretty cool,…

Yet we largely aren’t addressing bias in any meaningful way, and for anyone with a disability, that can be a real problem. Indeed, a Pennsylvania State University study published last year found that trained AI models exhibit significant disability bias. “Models that fail to account for the contextual nuances of disability-related language can lead to unfair censorship and harmful misrepresentations of a marginalized population,” the researchers warned, “exacerbating existing social inequalities.”In practical terms, an…

Hall says when she has access to an interpreter, they are rotated throughout the week, forcing her to repeatedly explain some technical concepts. “Google is going the cheap route,” Hall claims, saying her interpreters in university were more literate in tech jargon.Kathy Kaufman, director of coordinating services at DSPA, says it pays above market rates, dedicates a small pool to each company so the vocabulary becomes familiar, hires tech specialists, and trains those who are not. Kaufman also declined to confirm that…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Valentine's Day is a time when love and intimacy are celebrated with fervor. Yet, the challenges some face in this regard are not often recognized. In particular, people with disabilities face discrimination and obstacles when seeking love, affection and sexual fulfillment. People with disabilities often contend with…

In December, the US Census proposed changes to how it categorizes disability. If implemented, the changes would have slashed the number of Americans who are counted as disabled, when experts say that disabled people are already undercounted. The Census opened its proposal to public comment; anyone can submit a comment on a federal agency rulemaking on their own. But in this specific case, the people who were most affected by the proposal had more obstacles in the way of giving their input.  “It was really important to me…

A model of company-driven disability diversity. Credit: Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation (2023). DOI: 10.3233/JVR-230061 Successful employer-driven disability initiatives share certain characteristics, even when the companies and programs differ in other ways. According to new research published in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation,…

Franz Kafka’s Metamorphoses finds a mention in Abhishek Anicca’s The Grammar of My Body. The author alludes to the novella while describing the time his condition left him with limited mobility. Since the bed, kitchen stove and the refrigerator were on the floor, he could crawl to them. “This was around the same time I was reading Metamorphoses,” he writes, “Not by choice though.” Abhishek Anicca in performance (Reframe Institute of Art and Expression) As the memoir progresses, it becomes clear that the…

Today, we would like to tell you the story of Elio, a courageous raccoon who, despite limited mobility, leads a happy life at Samadhi Wildlife Sanctuary. He was born in the attic of a house in Florida. The homeowner noticed a mother raccoon coming and going, and he trapped her. Four days later, he heard some chattering in his attic, unaware that there were babies left behind.Elio was the only survivor among the four baby raccoons; his siblings had passed away due to malnourishment. He was admitted to Samadhi Wildlife…

To get the new genetic material into cells, they engineered harmless viruses to carry it. Doctors carefully injected a tiny amount of liquid containing the viruses into a part of the children’s inner ears called the cochlea, a spiral-shaped chamber that contains hair cells. The first patient in the trial received the gene therapy in December 2022. Researchers followed the participants, who ranged in age from 1 to 6 years old, for 23 weeks after treatment.While the gene therapy did not give the children a “normal” level of…

The reason is that real life is more fascinating than fiction. In fiction, the author can do what he likes with the protagonist, but in non-fiction, you’ve to stick with what actually happened. But when you tell a story, linking it with a historical fact makes it more understandable, more believable. While I want the readers to know what actually happened, I wanted to make the story a little more interesting, so I’ve added something on my own. This is, however, a very small percentage. What was it like to be in the armed…