Accessing Services at The AT Network

Natalie Roden

What is it like to live with a disability? As a person who lives with a disability everyday, it is quite true that it can be hard. Accommodations can be needed in many situations, especially when it comes to accommodations and assistive technology (AT). Luckily the AT network specializes in helping people to know what their rights are. The AT Network also helps to provide people with the assistive technology if needed.

AT Network helps with funding to get people different assistive technology devises that they need. For example, they will help find funding for people with disabilities. The AT Network also helps people to make businesses and homes “disability friendly.” They help to make businesses including resterraunts, stores, rental units, electronic resources. For homes, some accommodations include help for the visually impaired, people with hearing loss, and memory loss. In addition, they also can provide people with the right devices such as software for kids with Autism, accessible computers, assessments and modified vehicles. Modified vehicles may include hand brakes, gas in place of pedals and a modified computer may include speech recognition software and a modified keyboard. The AT Net work does not just help people with what they may need when it comes to physical accommodation.

“The AT Network is dedicated to protecting your rights.” (www.atnet.org/law-advocacy/law-advocacy.php.) They will help with laws and advocacy for people with disabilities. This includes both federal and state laws. More specifically federal laws includes bills such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Medicare, the Assistive Technology Act of 2004, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act  (IDEA), AT & Department of Veterans Affairs, Reasonable Accommodations in businesses, and The Disability Law Handbook. State laws that the AT Network will help with include: Medi- Cal, Civil Rights Act, different types of accommodations, the Lanterman Act, rehabilitation services, special education and regional centers.  They will also help advocate for peoples’ rights in general. This is a great part of the program because there are many confusing acts, bills, and laws that have been passed, but do give people many rights. They may not be completely clear to people who have not gotten the proper training and have not done a lot of research. Therefore, the AT Network has done the research and will be able to explain the laws and help people to gain and retain their rights.

In conclusion, the AT Network enables many people in a way “Start a new life” and have what they need to accommodate in their normal life and to have the ability to live a life that will help them to be accepted into society. The AT Network has helped many people of all ages. The Mother of a boy named Christopher (a boy with Downs Syndrome who used and assistive speech program by using an “Alphatalker” provided by the AT Network,) shared this: “You can only imagine how it feels to come home, sit down and have Chris come up to you for the first time in his life and initiate on his own, actual clear verbal conversation. That --Hi Mom-- was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard." This is only one of the many successes that the AT Network has helped a client to experience. Please read further for more amazing success stories.