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Advocating for Accessibility: Technology is our Friend

Hand writing Advocacy plus international symbols for assisted listening, closed captioning, and digital communications

One of the best things to happen in the world of aging and disability services this year is a new focus on supporting individuals with disabilities, and particularly in providing more accessibility for individuals with visual and/or hearing impairments and those for whom community mobility is a challenge.

Our Seattle-King County Area Plan states it plain as day: Currently, 23 percent of adults 18 and older live with a disability. Among residents age 60 and older, that increases to 38 percent. According to 2013 American Community Survey, which produces estimates for the U.S. Census Bureau, among U.S. residents age 65 and older, more than 41 percent have hearing difficulty and almost 19 percent have vision difficulty. That’s a lot of us who cannot hear and/or see as well as we used to, and that creates communications challenges on both a personal and community level.

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