> People with disabilities still lag on Internet usage
>
> A Harris poll released last week noted that people with disabilities
> still lag behind other Americans in use of the Internet -- but
> they're catching up. "In 2001, about 38 percent of adults with
> disabilities used the Internet at home, more than five times the
> seven percent who were online in late 1998. Over the same period, use
> among the non-disabled doubled from 26 to 56 percent," says the
> National Organization on Disability, who commissioned the survey.
>
> Among those with disabilities, people with vision or hearing
> disabilities were most likely to use the Internet at home (43
> percent), followed by people with learning or cognitive disabilities
> (39 percent), and people with mobility and movement impairments (35
> percent), the survey found.  If its growth among people with
> disabilities continues at the current rate, Internet usage among
> people with disabilities "should match the rate of other users in a
> few years," said N.O.D. Senior Research Advisor Gerry Hendershot,
> Ph.D. More on the survey can be found on their website at
> http://www.nod.org/
>
> The NOD-commissioned survey is not the first to find Internet use
> lagging among people with disabilities. In a March, 2000 report,
> Stephen Kaye, Ph.D. of the NIDRR-funded Disability Statistics Center,
> found that Americans with disabilities were less than half as likely
> as their non-disabled counterparts to own a computer, and only about
> one-quarter as likely to use the Internet. More about this "digital
> divide," including a link to Dr. Kaye's report, can be found at the
> Center for an Accessible Society website at
> http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/digitaldivide.htm
>
> Perhaps part of the reason usage is catching up is because of Section
> 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (read about this at
> http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/sect508.htm).
> Companies are finding that accessible websites are "cost-effective
> and generally good business," wrote Wired's Karen Solomon. Read her
> article online at http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39563,00.html
>
>
> ****************
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> http://www.accessiblesociety.org, with more links to topics.
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