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Assistive Technology Initiative

The FLC continues to be committed to the assistive technologies initiative, which identifies technologies from federal labs that can be adapted to the special needs of the disabled community. Other efforts include advocating legislative support for federal R&D in this area. In FY2001, we expanded our outreach to the assistive technology community by partnering with the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer at the University of Buffalo and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), an activity of the Department of Education. The FLC, through its partnerships with these and other institutions and agencies, actively solicits technologies in specific needs areas and links them to appropriate companies in the assistive technology community.

In FY2001, the FLC and the NIDRR jointly funded the first survey of the assistive technology industry, which was conducted by the Department of Commerce. Other initiatives included a wheeled mobility initiative to identify technologies for wheelchairs and scooters; a communication enhancement initiative to identify advanced technologies for users of augmentative and alternative communication devices in such areas as text-to-speech synthesis, display technologies, language processing, and wireless voice and data links; and a hearing enhancement initiative to commercialize technologies to improve the lives of people with hearing disabilities, including wireless technologies, "smart" microphones, "smart" polymers, and advanced anatomical measurement and modeling.

The FLC is also a member of the Interagency Committee on Disability Research, and has helped to draft testimony and issue papers on the need for continued federal funding for assistive technology.