Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
What is clear is that the adoption of state policies prohibiting purchasing
of inaccessible programs and the arrival on the market of accessible com-
mercial programs were contiguous. A political commitment to participatory
justice prompted just distribution of technological skills and knowledge so
that the needed resources were deployed to create products usable by people
with different modes of functioning, not just by typically functioning people.
Microsoft, for example, now claims “increasing momentum toward the goal
of making computers accessible and useful to all people.”
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1.6 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have drawn attention to an unresolved discordance between
medical and engineering values that can conflict the practice of assistive tech-
nology. The difference lies in engineering placing a higher value on innovative
outcomes, even if these (and perhaps especially if these) alter familiar modes
of functionality. I recommend giving engineering values about functionality
more preeminence in the practice of assistive technology, and medical values
about functionality (at least to the extent that these overvalue “normality”)
somewhat less.
Assistive technologists have a responsibility beyond designing and dis-
tributing prostheses, that is, internal or external devices substituting for or
supplementing species-typical physical or cognitive human equipment to en-
able effective, even if atypical, functioning. Humans are toolmakers, and hu-
man society has advanced through the enhancement of functioning that we
achieve by using tools. This perspective on people's social participation too
often is obscured by romantic prejudices condemning technology as unnatural
or unfair.
A common experience for individuals with disabilities when provided with
effective assistive technology is to enjoy an enormously expanding vista of op-
portunity for social participation - from the ability to visit a grocery store at
will to the ability to earn a higher education degree - so much so that they feel
functionally better than new. But technological progress in enhancing func-
tion must be matched by social and political progress in reconceptualizing the
relationship between human biology and human technology. Who better than
assistive technologists to cultivate public appreciation of the functional inti-
macy that effectual assistive engineering achieves between disabled people's
bodies and their adaptive equipment? Thus, it is not merely permissibly ethi-
cal, but professionally obligatory, for assistive technologists to advance justice
by promoting progressive ideas and combating cultural prejudices against the
prosthetic uses of tools.
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Compare the narratives at the sites above for two versions of Microsoft's alacrity in
pursuing the goal of responsiveness to diversely functioning people. (See footnote 10)
