Welcome to
a4access.org
website of Ellen Perlow
more about a4access.org
Why did I choose to name my website "a4access.org?"
I chose a4access.org as the name of my personal website to promote my interest in and to help provide and
link to quality resources about accessibility and assistive technology. Since 1999, the focus of my research, advocacy, and
professional presentations at conferences and to university classes has been integration of accessibility and assistive technology training, awareness, and practice into the academic
fields of education, library and information science, and health education and promotion. For me,
accessibility, and the assistive technology that often makes
access possible, are universal top priorities. In an alphabetized index or online
menu, (at least in certain languages), items beginning with the letter "A" appear at the top of the indices and menus,
so become top priorities by default.
Why are accessibility and assistive technology universal top priorities?
- We all need access ... to clean air, good food, shelter, health care, friends, respect...
- We all do things in different ways.
- We all need to do things in different ways, because every day, we all are living and changing.
- Global aging (See: World Health Organization:
Ageing [sic] and life course)
- Doing it in different ways is a type of beautiful, universal diversity that we as people all share.
- We should celebrate our universal diversity of doing things in different ways.
- A is for Access.
- A is for Accessibility.
- A is for Assistive Technology.
Some Definitions:
- Access: A way to reach, get to, enter, exit, understand.
adapted from: http://www.dictionary.com/
- Accessibility (Ac·ces·si·bili·ty): The ability to access, to reach something, to get or obtain
something, to fully understand something. The ability to do, to understand.
adapted from: http://www.dictionary.com/
- Web Accessibility: See:
http://www.starlingweb.com/webac.htm.
- Adaptive Capacity: The ability of a living thing to do things
in different ways in different situations. adapted from: GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms.
http://www2.gardenweb.com/glossary/adaptive_capacity.html
- Assistive Technology: Any aid or tool, or way to do something, used in many different places; information or services that helps someone to do something. adapted from:
http://www.ihdi.uky.edu/projects/EmployAT/ComputerAccessHTML/atdefinition.htm
- Diversity: Different; can do in different ways.
adapted from:
http://www.dictionary.com/
- Equity of Access: Fairness and equality for taking part in learning, education,
health care, and other services.
- Universal: For or about everyone in the world. Of interest to everyone in the world.
adapted from: http://www.dictionary.com/
- Universal Design: Making products and places for all people to use.
adapted from:
http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/udprinciples.htm
Inquiries to:
eperlow@hotmail.com
Copyright Ellen Perlow for all materials indicating such authorship on this website. Thank you.
This page last updated Monday, November 20, 2006, 10 pm CST
