Cindy-and that is not Cindy's real name-but Cindy was a twoyear-old toddler from New Jersey. Cindy, by accident of birth, was born without any arms and without any legs.

For the first two years of her life, her parents sensed nothing but desperation, a feeling that there was no chance that their daughter would be able to participate in life, or that they, as parents, had an outlet or way of providing something that gave them any hope.

They contacted a local, United Cerebral Palsy affiliate. The affiliate sent its mobile unit to Cindys home, and within 16 hours they were able to develop a walker for her; a powered walker, which permitted her, by leaning her body forward, to move forward; backwards, to move backwards; sideways, to move sideways. They are currently designing a new system which will have a whole environmental control system in it so that she can turn on the television, turn on the lights, and so forth, and participate.

Now, suddenly, her parents have a sense that Cindy does have a future, and that their ability to be able to cope with the problems that they see down the road is greatly enhanced as a result.

This particular walker cost less than $200. So, Mr. Chairman, what I would like to see happen, and what many Members of the Committee who have joined me in cosponsoring this bill, and some thirty organizations nationally who are now supporting it would like to see, is an immediate and special effort to try to deal with the problems of many other children who haven't yet had an assistive device made available to them. Many parents do not even know of the possibility of this kind of technology being applied to their problems.

What our bill would do is set up a nationwide system building from existing assistive model resource centers in the country using this system, we would have the ability to help identify a specific child's problems; identify the assistive device resources that might be applied, then train that child in using the device; assist the parents in securing the funding, whether it is through Medicare/Medicaid, private insurance, through a corporate donation; and match disability with assistive device.

These resource centers would have the ability to open up a whole new window of opportunity to children all over this country.

Currently, there are some 20,000 kids who read and write and speak with the assistance of devices, but there are some four million more who need this kind of opportunity who do not have it today.

And, Mr. Chairman, I am not going to go into the details of the bill-the staff knows them, and you know them. But this is, I think, the best of what government can do.

It is an opportunity to say that technology is not just going to be the instrument that benefits and enriches the lives of those who perhaps least need it, or those for whom that enrichment is already accessible. But it says that we are going to take technology, which is changing the way we work, the way we think, the way we communicate, the way we live, the length of time we live, and we are going to apply that to people with disabilities who need it, people who can participate in life just as fully as anybody else. And at a time when this country's resources are stretched, when we need more workers in the workplace, I think it is almost criminal,

if not negligent, not to make every effort, from a practical point of view, to try and include everyone in the mainstream of society. In addition, we need to provide technology from a moral and appropriate ethical point of view of how this country ought to treat its fellow citizens, and how we ought to reach out as human beings in order to provide the best of all we have available to all who deserve it.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you, and to make this bill part of this larger process which you are engaged in.

[The prepared statement of Senator Kerry follows:]

Statement 3y Senator John Kerry before the Subcommittee on the Handicapped, on Technology for Handicapped Individuals

May 19, 1988

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for holding today's • hearing on technology and assistive devices for citizen's with disabilities. Also let me applaud your great work as the Chairman of the this fine subcommittee. And thank you for inviting me to return to testify before a committee that I certainly miss a great deal. I want to also thank the other members of the subcommittee and Chairman of the full Committee Senator Kennedy, for their support of the technology legislation that Sen. Weicker and I introduced

last year.

Over the past two decades, technology has modernized the way society functions. It has changed the way our children learn at school, redesigned the structure of the work place, transformed our mode of travel, improved communication and entertainment systems and increased the length of our lives. And at the same time all these changes are taking place, scientists and engineers are not sitting idle; the race continues to develop new and better technologies to serve man. The technology revolution is upon us. So while we are redesigning the way we work and learn, it is imperative that

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society take this opportunity by tapping into these resources and adapting these changes to individuals with disabilities. Mr. Chairman the legislation that Senator Weicker and I introduced last year is designed to do just that.

In the beginning of 1987, I set out to establish a legislative initiative which would enable disabled infants, toddlers and children to access necessary technology and adaptive devices at a formative age, inorder that later on they would be insured greater independence in learing, in social settings and in general day to day life activities. Working with rehabilitation engineers, educators, therapists, state officials and a multitude of other experts in the field, I developed S. 1535, the Technology to Educate Children With Handicaps Act, known to many as the TECH Act. To date the bill has been endorsed by over 30 national organizations who represent citizen's with special needs. It has been cosponsored by a majority of the full Labor and Human Resources Committee, and a companion bill has been introduced by Congressman Major Owens on the House side. Mr. Chairman the beauty of the TECH Act and the reason I believe it has gained so much support is that it is a very basic and simple piece of legislation. It straightforwardly addresses the problems families and individuals currently face when trying to gain access to technology.

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The Act will establish assistive device and technology resource systems nationwide. These systems will provide the full range of necessary services to handicapped children and their families, so that through the use of technology and assistive devices kids can gain more independence in the class room and in their social setting. It will offer

families and children a sense of hope in their future by ensuring that these kids have a much fuller one than we may now imagine.

The centers will assess the needs of, and train specialists to assess the needs of handicapped children, in order to determine what type of assistive device is most appropriate for a child in order to to help him or her get the most out of school.

Once it is decided what kind of assistive is best, the center will help find the all important funding for the technology or device. Whether it is working with a computer company to have one donated, contacting a private insurer to work out a payment scheme, getting funds from medicaid or through EHA grants, the resource centers will help parents through the mind boggling myriad of funding possibilities to get the necessary device.

The system will train parents and educators and children in how to use assistive devices so that they feel comfortable