Barriers to the accommodation request process of the Americans With Disabilities Act

Journal of Rehabilitation, April-June, 2005 by John Jay Frank, James Bellini

Contexts

The informants told of making requests for print access at various times between 1994 and 2002. Informants made requests to covered entities when they were students of state colleges, and when seeking professional certification and licensing from states and from private national organizations. Informants made requests as customers and as employees of private businesses, medical facilities, and state rehabilitation services and other government offices. Employment-related requests for accommodations were also made when frequenting restaurants, hotels, stores, banks and as members of national professional organizations. The accommodations requested included Braille, readers, audio and digital recording, assistive technology (AT) (e.g., a Closed Circuit Tv, a Braille Note) and adaptive computer equipment (e.g., ZoomText, an Alva Brailler) and training in the use of the AT. Two people requested large print.

Results

Seven themes emerged that describe the informants' experience within the ADA accommodation request process. The first theme--Betrayal and Broken Trust--describes what the informants regarded as the worst barriers to accommodation requests. The second theme--Multiplicity of Barriers--refers to the overall aversive effect of facing a multitude of barriers to the request process. The third theme--Fear of Retaliation--expresses the power of discrimination. The next two themes--Problems with Technology and the Concept of Print--describe new knowledge barriers leading to incomplete or no accommodation, and the last two themes--Habit--and--Successful Means of Acquiring Accommodation--describe alternate techniques utilized by the informants because of barriers in the ADA request process. Each theme will be discussed in turn. The informants' reactions provide insight on the ADA request process and disability discrimination. Fictitious names are used to indicate different speakers.

Broken Trust and Betrayal

The significance of the first theme was indicated by the informants' choice of stories to share and by their introducing these stories with expressions such as, "The worst one was ...," or "My worst experience was...." The failure to remove barriers to print access is a daily experience for many people with severe visual impairment. Fred Garland, an Occupational Therapist, in referring to his expectation of common, ordinary discrimination, stated: "This is typical, this is my everyday life." Everyday discrimination was expressed with a sort of vocal shrug, as if to say, "That always happens, it's not news." Broken Trust and Betrayal was distinguished from common discrimination by an indication that the situation was grievously out of the ordinary. Hence, this theme reflects the perception of extraordinary discrimination in the ADA request process.

Betrayal means "To disappoint the hopes and expectations of, to be disloyal to, to betray one's friends" (Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1996). This theme expresses informants' experiences with three types of help-givers who were perceived to have failed to fulfill their institutional role. These were entities who were (a) presumed to have superior knowledge of the ADA and the needs of people with severe disabilities, (b) were entrusted to work with people who needed accommodations, and who were (c) given special responsibility to facilitate the request process, or find solutions to barriers.. Table 1 lists the entities that informants assumed should be better at accommodating than other entities covered by the law, but who failed their special charge.