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The purpose of this article is to provide a description of procedures, considerations, and recommendations for developing an assistive technology demonstration and lending site to serve individuals with disabilities. This is accomplished through an examination of patterns of consumer use of the site within the first 3 years. We discuss demographics, utilization of resources, and professional development attendance in an effort to guide future efforts in offering assistive technology services. When looking at the data collected, we found slow and consistent growth over a 3-year period. These trends also suggest that individuals diagnosed with moderate to severe disabilities and their service providers utilize services at a higher rate than those with mild disabilities, as evidenced by high levels of communication, leisure, and daily living aids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the contribution of holiday trips to the levels of life satisfaction reported by individuals with and without disability by using an approach in which life satisfaction is seen as a combination of various life satisfaction domains (health, job, housework, household income, dwelling, and leisure). Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate a two-layer model which proposes that satisfaction with different domains of life are interrelated and wherein life satisfaction depends on the weight that the individual allocates to each of these domains. The results show that disabled people who participate in holiday trips obtain higher levels of satisfaction with health, job, and housework than do nondisabled ones, especially when this participation is more intense. In addition, satisfaction with health and household income has a significant effect on the overall life satisfaction reported by disabled individuals. Public policy recommendations are given. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A total of 245 rural men and women with physical disabilities were interviewed to assess their access to road transport. The overall level of access was poor for both the men and women with physical disabilities. Poor environmental conditions and terminal facilities, unfriendly vehicles and behavior of transport staff, and travel safety and security threats were the barriers that prevented them to access routes. The findings indicate that without having a clear understanding of the transport-accessibility challenges at transport-planning levels and adopting equities in practice, the promotion of disability rights in local transport would be impossible in developing societies like Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]