Canadian Assistive Technology Ltd.

Canadian Assistive Technology Ltd. We provide the best technologies and the highest level of service and support for our clients Accessibility is our specialty.

At Canadian Assistive Technology, we strive to provide our clients that suffer from Low Vision or Blindness the best solutions available. With over 30 years experience in the field of Assistive Technology, we ensure that the right solution at the right price is always the priority. Visit us online at www.canasstech.com!

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #94: Who is Being Left Behind? | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy o...
06/18/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #94: Who is Being Left Behind? | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-06-01-2026/

In this impassioned episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan turns her attention to a question that recurs throughout the world of advocacy: who is being left behind? She identifies three groups bearing the brunt of rapid technological change, seniors who often cannot afford up-to-date devices or keep pace with shifting tools, persons with disabilities who are shut out by apps and websites built without accessibility features, and the technically challenged who never grew up with technology and now struggle to keep up. Donna argues that inaccessible apps and websites are not a neutral inconvenience but an active form of exclusion, and she presses companies to actually sit down with these communities to understand why they feel left out, reminding her audience that seniors in particular are bread-and-butter consumers too easily ignored.

She closes with her monthly highlight of a stressful life circumstance, this month focusing on the experience of losing one's home, whether through financial hardship or conflict with family or friends. Calling a home a person's dynasty, the place where one resides, thinks, feels, and lives, Donna frames its loss as among the most distressing circumstances anyone can face. She invites listeners to share their own perspectives and feedback at [email protected].

A New Website, a Redesigned Archive: 2008 to 2026: 19 Years of Access Technology News Now At Your Fingertips | By Aaron ...
06/18/2026

A New Website, a Redesigned Archive: 2008 to 2026: 19 Years of Access Technology News Now At Your Fingertips | By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher, Top Tech Tidbits | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://toptechtidbits.com/ttt-archives-now-public/

Here, Aaron Di Blasi, publisher for the Top Tech Tidbits weekly newsletter, announces that the full Top Tech Tidbits newsletter archive is now publicly available on the redesigned WordPress.com website at https://toptechtidbits.com/newsletters/. Every weekly issue from January 2008 to today is live and browsable in one place, by year, a 19-year span that, until now, stopped at 2018 on the public-facing site. The newly restored 10 additional calendar years (about 520 weekly issues) cover access technology news, tips, walk-throughs, sponsor announcements, and industry coverage from 2008 through 2017.

Aaron walks readers through the two-phase migration story, beginning with the December 4, 2025 launch on WordPress.com at Volume 1044 and continuing through several months of patient work to bring the older issues forward as legacy archive pages. He explains what readers will find inside, addresses the new archive index page's WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility conformance, and speaks directly to three audiences (readers, Sponsors and Advertisers, Supporters, and the wider access technology community) about why the expanded archive matters to each. The full archive is searchable, screen-reader-friendly, and lives at https://toptechtidbits.com/newsletters/.

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, June 18, 2026 - Volume 1072 | By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher | Courtesy of The PWD Media Co...
06/18/2026

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, June 18, 2026 - Volume 1072 | By Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher | Courtesy of The PWD Media Co-Op
https://toptechtidbits.com/newsletter-06-18-2026/

♿️ The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication


Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 46,975 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.
Social Media: 190,488 🔢️ readers were sent this issue via social media. Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op.

Top Tech Tidbits is the world's leading not-for-profit access technology publication that reaches over 45,000 blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, neurodivergent and/or disabled professionals, educators and enthusiasts, all over the world, each week.

🔬 Paid Research Opportunity: Neurotrophic Keratitis | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-ophttps://rarepat...
06/17/2026

🔬 Paid Research Opportunity: Neurotrophic Keratitis | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op
https://rarepatientvoice.com/rp/DrKirk

Living with Neurotrophic Keratitis, or know someone who is? Rare Patient Voice wants to hear from you — and they'll pay you for your time.

👤 Who: Patients diagnosed with Neurotrophic Keratitis
📝 What: 15-minute online survey
💵 Compensation: $30

Please share with anyone who may qualify. 💜

Next NW Diversity Learning Series, Workshop #3: June 17, 2026, 9-11 AM PT | Transforming Toxic Work Environments: Creat...
06/17/2026

Next NW Diversity Learning Series, Workshop #3: June 17, 2026, 9-11 AM PT | Transforming Toxic Work Environments: Creating Psychological Safety | With presenter, Eddie Pate, Ph.D. co-author of the book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders: A Guide to Building a Culture of Belonging | By Dr. Kirk Adams, Executive Director, Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI) | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://i4sdi.org/workshop-3-2026/

What kinds of behaviors or actions make work relationships toxic for you? What everyday behaviors signal that it's not safe—to be who you are, to ask questions, challenge ideas, or admit mistakes?

Psychological safety is one of the most significant workplace issues today. Why?

Eddie Pate, presenter for this workshop, points to Gallup's research that underscores that psychological safety is not just a nice-to-have but a necessity for modern workplaces. "It is crucial for encouraging a culture of open dialogue, innovation, and collaboration within teams," he says. "Essentially, when employees feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to contribute ideas, provide feedback, bring their whole selves to work, and engage fully in their work."

What is Psychological safety (PS)? Eddie describes it as a feeling, and a sincere belief that one can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, feedback, or even admit mistakes without fear of retaliation, humiliation, and/or punishment. It is about the trust one has that, regardless of where we are, we can 'safely' bring our whole selves.

"PS is not a one-way street," Eddie says, "because whether we feel safe depends on our interactions with others, with messages (said and un-said), and importantly because of the environments we live and work in."

In this interactive & skill-building workshop, participants explore what psychological safety actually looks like at work and beyond at this polarized time, and how it can be strengthened through everyday simple inclusive behaviors.

When: Wed, June 17, 2026
Time: 9:00 am to 11:00 am Pacific, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm Eastern
Where: On Zoom, register below

As Gandhi reminds us: "In a gentle way, you can shake the world." Participants will examine common barriers and learn practical, simple ways to create environments where people can contribute fully, challenge ideas, collectively learn from mistakes, and thrive.

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, come ready to engage and use your voice so we all can learn and grow together.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

● Recognize behaviors and conditions that strengthen or erode psychological safety on teams

● Distinguish between physical safety and psychological safety

● Practice communication strategies that support trust, candor, and accountability

● Apply everyday actions that help sustain psychological safety for yourself and others over time, especially during change, tension, or conflict

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #95: Ask Advocate Donna | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the P...
06/17/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #95: Ask Advocate Donna | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-06-02-2026/

In this instructive episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan presents her recurring "Ask Advocate Donna" segment, opening with two reflective word-game pairings she invites listeners to ponder: defensive versus offensive, and sympathy versus empathy. She resists treating either as an either-or choice, arguing that a seasoned advocate must learn when each posture or response is appropriate rather than committing to one. She frames the whole episode with her guiding ethos, borrowed in spirit from a "let's make it better than possible" sentiment, that advocacy means refusing to settle for merely acceptable outcomes.

The heart of the episode is three listener-submitted scenarios, each dissected through the same four-part lens of what advocacy is, who gets involved, why it is necessary, and how to begin. A woman using a wheelchair, Lucy, is turned away from a concert hall officials claim cannot accommodate her; a boy, Hamid, is denied entry to his condo pool because a lifeguard fears being unable to communicate with him in English; and a blind woman is told a call-center job was "just filled," then bluntly informed she could not be hired because of her vision impairment, which Donna labels outright discrimination. For each, she models how the affected person and their allies can challenge the gatekeepers, question officials, and enlist support from advocacy organizations. She closes by inviting listener feedback at [email protected].

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #93: Interview with Dr. Alan Chase, Director, EyeRetreat.org | By Donna J. Jodha...
06/17/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #93: Interview with Dr. Alan Chase, Director, EyeRetreat.org | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-05-21-2026/

In this forward-looking episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna welcomes back Dr. Alan Chase, founder of the EYE Retreat, a one-week intensive summer program now in its 19th year, hosted at the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in North Carolina, for an update on what's cooking for the 2026 cohort. Alan walks listeners through how a weekend gathering of about 15 students has grown into a packed week-and-a-half program serving roughly 40 students this summer with a waiting list, staffed entirely by volunteers and funded principally by the Lions Club and the Delta Gamma Foundation. He breaks down the camp's two parallel tracks, a college track that takes students from choosing a school, picking a major, and learning self-advocacy through navigating course catalogs, accommodations, and campus resources, to a final personal-roadmap presentation; and an entrepreneurship track that walks students from generating a business idea, through fine-tuning, business-plan development, and a Shark-Tank-style investor pitch by the end of the week, alongside the dorm-suite living arrangement of four students sharing two rooms and one bathroom that doubles as a real-world classroom in communication, scheduling, and social problem-solving.

What gives this conversation its larger weight, however, is the through-line of capacity-building. Alan returns repeatedly to the camp's mission of growing the next generation, bringing students back as mentors, then as coordinators responsible for recreation, dorms, and entire tracks, so that leadership skills are forged alongside academic and entrepreneurial ones. Together Donna and Alan name the still-unsolved barriers in the field: the social side of education that academic accommodations alone don't address; the roughly seventy-one-percent unemployment rate among visually impaired adults that Donna cites; the irony that some countries' low official unemployment numbers come from government-set-aside jobs that strip away self-determination; and the rising population of young people with multiple disabilities whose lives are now being saved by medical advances and who deserve every path to independence. Alan closes with his wish that the educational system embrace the whole child, including the nine areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum researchers have identified as essential to independent life, and Donna closes with the news that she will attend the EYE Retreat in person at the end of July for the first time, after participating virtually since 2024.

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #92: Interview with Paul Gareau | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy ...
06/17/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #92: Interview with Paul Gareau | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-05-19-2026/

In this deeply nostalgic episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna welcomes Paul Gareau, retired Executive Director of the Montreal Association for the Blind (MAB) and architect of the 2006 MAB-Mackay merger that became today's Lethbridge-Layton-Mackay Rehabilitation Centre, for a conversation tracing his thirty-year journey from Loyola sociology graduate, to University of Toronto Master of Social Work scholarship student, to the lone social worker for 1,800 students at a Sherbrooke high school, and on into the leadership rooms of one of Canada's most beloved disability-services institutions. Paul walks listeners through residential life at the Penfield Reception Centre, his Concordia Diploma in Institutional Administration earned in night classes while running MAB full-time, and the remarkable breadth of services under his stewardship, from the low-vision clinic, talking-book library, and Gilman Residence to the Philip E. Layton School, the technical-aids boutique, the Employment Integration Program, the Braille production unit, and a service of more than 300 volunteers.

What makes this conversation unforgettable is that it is also a reunion. Paul was once Donna's own social worker and the person who recommended the surgeon Dr. Joel Rosen for her first corneal transplant; Donna herself lived at Penfield for a year and a half at the start of her Montreal journey. Together they recall the late Dr. John Simms, who appeared at her hospital bedside after her 1981 accident; the formidable Irene Lambert, whose voice helped keep right-turn-on-red out of Montreal; lifelong best friend Charlene; and volunteer reader Jill Bond, with whom Donna still travels Europe. The episode closes with Paul's post-retirement strategic-planning consulting and board work with the Pillars Trust Fund, including pandemic-era funding so parishes could stream masses during COVID, and his three enduring lessons: keep your eye on the mission, adjust quickly to changing circumstances, and remember that every challenge carries an opportunity inside it.

📋 Access App Club Survey | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-ophttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLS...
06/16/2026

📋 Access App Club Survey | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4B_0-dfuGeQ1tGE0ZzC1xV-ideT9TFQm_fbazQXYexArd4Q/viewform

Accessible apps are too often built without input from the blind and low-vision community. Dr. Edward Metz is developing Access App Club to give BVI students a direct role in shaping the apps and tools they use — and he wants your feedback first.

👉 Take the short 4-question survey (link above)
✉️ Questions: [email protected]

Please share widely. 💜

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #91: Ask Advocate Donna | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the P...
06/16/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #91: Ask Advocate Donna | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-05-02-2026/

In this warm and instructive solo episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna returns for her second installment of the month with the May edition of Ask Advocate Donna, opening with one of her favorite mantras, ‘Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you; listen in such a way that others love to speak to you’, and a word-game segment in which she walks listeners through two advocacy-relevant pairs: polite versus impolite, and proactive versus inactive. She makes the case that the polite route keeps an advocate in others’ minds in a positive way, and that being proactive, leading by example, taking the bull by the horns, comes with heartache and high cost but also brings joy and fulfillment that the inactive route, by definition, never delivers.

She then shares three listener-style advocacy stories, walking each one through her familiar what / how / when / why framework. In the first, a woman named Emma is misled by a cell phone store agent who sells her a phone that suits the store rather than her disability-related needs; Emma fights back by going to head office, threatening to take her case to Facebook and other social media, and enlisting her husband, her children, and their friends in an action plan, while her husband documents the store and the agent with photos. In the second, a mother named Beth confronts a bakery that refused to serve her autistic son Brent despite the written shopping list and cash he had been sent in with, and Beth wins the bakery’s admission of wrongdoing by calmly drawing other customers into her side of the story and refusing to back down for an hour or two. In the third, a first-time babysitter refuses to put a blind three-year-old to bed while willingly tending to his two sighted siblings, ages ten and eight, and the older siblings become advocates in their own right by calling their parents home, leading to a calm sit-down between both sets of parents that resolves the incident, with the babysitter sent home unpaid and later corrected by her own parents. Donna closes by inviting listeners to send their own advocacy stories to her for future episodes.

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V5Z1E2

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