It is one thing to hear a person who has a disability advocate for positive change in environment and attitudes to benefit the estimated 54 million Americans with disabilities. It is quite another occasion for wonder when a person who, as yet, has no disabling conditions personally pours an energy which can only be dubbed passionate passion into the effort of making the world a more equitable place.

        Denise “Dede” Ackerman, winner of the first annual Dixie Harmon Memorial Award, is the latter. The award was established by the Center for Independent Living Options in memory of Dixie Harmon, a long-time advocate who was both quadriplegic and a little person. Dixie Harmon died last April and the award recognizes those who reflect her level of commitment.

        Ms. Ackerman works as an orientation and mobility teacher and low-vision specialist for the Cincinnati Association for the Blind. (She has worked as case worker and job coach for people with disabilities at the Clovernook Center.) Her job is to teach people with visual impairment, one at a time, to travel our city independently and to evaluate vision impairments of children and adults and devise ways for them to use what vision they have effectively.

        Ms. Ackerman was not selected just for doing her job. When people with mental retardation who also have vision loss were not evaluated by optometrists, Ms. Ackerman and a colleague visited them at work to discover how residual vision could be used for greater independence. When she recognizes that people with vision and/or multiple disabilities are unable to travel safely because of tree or sidewalk hazards, she contacts city officials or property owners to have barriers removed. She has persistently pursued audible traffic signals at difficult crossings and has been a familiar presence in committees established by the mayor, the Museum Center and elsewhere to examine ways of making our city more accessible.

Vision of access

        In her acceptance speech at the Nov. 28 dinner, Ms. Ackerman spoke of her vision of access in the future.

        “Accessibility is more than the wheelchair lifts, the construction of ramps and curb cuts or the installation of automatic door openers in the rear entrance to public buildings,” she said. “It takes more than Braille on the drive-through ATM station (or even in the courthouse) to allow equal and independent access to today's changing world. Access requires changing perspective.”

        Her vision is one of universal accessibility for all people. She spoke of cell phones with displays that talk, tactile representations of famous sculptures, and museum tours that guide a patron with Braille narrative and/or speech output. She dreamed aloud of touch-screen kiosks with both visual and audible output throughout Cincinnati transportation hubs, museum centers or a new Freedom Center.

The pedestrian encounter

        What sets Ms. Ackerman apartis not the physical evidence of traffic signals and building renovations, but the depth of understanding expressed in her analysis of what she calls “the pedestrian encounter.”

        “If a cane traveler is approaching another pedestrian, requiring that a sidewalk or walkway be shared, the pedestrian will noticeably begin to get uncomfortable... They will sometimes slow their pace, step off the sidewalk. I've actually seen a few people change directions, cross the street, turn sideways or even pin themselves up against a wall as they are passed — and say absolutely nothing!”

        The experience is one most people with disabilities recognize immediately. What is rare is Ms. Ackerman's understanding of its irony. Her visually impaired students, she said, are almost always aware of the presence of another person and, although they are the ones at a disadvantage, speak up first. They are saying, Ms. Ackerman explained: “Hey we are aware. And we are here ... sharing the same path as you.”

        Cincinnati writer Deborah Kendrick is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Write her at Cincinnati Enquirer, Tempo, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202. E-mail:dkendrick@enquirer.com.

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