On June 18, 2012 the Wireless RERC submitted comments to the Department of Education in response to their notice In the Matter of National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR); Notice of Proposed Long-Range Plan for Fiscal Years 2013 - 2017 [FR Doc. No. 2012-9365]. The proposed Long-Range Plan included objectives such as ensuring that research, development and other activities are balanced between areas of focus including employment, community living, and health, and that supporting projects that have potential benefit for multiple groups of people with disabilities. Wireless RERC comments highlighted that mainstream wireless technologies are allowing for opportunities to enhance independence and improve community participation for people with disabilities and may have a direct impact on the areas of focus mentioned in the plan. Current trends demonstrate that not only do people with disabilities utilize wireless technologies at the same rates as people without disabilities but that many people with and without disabilities utilize wireless technologies in an assistive manner, such as in receiving turn-by-turn directions. Wireless RERC comments to the NIDRR Long-Range Plan thus suggested that certain objectives within the plan include explicit references to accessible mainstream technologies in addition to assistive technologies in order to impact how the objectives are interpreted by those responsible for implementation.
On April 4, 2013, the final version of the NIDRR Long-Range Plan for Fiscal Years 2013 – 2017 was published in the Federal register [FR Doc No: 2013-07879] and included Wireless RERC recommendation to “expressly acknowledge that individuals with disabilities interact with several environments, including specifically and increasingly a technological environment...[Hence] The technology for Access and Function section of the Plan has been revised to reflect the importance of the technology environment with which persons with disabilities interact.”