Computer-skills program opens new world to mentally disabled

01-2006-01

Avon- The printer is out of paper, and Tim Caskey is about to catch hell.

"You're out of paper, old man!" Harvey Graham snarls in mock anger. "Tim's getting old. He can't remember things anymore."

Caskey chuckles and shakes his head. He's used to the abuse.

In fact, he kind of likes it.

The good-natured banter is all part of Caskey's 4-year-old Computer Skills Development Program at Our Lady of the Wayside, a nonprofit agency that provides services to more than 180 people with developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy and mental retardation.

The program teaches mentally disabled adults basic skills, including writing and sending e-mail and navigating the Internet. Touch-screen technology, jumbo mouses and extra-big keyboards help even the most severely disabled claim a small piece of the information superhighway.

More than two dozen adults from across Northeast Ohio travel to Avon on Tuesday or Thursday nights or Saturday afternoons to work on their typing skills, make holiday decorations for their group homes, correspond with friends and family or visit their favorite celebrity Web site.

The class represents a crack through which they can temporarily escape their disabilities and see the light of the outside world.

"We have a waiting list," says Caskey, a special-education teacher by day at Cleveland's Audubon School and the sole instructor of the computer-skills program since its inception. "It's important to them that their housemates know that they're in this class. It's got a certain cachet to it."

No one can recall a program exactly like Caskey's class - in Ohio or anywhere else. 

"We're not aware of anything like it," says Terry Davis, president and chief executive of Our Lady of the Wayside. "It's unique, and we've been very pleased with the results."

Truth is, the uniqueness of the program is also a sort of disadvantage. Foundations and other potential funding sources don't know how to categorize the class.

Is it an adult special-needs program? A technology program? An education program?

"It's unusual, and that's what's made it difficult to find foundation help," Caskey says.

But with donations from the Stocker and Nordson Corp. foundations, the program has maintained and slowly grown. There are now 28 students.

The genesis of the program is as unusual as the class itself. Five years ago, Caskey was moonlighting at a Micro Center computer store, teaching a free beginners class that the retailer offered to its customers.

A man in the class looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world. Caskey figured the guy's wife forced him to attend.

"The guy was just bored to tears," Caskey recalls. "I thought, 'Man, I'm losing this guy.' "

But Caskey hadn't lost the guy, who turned out to be Dick Griffin, then a member of Our Lady of the Wayside's board of directors. Griffin envisioned a similar kind of class for the agency's clients, and he asked Caskey to come to his office the next week and talk.

Six months later, Caskey launched the program as a six-week pilot. It was an immediate success and has continued ever since. 

On this winter evening, Craig Breeden quietly composes an e-mail. Ron Dobrinski and Patty Culley huddle at another computer, engrossed in a spirited game of "Spin and Win." The cantankerous Graham is searching the Internet for information about commercial motor coaches, one of his many interests.

He has chosen the country and western tunes that fill the classroom this night.

"It's a balancing act," Caskey says later. "You try to keep everyone engaged."

Skill levels vary dramatically. For some, printing out a snowman or wreath for a wall decoration is a major accomplishment. For others, there are few boundaries.

One student, for instance, has apparently memorized a Web site that features home listings. Ask him what a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,220-square-foot home on West 227th Street goes for, and he will give you a remarkably accurate quote - depending on whether it has air conditioning and a finished basement.

"You get a whole new appreciation of how this little computer works," says Caskey, pointing to his head.

What the class means in the lives of his students - and their families - has startled Caskey from time to time. Several years ago, a student named Reed died. At his funeral, Caskey was approached by Reed's younger sister, a Denver school teacher. She hugged him.

"He would e-mail his sister, and she'd e-mail him back," Caskey says. "She told me she found out more about her brother through those e-mails than she had ever known before."

Unfortunately, the woman had lost her brother's e-mails. But Caskey was able to retrieve the files, print them and send them to her.

He received a gracious thank-you note in return.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "It's gratifying," Caskey says. "They are exceptional people. I've learned far more from them than I could ever teach these guys."

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/lorain/113610792979670.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

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