Slide 1 ADA State of the Science 
Research Conference
Day 1: February 26, 2026
Presented by the ADA National Network

Slide 2 ZOOM WEBINAR Interface
Screenshot of Zoom webinar interface showing Whiteboard, Audio Controls, Chat area icon for instructions, Q&A Icon to submit questions to speakers, Live Transcript icon to enable captioning, Leave icon to sign out of the session and Full Screen ion to enlarge screen-viewing area
Slide 3 Listening to the Webinar via Your Computer
•	Please make sure your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in.
•	You can verify your audio settings using the Audio Settings Option in the lower left corner of the screen.
•	You can adjust your volume using the Audio Settings option.
Screenshot of Zoom Audio Settings menu
Slide 4 Video Sign Language Interpreter
•	Sign Language is being provided via Video Spotlight
•	There will be two Sign Language Interpreters.  They will be “swapping” their images as they switch interpreters during the session.  This will cause a “pause” or brief interruption in the Sign Language.
•	Individuals can change their view of the Sign Language Interpreter on a desktop/Laptop computer by choosing the “Swap Video and Shared Screen” option from your viewing options menu.  Tablet and Phone options for viewing the video will differ depending on the device.
Slide 5 Changing Screen View
To change your View so that you see the full video image on your screen (Sign Language Interpreter) select “Swap Video and Shared Screen”. (Includes image of Zoom View Menu)
To enlarge the image of the Sign Language Interpreter, mouse over the edge of the video box and once the double-ended arrow appears, stretch the image to the desired size. (Includes image of interpreter on camera)
To hide video, click on the “underline” symbol found in the upper left corner of the video. (Thumbnail of interpreter highlighting how to minimize)
Slide 6 Submitting Questions
Questions should be submitted via the QUESTION AREA (ICON).   You will have the option to submit your question “anonymously.”
DO NOT submit questions in the Chat Area.  We will not be monitoring it for questions.  
Please refrain from submitting any commentary, responses, etc. via the chat area.    This is distracting to other participants.  We reserve the right to remove you from the session if you use the chat area inappropriately.
If you are listening on the phone and are not connected to the webinar platform, email your questions to webinars@adaconferences.org
Screenshot of Q&A Box
Slide 7 Welcome to the 2026 ADA State of the Science Research Conference 
Day 1
Slide 8 Funding Statement and Disclaimer
Funding Statement:
This conference is coordinated by the ADA Knowledge Translation Center with support from the ADA National Network Research Committee, and funded through the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) (NIDILRR grant number 90DPAD0004). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this conference are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of any entities they represent, the ADA Knowledge Translation Center, the ADA National Network, the University of Washington, or the federal government. Statements, views, and opinions expressed during any presentation or in any materials are those solely of the presenter. The information and assistance provided is not legal advice.

Slide 9 Overview of Day 1
Session A: Employment.
Four lightning presentations.
Moderator summary.
Questions and answer period.
Break.
Session B: Community Living and Participation.
Four lightning presentations.
Moderator summary.
Questions and answer period.
Day 2 wrap-up.
Slide 10 Employment
Slide 11 How Flexibility Makes Work Work for People with Disabilities
LaWanda Cook (lhc62@cornell.edu) 
Sarah von Schrader (sv282@cornell.edu)
Northeast ADA Center (Region 2)
Logos: Cornell University, ILR Yang-Tan Institute, Northeast ADA Center
Slide 12 Purpose & Method , How Flexibility Makes Work Work for People with Disabilities
Goal: Identify emergent workplace flexibility policies and practices and related ADA Title I implementation strategies.
Collaboration with the Great Lakes ADA Center (Region 5). 
Interviewed 16 employer representatives with HR policy or ADA implementation responsibilities about how their organizations ensure access to flexible work options, including remote work and other flexibility as an accommodation.
Slide 13 Results: 
How Flexibility Makes Work Work for People with Disabilities
Organizations offered various types of flexibility and differed in how centralized and formal they were when making decisions about these requests. Themes included: 
•	a workplace culture that enables effective flexible work options; 
•	flexibility is fine, so long as the work gets done; 
•	flexible work options reduce the need for disability disclosure; 
•	managers’ discretion influences access to and use of flexible work options, and 
•	remote work may adversely impact skill development and career advancement. 
        Future Research 
•	How decision maker’s own disability identity might influence views about flexible work
•	Pros and cons of formal vs. Informal flexible work and reasonable accommodation processes from employer and employee perspectives
Slide 14 Disability Employment Policy, Digital Access, and Economic Opportunity
Dr. Fitore Hyseni, Syracuse University, fhyseni@syr.edu 
Contact the Southeast ADA Center:
Phone: 404-541-9001
Email: ADAsoutheast@syr.edu 
Web:	ADAsoutheast.org 
Logos of Syracuse University and Southeast ADA Center
Slide 15 Project Description
•	Three interconnected socio-economic dimensions:
o	Employment, Poverty, and Digital Access
•	Data Sources:
o	American Community Survey, Survey of Income and Program Participation, National Telecommunications and Information Administration Survey
•	Eight Southeast states: 
o	Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee 
Side 16 Findings Chart on Employment, Poverty an Internet Gap in SE States
Slide 17 Use of Service Animals in Employment
Southwest ADA Center, Region 6
Vinh Nguyen & Monique Pappadis
•	Understand how people with disabilities use service and emotional animals to assist them in the workplace.
•	Explore their experiences and any barriers that they may encounter at work.
•	Determine what factors regarding their animal and employment setting contribute to successful employment outcomes. 
A graphic of individual in wheelchair petting a service animal
Slide 18 Survey – n = 222
•	Trained at a school or by a professional trainer (50.5%), by someone else (33.8%), by user (14.4%), untrained emotional support animal (1.4%).
•	Trained tasks - physical tasks (58.2%), notification of sounds (19.5%), balance (18.2%), cognitive or psychological conditions (17.3%), visual guiding (15.0%), medical alert (13.2%). 
o	Assisted in work or job – related tasks – (48.6%)
•	Most have obvious disability (57.6%)  and their animal had identifying gear (94.4%). 
•	Most work for employer with 50+ employees (62.8%) and worked either in education or healthcare (42.2%)
•	Most had to request their animal to be at work with them (73.6%) and 25.7% approvals were on the same day
•	Their employer were supportive (69.7%) and even more were their coworkers (75%)
•	Those with a hidden disability tended to report longer approval times (p=.012), more likely to be asked for its certification or license (p=.034), and their disability proof (p<.001), and for their service animal to demonstrate a task (p=.005) compared to those with a obvious disability.
•	Most of the individuals with service animals not trained for job-related tasks report their employers as not being supportive (76.5%).
Slide 19 Interviews – n=17
•	Frequently linked their animals to their ability to sustain employment, both physically and psychologically. Animals’ assistance with daily routines, travel, and emotional regulation ensured reliability and productivity. 
•	Most expressed how employers and colleagues had positive and supportive attitudes in regards to their animal. This allowed for them to not feel alienated or burdensome and focus on their tasks without worry. In contrast, participants described how some clients and customers exhibited fear or a lack of understanding about proper service dog etiquette. 
•	If any complications arose, such as a fear of animals or allergies, some mentioned being able to come to a compromise with their colleagues.
•	Participants particularly appreciated the amount of space allocated to them in the workplace. Private office spaces or designated areas for service animals were beneficial in reducing distractions and ensuring the comfort of both the handler and their service animal.
•	Those who traveled for work reported having consistent problems; from preparation to airlines and hotels. 
•	Many participants expressed the desire for training and education to occur in the workplace. They described feeling exhausted from constantly educating others in the workplace either on service animal etiquette or their rights under the ADA. 
Slide 20 The AI (Dis)Advantage: How Hiring Professionals Choose AI Advice Over Human Judgment in Recruiting People with Disabilities
Kartik Trivedi, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Institute on Disability, UNH, Durham
hello@kartiktrivedi.in
X: @kartiktrivedi
Stylized icons representing people sitting around a desk, with one person using a wheelchair. An icon in the upper-right corner depicting a human head profile with circuit-like lines, symbolizing artificial intelligence or digital cognition.
Slide 21 AI is transforming hiring processes, but can we identify its limitations?
Dark background graphic featuring a central dark blue circular node labeled “Working Together,” with thin horizontal lines extending outward from both sides, connecting to an icon representing human on the left and an icon representing AI on the right, suggesting connection or collaboration. 
Human- AI collaboration 
•	Decision-makers often seek external advice to reduce their perceived risk and responsibility when making uncertain hiring decisions, especially for candidates with disabilities. (Ajunwa, 2016; Jatobá et al., 2023)
•	Both humans and algorithms can be biased. But when paired, are human advisors effective at detecting algorithmic bias?
     Transparency impacts advice utilization
•	Transparency has a positive impact on advice usage and decision quality (Schuetz & Venkatesh, 2020; Stritch et al., 2017; Yeomans et al., 2019)
•	Trust in algorithms depends on transparency (Glickson & Woolley, 2020)
•	Transparency significantly impacts the perceived trustworthiness of algorithmic and human advisors (Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer, 2022)
How does a candidate’s disability status, advice source (human vs algorithmic), and transparency mechanisms jointly influence advice utilization by hiring professionals?
Slide 22 People rely on AI, even when it is incorrect.
Three side-by-side line charts on a dark background labeled Best-fit, Overqualified, and Misfit. Each chart shows predicted outcomes on the y-axis (roughly 0.23–0.40) by disability status on the x-axis (No Disability vs. With Disability). Two lines appear in each panel: a red line (human advice) and a blue line (AI advice). In all panels, values are higher with disability than without. The gap between human and AI advice is visible across conditions, with the steepest increase in the Overqualified panel. A subtitle notes that the lines show the effect of disability status for human versus AI advice.
Slide 23 Moderator Summary:
Employment

Moderated by: Denise Hoffman
Slide 24 Q&A, Employment
Slide 25 Break, Time to stretch!
Time to stretch!
Slide 26 Community Living and Participation
Slide 27 Aging with and Into Disability: Navigating ADA Rights in Community and Work
•	Ellen Fabian, Ph.D.  Research Professor, Center for Transition & Career Innovation, UMD (efabian@umd.edu)
•	Qianyu Zhu, Applied Psychology Program, School of Humanities and Social Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong
•	Ann Deschamps, Ed.D. Director, Mid-Atlantic ADA Center
Slide 28 Purpose and Methods 
(Aging with and Into Disability)
Through two studies, we explored how older adults with disabilities access and use ADA protections in work and in the community
•	Community Study: Focus groups of older adults with disabilities exploring barriers, advocacy and ADA utilization
•	Employment Study: Surveys of older workers with disabilities comparing ADA accommodation use across recruitment groups 
•	Both studies share focus on awareness and utilization of ADA rights and resources 
Slide 29 Results and Key Take-aways
Results Across Two Studies: 
•	Persistent barriers to community participation and workplace for older adults with disabilities 
•	ADA knowledge strongly linked to accommodation use, advocacy, and participation  
•	Connection to disability organizations linked to knowledge and use of ADA rights 
Take-aways
•	Improve integration of aging and disability systems
•	Expand ADA education/outreach to older adults 
Slide 30 Developing a Reasonable Accommodation Decision Aid
Mark Harniss, PhD, University of Washington
An iceberg with its reflection in the ocean
Slide 31 Purpose & Method
Reasonable Accommodation Decision Aid
This is a screenshot of the homepage of the reasonable accommodation decision aid. It has a navigation menu on the left side labeled My RA Request, and below that, Home, Introduction, Making the Request, and After the Request. In the main body, there is text introducing the decision support aid, including sections on what a decision support aid does, what a reasonable accommodation is, and how to get started. In the upper right corner are icons of a question mark and a person indicating help and account locations.
Slide 32 Results
(Developing a Reasonable Accommodation Decision Aid)
Interviews
•	Risk analysis
•	Negotiation strategies
•	Settling for partial accommodations
•	Retaliation / Feeling punished for RA request
•	Role models
Proof-of-Concept Studies
•	All in one place is great
•	Still a lot of content to cover
•	Legal concepts are hard
Slide 33 Effective Methods of Engaging with the Americans with Disabilities Act:
A Participatory Action Research Approach
Presenter: 
•	Taciana Ribeiro Saab, Project Director
•	New England ADA Center, a project of the 
•	Institute for Human Centered Design
•	tribeirosaab@ihcdesign.org
       Logos: NIDILRR, New England ADA Center, Institute for Human Centered Design
Slide 34 Overview of the Research
Goal: People with disabilities from hard-to-reach communities have high disability prevalence rates and limited active participation in ADA rights – increase engagement to exercise rights
Objective: Learn about impediments to participation including attitude and effective access especially to information.
Research question: What do you think about disability and who that describes?  What do you know about rights for people with disabilities? Where do you get your trusted information?
Method: We chose Participatory Action Research (PAR) to go directly to people most impacted by the problem to find out why and how to solve the problem in three states.
Three phases in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island in majority minority municipalities:  
	Survey (n-193)
	In depth Interviews (n – 24) 
	Focus group to review draft materials (n-10)

Slide 35 Key Findings
•	Disconnection From: An identity of disability. 
•	Critical Knowledge Gap: While 56% had heard of the ADA, 75% knew nothing or very little about its protections.
•	Trusted Messengers: Information is most trusted when it comes from healthcare providers, family, and community members who share their language and cultural background.
•	Need for Empowerment: Pursuing rights requires both support and self-advocacy skills.
•	Material Preferences: A strong preference for printed, multilingual materials was clear, though specific design choices (fonts, colors) varied by race and culture. 
•	The Central Lesson: The most effective engagement strategy is listening and authentic inclusion—partnering with the community in all aspects of the research and design process.

Slide 36 How do communities implement health solutions? Findings from a multi- state evaluation
Casey Herman 
Senior Research Specialist
Department of Disability and Human Development
University of Illinois Chicago
cherma5@uic.edu

Yochai Eisenberg
Associate Professor 
Department of Disability and Human Development
University of Illinois Chicago
yeisen2@uic.edu 

Slide 37 Purpose & Method, 
How do communities implement health solutions? 
People with disabilities face barriers to accessing health promotion programs. Active engagement in planning and implementing accessible health solutions can help.
NCHPAD’s 4-Stage Implementation Process (NiCIP)
NCHPAD's Community Implementation Process (NiCIP) model displayed as a circle with 4 stages: 1) plan; 2) align; 3) Prepare for implementation; 4) Implement, evaluate and sustain
Testing the NiCIP
A map of the United States with stars indicated the states that have participated in the NiCIP: Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
•	16 communities
•	Funded for 1-3 years
•	Evaluated through regular reporting, technical assistance, interviews, and surveys
Slide 38 Results,
How do communities implement health solutions?
Types of Access Solutions
Community, Disability Representation, Transportation, Data Collection, Recruitment and Promotion, Training, Policies, Resources Development and Dissemination
Key Takeaways
Challenges to using the NICIP: Competing priorities, Implementor capacity, Systems change, Documentation and language, Complexity of real-world settings
What helps the NiCIP: Facilitator skills, Flexibility and pivoting, Partner networks.
Slide 39 Moderator Summary:
Community Living and Participation
Moderated by: 
Katherine Macfarlane
Slide 40 Q&A
Community Living and Participation
You may submit questions in the Q&A area of the Zoom Platform.
Slide 41  Wrap-up
Slide 42 Register for Day 2 (March 12, 2026)
Register for Day 2 of the 2026 ADA State of the Science.
•	Visit the conference webpage www.adata.org/sos-2026 or
•	Click the link in the chat or 
•	Scan the QR code.
Slide 43 Thank you for attending Day 1 of the 2026 ADA State of the Science Research Conference!
•	Please remember to fill out your evaluation.
o	Click the link in the chat or 
o	Scan the QR code.
•	To watch presentation recordings or see the slides:
o	Visit the conference webpage www.adata.org/sos-2026.
o	Recordings will be uploaded to the webpage in the next few weeks.