National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering

The National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering (NIRE) is a voluntary organization dedicated to providing assistive technology information, counseling, referrals, and user training. NIRE also custom designs and custom builds assistive devices and systems when commercial products are not adequate. NIRE’s services and expertise assist people with any types of functional disabilities, individually and in various combinations. People of all ages are helped, with special attention to those with severe and/or multiple handicaps. Established in 1967, the institute is an onsite technology training organization and research and development facility. Its staff designs custom-made devices for handicapped persons who are trial-fitted, trained, counseled, and evaluated in the field. Such devices include special field-expander glasses for monocular vision, loss of one half the field of vision in both eyes (menianopsia), and tunnel vision; low vision cataract glasses, night vision aids, macular degeneration glasses, electronic speech aids, aids for the totally deaf and for deaf people with impaired vision, mobility aids for individuals with cerebral palsy, or paralysis, and computers and specially modified computer programs. In addition, NIRE provides driver assessment and/or training for persons with a wide range of disabilities; offers technical assistance to handicapped persons, trying to set up their own businesses; and coordinates outreach programs that provide most of these services and aids in clients’ own local areas such as schools, clinics, homes, and places of employment. The institute supports the Swedish and Norwegian languages in both spoken and written form, and the French, Spanish, German, and Italian languages in written form only.