proval of the applications that come in. It is sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less, but that is about the record. We have at the present moment 64 projects that have been approved by our last two council meetings and we will probably have for the May meeting about 80 or 90 projects that will be considered and half of them will be approved. But in addition to the requested increase for research projects which we lost, there was also a request for additional training centers similar to the two that were established in Minnesota and at New York University. We have had interest expressed in a number of places. We had planned, as I think I told you last year, to encourage the development of five or six, at least as far as we could see. So this estimate does not contemplate nor would it provide for the support of anything except the two centers that were approved last year. Senator HILL. Do you know if that allows you to establish any of the new contemplated centers? Miss SWITZER. No, just to support the two we have. PROJECTS DEALING WITH MENTAL RETARDATION We have some very interesting and exciting work going on through our research and demonstration program. One of the most interesting groups of projects that has contributed, I think, not only to service and rehabilitation but also to the quickening of interest and an enlargement of the horizon of people in the field, had to do with mental retardation. We are particularly interested now, of course, because of the President's Panel. The work that we are doing with it shows opportunities to extend these projects and to remove more mental patients from institutions and get them back into the community, and in a surprisingly high number of cases placed into competitive employment. We have good response to our work here. RESEARCH PROGRAM IN PROSTHETICS Then we have a continuing program of research going on in prosthetics, going into new areas, a combination of medical, engineering, and electronics sciences, in improving the gadgetry that severely disabled people need so desperately to make them independent. Most of the things that people work out show imagination and appreciation for the individuals concerned. For example, in the Case Institute in Cleveland, which, as you know, is one of the greatest engineering institutes, several people out there had one of our projects. They are studying how you can record body pressure in paraplegics, people who use wheel chairs, to set up some signals which would prevent pressure sores, which of course are a tremendous detriment to continuous rehabilitation in this group. To me it is quite fascinating that this group of engineers, probably stimulated, although we do not know this, by a personal problem that had come to their attention, are studying the intricacies of electronic responses to body pressure that will, I am sure, give us some new light in this field. Harnessing electrical energy of living muscles to give us sort of a trigger response is one of the things that is going on. Then we continue to have more and more comprehensive projects in the field of aging and chronic illness. We want to expand these projects to wider areas and try to have a community saturated with service, so that for once we could see what we could accomplish if you could do everything you knew how to do. This is being attempted in one or two places. BAXT PROJECT IN NEW YORK Senator HILL. Give us illustrations of what you are doing for these aged and those who suffered from chronic illness. Miss SWITZER. I think one of the most interesting projects-there are two or three-Mr. Garrett, which one do you think I should bring up? The Baxt project in New York-would you describe that? Mr. GARRETT. The Baxt project is on where, within the confines of a community agency, there is a vocationally oriented sheltered workshop. In the program they are taking individuals who are 60 years of age and over who have become disabled, and giving them the opportunity for counseling and experience in the workshop. A fantastic number of people have been found to be able to go back to work. Interestingly enough, a report we had informally from the project director indicated that during the past year half of the individuals who were rehabilitated through this project had been on the welfare rolls of the city of New York for a long period of time. This project has been so successful that we have started this as a selected demonstration program, and it now is being copied in five other cities throughout the country. PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS SUCCESSFULLY REHABILITATED Senator HILL. What percent do you think you are able to rehabilitate? Miss SWITZER. About 50 percent in this project. It would be successful from my point of view even if it were less than that. Actually, looking ahead to what we all hope one day will come-a concept of rehabilitation for independent living or better living, you might say, short of competitive employment. This kind of project, of course, is just made to order for helping the older people to find something useful to do in the environment of the sheltered workshop. These opportunities are opening up all the time. We have always been, like this committee, particularly interested in the speech and hearing field. We continue to study the opportunities to improve services in this field and have a number of projects dealing with the area where the esophagus causes difficulties in speech due to cancer of the larynx. We are also interested in methods of teaching lipreading and the kind of things that are important to the hard-of-hearing and deaf. We are using increasingly Gallaudet College here as an experimental center and as a specialized training center since it has its new building and a whole new approach in its educational system. We have been counting on their cooperation very successfully. PROJECT FOR THE HARD OF HEARING Then we have another very interesting project in this field in collaboration with the American Hearing Society. This is an effort to identify some community, and it has yet to be selected, which has a rather well developed central project, like a medical center, including a comprehensive hearing and speech center. From there, in a radius of whatever would be practical, say 100 miles or maybe even farther, would be established little satellite centers and clinics that would enable us to see what it would take to really organize these services and be able at a minimum of cost to find people who are hard of hearing and help them before they became so set and so resistant to rehabilitation that we lose them. If we could work this through the American Hearing Society and its farflung network of affiliates throughout the country, over a period of 2 or 3 years it would I think, provide a tremendous impetus. Senator HILL. How much money are you putting into this? Miss SWITZER. About $30,000. Well, not the first year-maybe $10,000 or $20,000 the first year, but not more than $30,000 a year. Maybe not as much as that, depending upon how many facilities we find and where they are and also depending upon the resources of the State we select to do it. But if we could multiply that in three or four places, then it would be picked up, I think, by the States very readily because they can see how it would be done, what the cost would be and how much it would pay off. FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR NEW YORK PROJECT Senator HILL. Could I go back 1 minute to your New York project for the aged and those who suffer from chronic disease? How much in Federal funds are you putting into that? Mr. GARRETT. That project at the present time runs about $50,000 of Federal support. You know, we bear only part of the cost. Roughly, in that project there is about $25,000 that is coming from the sponsor of that project. Senator HILL. Who is sponsoring that? Miss SWITZER. The Federation Employment and Guidance Service, which is a part of the Council of Jewish Philanthropies in New York City. They contribute roughly $25,000 and the project costs roughly $75,000. Sometimes the money they put in is not reflective of their whole contribution. The fact that they take on a project like this shows they have, you know, the background and staff and philosophy of a well-established voluntary agency. Most of the projects of this kind that we have found most successful as pilot demonstrations-so that you get the top talent concerning itself with the problem-are in the private agencies. Senator HILL. You get a better climate for the project. Miss SWITZER. We feel so. Doctor Rusk really has helped us to find this channel because he several years ago worked with one of the Jewish homes for the aged and one of the Catholic homes for the aged that were associated with the hospitals that he has to do with. He found he was dealing with people who were almost bedridden and he felt that our method in seeking out some of these associations would be very rewarding, and indeed it has been. It has widened the area of support for the program to an extent that has been reflected in the increase of public support, and we had public pressure to have a public agency take more of an interest in this, you see. I think these projects have been directly responsible for increasing the number of older handicapped workers that are now counted in this 92,500 I mentioned earlier. TRAINING PROGRAM Now, as to training. Training, of course, is part of the core of our program because without trained and dedicated personnel you never have anything. This year we are asking for $12,700,000 for training, which is an increase of $3,200,000 over the 1962 operating budget. That takes into consideration the reserve that was taken out of the base. This will enable us to increase our long-term training in medicine, rehabilitation counseling, speech, and hearing. It will give us 46 new long-term teaching grants and over 800 long-term traineeships. We will have short-term training courses as we always have had. Our training program is very successful. We continue to be very enthusiastic about the response we get from these institutions. We have some problems of course in competing for the best talent available. Sometimes we are at a disadvantage for certain reasons. We feel that rehabilitation counseling and medicine are very important and, they are the fields we emphasize very, very strongly. We also feel that the underpinning of physical theraby and occupational therapy is as important as it was at the beginning of the program and also contributes to our ability to meet some of the short ages. Senator HILL. How much did you ask in training? BUDGET BUREAU ACTION Miss SWITZER. No, that was the 1962 appropriation. For 1963 we asked for $16 million and the Department sent to the Budget Bureau $16 million and the Budget Bureau cut that by $3,300,000. So the 1963 budget is for $12,700,000. Senator HILL. Under the budget figure how much more would you have than in 1962. Miss SWITZER. If we had the budget figure or if we had what we asked? Senator HILL. Yes. What you asked for. Miss SWITZER. We would have the difference of over $6 million. We have now $9,500,000 in our 1962 operating budget. Our 1962 appropriation was $9,800,000 and if we got what the Department asked the Budget Bureau for, we would have $16 million. A significant part of that was to give us an opportunity to pay tuition in other fields than rehabilitation counseling. TUITION FACTOR One of the features of our competitive situation is the fact that we are at a disadvantage when compared with other programs because we cannot pay tuition. Senator HILL. The other programs do pay tuition? Miss SWITZER. Yes; they pay tuition for the most part. Senator HILL. In most of them, as I recall. Miss SWITZER. Yes; they do. In speech and hearing it is very serious because most of the best programs from our point of view are in the high tuition schools. We tend not to get the most desirable candidates. Senator HILL. How much would you need to pay this tuition? Miss SWITZER. I think to get the tuition to take care of that we would need about $1,237,000 of an increase. This would be for tuition for the traineeships allowed in the budget. Senator HILL. That is of the amount you asked for? Miss SWITZER. Yes, of the amount we asked for. The other increases were to step up traineeships and training right straight through to do some new things and step up our training, you know, to make progress faster. Senator HILL. How much would you need for tuition from the funds allowed you for trainees? Mr. GARRETT. The additional $1,237,000 is merely for the tuition for the fields and in the amount requested in this budget. Senator HILL. For what is in this budget that has been allowed to you? Mr. GARRETT. Yes. Miss SWITZER. I see. $1,200,000 is not the total amount for tuition. Senator HILL. $1,200,000 is what you have to have for what? Miss SWITZER. In order to meet the competition for the training program now in the budget. Senator HILL. Now in the President's budget? Miss SWITZER. Yes. The total tuition costs for the programs in the budget would be $1,700,000. They allowed us $490,000 or almost $500,000, so in order to meet the whole thing, we need $1,200,000 additional. SALARIES AND EXPENSES APPROPRIATION ESTIMATE "SALARIES AND EXPENSES "For expenses, not otherwise provided for, necessary [in carrying out the provisions of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, as amended, and of the Act approved June 20, 1936 (20 U.S.C., ch. 6A), as amended, $2,325,000] for the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, $2,486,000." EXPLANATION OF LANGUAGE CHANGE Delete: "in carrying out the provisions of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, as amended, and of the Act approved June 20, 1936 (20 U.S.C., ch. 6A), as amended, $2,325,000." Substitute: "for the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, $2,486,000." The revised language accomplishes two objectives: (1) It simplifies the appropriation language by eliminating superfluous references to the basic authorizing legislation which are cited following the language, and (2) it encompasses all of the authorities of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation including those which supplement the basic authority provided by the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, as amended, for an international rehabilitation research program. These supplemental authorities are the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended (Public Law 480), which authorizes the use of foreign currencies for the international research program; and the International Health |