They have the talent to earn money through services such as training, installation, maintenance, and upgrades. They should know about products and services that they don't sell such as training tapes, books, online mailing lists, community college courses and other resources that assist the end user in learning and conquering the technology. Adaptive technology specialists, evaluators, and dealers may be independent business owners or work for an agency or institution. Independents may be highly adaptable to individual needs and flexible in their services. They also may have little contact or exposure with the disability community beyond their job.
Agencies are as good as the people that work there.
Consider the strengths and experience of the person working at the agency, not just the strengths of the agency itself. Agencies can be biased too. For example, the largest Chicago blindness agency has a financial relationship with an Indiana-based producer of screen readers. Not surprisingly, this agency invariably recommends only the screen readers that it sells. If you have not used the device before, this is a must.