Technology for People with Disabilities
Page I
We all know about the many benefits of
computers for work, education and leisure. Improved productivity,
greater access to information and faster and cheaper communications
are obvious examples of how they can make our lives easier. For
people with certain disabilities, however, PCs don't just make things
a bit easier, they can actually make it physically possible to carry
out everyday activities like working and communicating.
Although there are no comprehensive statistics, it is estimated that
at least ten per cent of the Irish population has some kind of disability.
And, as the population ages over the coming years, the percentage of
people with varying degrees of mobility, sight, hearing, cognitive
and speech impairments is predicted to increase further.
While disability can often isolate people from the rest of the world,
technology can help to give back a level of independence.
Quite often however, standard hardware or software is not suitable
for use by people with severe disabilities, in some cases; therefore,
adaptation devices or software are required to make computers accessible.
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* A selection of keyboards are now
available to suit people with a range of different disabilities. |
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The Intellikeys concept keyboard which can be used together with different overlays. |
* Key guards, which can be placed over a keyboard, allow users to rest their wrists without pressing down on keys, they also separate keys more clearly and can therefore help people who have perceptual problems with letters.
* Miniature keyboards, which require
the tiniest pressure on keys, are designed for people with very small
movement and power in their hands.
* Keyboard redefinition programs are
also available for re-assigning keys to create a customised layout to
better suit individual needs.
* Abbreviation expansion programs,'
meanwhile, are designed to reduce the amount of keystrokes needed by
expanding on sets of letters that have been predefined as macros.
Predictive software also reduces keystrokes by suggesting fists of
words after just one or two letters have been typed.
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* Customised mice and keyboards, foot pedals, head operated pointing devices, wrist rests, screen magnifiers and voice operated software are some of the options available. |
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* A wide variety of mice are also
available and these range in price from around £20 to £500.
* As with the keyboards, some are
designed to respond to the smallest of actions white others have been
developed for people with less control over their hand movements.
* Switches, meanwhile, can be
designed for operation by any area of the body where the individual
is able to create an intentional movement.
They can be hand-held, foot operated or controlled simply by blinking.
* Sip-and-puff devices are also
available and these Switches and pointing devices can normally be
used in conjunction with on-screen keyboards For inputting text or
issuing commands.
* Voice re-cognition programs are
often used by people who have difficulties using keyboards and
pointing devices, they are also becoming increasingly popular amongst
people without disabilities because of their convenience.
Again, these systems can be used both for inputting text and for
giving commands so that the PC can be operated solely by voice.
* For visually impaired people,
screen enlargers are used to magnify sections of the display on a PC.
Systems for people with no sight, meanwhile, include screen readers,
such as JAWs for Windows and Windows Bridge,
used in conjunction with speech synthesisers, like DECTatk.
These systems allow blind people to look at pages on the Internet,
read and compose e-mail and use typical computer applications.
Scanners can also be used to make printed documents, such as typed
letters and faxes, legible to the computer.
However, they must be used in conjunction with extremely accurate
software Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
These are just some examples of the vast array of hardware and software options currently available.
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