New Technologies Offer Help For Those With Disabilities
Written by John Moran for the Hartford Courant, April 12, 2001.
Only when the flu wrecks our week, sending our head and stomach spinning, do we
realize just how much we take our health for granted.
Yet even the dreaded flu is but a shadow of the challenge facing those whose disabilities
are far more profound and lasting. Theirs is a daily battle against the limits of their bodies.
Can technology help?
You might say people have used technology to compensate for disabilities since
the first caveman grabbed a walking stick. Even such innovations as Braille and American Sign Language are arguably technologies,
in the sense that they are tools to help those with disabilities communicate.
But it is only more recently that computing technology has played a significant
role in assisting people with disabilities. Especially in the last five years, computers have begun doing things that were
once the stuff of dreams and science fiction.
Known generically as "assistive technology", these state-of-the-art products are
making life easier and more enjoyable for tens of thousands of citizens with all manner of disabilities.
All this became clearer last week when the New England Assistive Technology Marketplace
held a showcase of some of the latest innovations at the Connecticut Institute for the Blind/Oak Hill.
Dozens of technologies - some aimed at those who are blind or have low-vision,
others targeted toward the hearing impaired, still others assisting those who have mobility difficulties - were on display.
And even those who are familiar with such technologies found themselves marveling
at what can be done with today's equipment.
"This is meteoric," said Donald Mason, technology coordinator for Glastonbury Public
Schools. "It's incredible how fast this technology has changed."
One example is "SignTel Interpreter," a new software program that depicts the image
of a woman standing. When you type in a word, phrase or sentence, the computer- generated image instantly translates the information
into American Sign Language. At the same time, the information is also spoken aloud by a computer-generated voice.
The software, now in final testing, will soon incorporate speech recognition technology.
The program would enable a hearing person to communicate with a deaf person simply by speaking to the computer and allowing
the computer to display those words as sign language.
"Only in the past five years has the technology become purchased and available
enough to where we can put together something like this," said Josh Lieberman of SignTel Inc. in North Haven.
Other examples included software that would magnify sections of a computer screen
so it could be seen more easily by someone with poor vision, software that would read aloud virtually anything typed into
it, and software that uses sound to help people with vision problems navigate Windows programs or the internet.
"It's vast, the sheer amount of choices that people have," said Rebecca Earl, vice
president for the Connecticut Institute for the Blind / Oak Hill. "There are hundreds of thousands of pieces of assistive
technology out there."
Some of the most intriguing technologies help those with spinal cord injuries that
restrict their ability to move their limbs. Special mouse hardware, for example, makes it easier for some to use a PC. And
infrared tracking technology lets others move the computer cursor by moving their head.
"It was made for people that have spinalcord injury or who have had a stroke,"
Lee Learson, director of the NEAT Marketplace. "But it's really for anybody who has trouble using the keyboard."
Sure, computers are great for helping us compose letters, send and receive e-mail,
surf the Web and keep track of our check books.
But it's when you see the doors that technology can open for those facing disabilities
that you understand just how powerful personal computer can be.
Written by John Moran for the Hartford Courant, April 12, 2001.
