Disabled People Using Computers

Kensington Expert Mouse - Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 - Dragon Naturally Speaking Headset

I got my first computer back in 1992, I think it had something like 6 kB of RAM and a 300 MB hard drive. Blimey, using a computer with these specs now for everything we do would be like trying to win a Formula One Grand Prix whilst driving a Robin Reliant. Things have really moved on and computers are extremely powerful nowadays. I really don't know what I would do without my computer, I spend virtually every day doing something on the PC, whether that be building a website, shopping, or just having a look around the Internet to see what is going on, I can always find something interesting to do it on the computer. From a disabled point of view, a computer is my lifeline, it enables me to communicate with friends and family, I can connect all my amateur radio equipment and control my radios just using my mouse, and more importantly I don't need anyone else to help me use my PC. I'm sure that by the time you have read my article on computers for the disabled, you will agree that every disabled person really should have a computer for themselves, in fact I feel so strongly about this that I believe computers should be given to every disabled person completely free of charge.

The biggest advantage with computers is no matter what your disability, you can use a computer independently. Okay, you may need someone to turn it on and set a few things up to begin with, but with the technology these days, anything is possible and even very high level tetraplegics are able to perform virtually every task that is necessary on a computer without even touching the keyboard. If you can speak, you can operate a computer. Even if you can't speak, there is hope on the horizon. Someone has even had some kind of brain surgery which enables them to communicate with their computer by thought. it is quite breathtaking nowadays just what software can do

Kensington Expert Mouse

Luckily I am able to move my arms . I have no movement in my fingers at all, this doesn't stop me from using the keyboard and most of what the computer has on it. I haven't had to buy any special adaptions to use the computer. The only two things I have purchased is Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 and a couple of Kensington expert trackballs. The Kensington Expert Pro Mouse is excellent, I can't praise the manufacturers enough for coming up with such a superb piece of kit. What you have is a large ball in the body of the mouse which sits on your work surface. You can turn the ball in any direction with any part of your hand (no finger movement needed at all) There are four large buttons on the trackball. Each one can be programmed to do certain tasks. The really good thing about this trackball is that you can programme each button to do whatever click you like. In other words, If you're comfortable with a double-click on the lefthand button, then you can programme it to do exactly that. There are also six smaller buttons that can launch programs, websites with just one click.

If you are a tetraplegic then you will know how frustrating and difficult it is to drag things on your computer. Well, the Kensington expert mouse has a function where you can programme one or more buttons to do this function. It means that you can drag things on your computer by just turning the ball and not having to concentrate on holding a button down as well. Pictured right is a slightly different make of Kensington trackball mouse. It doesn't have the six programmable buttons that will launch various websites, but I have found that I didn't use this function anyway. What it does have that the others don't, is a back ring around the actual ball. This is for scrolling up and down the pages of documents or websites. If you have no finger movement you should find this an extremely useful function as I have done.

I have seen a few so-called disabled trackballs on the market that have been designed for tetraplegic use. To be quite honest, the Kensington expert mouse pro will do exactly the same job, if not better sense anything is in the same unit rather than split in two, and it also comes with a cheaper price tag as well.

Using This Trackball on Vista

Even though it states that the Kensington Mouse is not compatible with Vista, there is actually quite simple way of getting it to work properly.

Download MouseWorks 6.22 from Kensington and extract it onto your desktop. Now go to Start > Control Panel > System > Device Manager > double-click on Human Interface Devices and then click the link that appears underneath this. A box will open, click on "Driver Update". Now browse to where you extracted MouseWorks to and select it. Now if everything goes right, it should tell you that it is installing the software. Once that's done, reboot your computer and touch wood, your mouse should work perfectly okay, including all the buttons

The above Instructions are for Windows Vista 32-Bit Operating System only. If you are using 64-bit Vista then the above instructions will not work. There are other programmes that can be used to map the buttons on the Kensington but I haven't used them myself. Vista has various options for making adjustments to your mouse. One of the include something called "click lock" this acts exactly the same as the drag function that you will be familiar with. Rather than programming a separate button, your left button can be used to operate the drag function by holding it down momentarily. At first I wasn't sure whether I would like it. But now I've been using it for a while, I really do like the way it works.

Following these instructions on using Vista's own mouse properties to enable you to use the drag function on your trackball.

Click Start > Control Panel > Mouse > then check "Turn on ClickLock" . You can click on "settings" and adjust how long you need to hold down the button to enable the drag function.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11

Whereas I am able to type, it would take me a month of Sundays to type by hand a complex and large document such as the information contained on my website. This is where speech recognition software comes into its own. I have been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for 12 years now and have found it to be incredibly accurate, the software just keeps getting better. I use speech recognition software every day as I spend a lot of time on various community forums. I've also used it to compile all of the information that is included on my websites. It comes in very handy when I am using my computer in bed, not only can I dictate documents and forum contents, but I can also use it to operate my desktop, for example opening programs such as Photoshop and websites like Google. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a program that is at the top of my must have pieces of software, if you have problems typing then this software is for you

Dragon NaturallySpeaking will work in numerous applications including MSN messenger, Skype, Yahoo, Google and other major search engines. I use it in chat rooms and on forums as well. DNS takes no more than 30 min to install and train, it works almost flawlessly from the word go. There are lots of commands that you can use when writing documents or using your desktop, I'm not going to get into what commands you can use, all the information is included in Dragon and an informational panel will pop-up every time you open Dragon so it shouldn't take you long to get used to which commands to use where and when.

When you are using Dragon make sure that you haven't got too much background noise, use a good quality microphone and make sure that you speak clearly and not too fast, if you follow these basic rules then you will find that it will work almost 100% of the time and make hardly any mistakes.

As good as Dragon NaturallySpeaking is, it isn't always going to work flawlessly when used to dictate on message boards and forums. You'll find that dictation will be perfectly okay, however when it comes to using commands to make correction to words, you may well find that it just doesn't work properly. I find that I can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to write my messages, but if I want to make amendments and try and select a word, sometimes it will select a portion of the word and not all of it, I often end up making corrections manually using the keyboard.

From my experience YouTube and Dragon NaturallySpeaking just don't mix. Nine times out of 10 when I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking within YouTube, my PC completely crashes

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 requires that you use some kind of input audio device. I have used all sorts of microphones from headsets to desktop microphones. Most worked extremely well but you are probably best off using a headset microphone. For Dragon to work to its full potential, you need to make sure that the microphone is kept in the same position from your mouth at all times. If you fail to do this, you will find dragon will make mistakes. There are so many headset on the market you could spend hours choosing one. I have tried various headsets and found most of them to work extremely well. As for the prices of these headsets, you could pay up to £100 for some of them.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 standard microphone headset

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 when bought completely new in a box comes with a headset microphone. It's quite basic with an adjustable headband which means if you're like me and have a large head the microphone headset will still fit comfortably. The microphone element itself is on the end of an adjustable flexible boom which can be pushed out of the way of your mouth. Even though I have got some fairly expensive microphones that work exceptionally well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, I found that the microphone that comes with Dragon works as well as any microphone. So unless you actually want a microphone with quality headphones, I think you will be wasting your time purchasing a headset microphone when the ones that come with Dragon works perfectly okay. Check out my opinion and review on various microphone headsets

Windows 7 Speech Recognition

Vista now has its own speech recognition as standard. Because I am a Dragon NaturallySpeaking user, I really haven't experimented much with it. But going by the short time I did play with it, I was extremely impressed. Accuracy really wasn't any different to Dragon and the commands are very similar. So if speech recognition is important to you and you haven't yet purchased a copy of Dragon, I would advise you to have a play with Vista speech recognition, it might save you a pretty penny

Technology for Severely Disabled People

For people with extreme disabilities there is technology available that can help them to use not only the computer, but just about everything else in your home. This technology is called Possum and is a lifeline to many thousands of disabled people. I myself use it when I'm in bed and could not do without it. You can use this technology to control televisions, videos, lights, curtains, you name it. You can also control your computer which is obviously why this section is on this page. I have included a link which you can find on the left hand menu. This is obviously a UK-based website so anybody outside the UK may have to find similar technology in their own country. Depending on where you live in the UK, you may be able to have this technology fitted completely free. The people at Possum will be able to help you here.

http://www.possum.co.uk/

Computers Supplied by Charities

Computers can be an absolute godsend to anyone who spends long periods of time at home. If you are unable to afford to buy a computer, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. There is a website called "Computers for the Disabled" they are able to supply good-quality reconditioned PCs for the Disabled, the housebound Disabled centres & home users. Use the link below to go to their website.

http://www.cftd.co.uk/