Computers Helping Disabled People

Computers are fantastic, I love them! Computers can save a disabled person's sanity in my opinion. I hope that after reading this page you will understand how important computers are, and how they can change your life for the better. Believe it or not, I didn't want anything to do with computers a few years ago, I just couldn't see the point. Nowadays, the computer is my life. It enables me to communicate with friends and family. It has enabled me to have an interest that doesn't involve asking other people for help. If you are disabled and have never used a computer, read what I've got to say and have a think whether or not your life could be improved by owning a computer

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 10

Please note that DNS doesn't work very well in Mozilla Firefox

Another programme which I couldn't do without is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Dragon Naturally is a speech recognition program that is used by all sorts of people, not just disabled folk. You can literally control your computer by voice, I rarely touch my keyboard any more.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking will work in virtually any application. I use it on MSN messenger and Skype (when sending messages). It will also work on most, if not all search engines. It will also work in chat rooms, not that I use them very often. It will work on forums and message boards. Occasionally, you may find that it doesn't work 100%. For instance, it may not let you put punctuation in. I haven't found this in many instances, only the very occasional forum or message board. Anyway, it doesn't really matter if you lose the punctuation on forums and message boards, people can always understand what you're saying.

It does take a bit of getting used to because you have to remember so many commands. Once you have mastered how to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you will never go back to using the keyboard again to write letters or e-mails, I promise you that.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 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. From my experience, this isn't really necessary as the cheaper headsets work just as well. If you purchase a new version of Dragon, you will get a headset included. I am actually using a plantronic DSP 400. This is a superb headset, they work like a dream on Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

I have found it DNS to the quite remarkable when it comes to accuracy. It will only work properly if you train the programme to recognise your voice pattern. Training takes about 15 minutes and Dragon normally works extremely after just a short period of training. If you make sure that you save each session when shutting down your computer, the speech accuracy will get better within time.

One very important factor must be taken into account when using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Any background noise such as radios, televisions etc can cause drag them to do weird things. You may find that the pointer is jumping around the screen and closing or opening programmes, putting in tax that you haven't actually dictated or even closing down pages even if you haven't finished. So if you are watching television, or listening to the radio, don't have the appliances on too loud. You must also remember to put Dragon to sleep if you decide you're going to have a conversation on the phone or with someone in your house. Remember that whatever you say when it is awake will be added to your content. If you spent quite a long time dictating the document and then suddenly mess it all up, it can be very frustrating.

If you are dictating a document then I would strongly advise you to save your work intermittently. There is nothing worse than spending a couple of hours working on a document only to lose it all when you've almost finished. Sometimes Dragon crashes, this is another good reason to save work every now and then, at least if you've done this, you haven't lost the whole lot.

Vista Speech Recognition

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.

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/