February / March 2005

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Providing beginning communicators with effective communication systems is a challenge to all team members. From those who are prelinguistic, nonsymbolic and nonverbal to those at the point of acquiring and using 50 word/symbol vocabularies, it is essential to consider multi-modal approaches to AAC intervention. These beginning communicators are individuals of any age, who may not have intentional communication; who may use presymbolic modes; who may be starting to use symbols for gaining attention, requesting or rejection; or those who may even use simple technologies for interactions.

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Whenever I open the Closing The Gap Resource Directory, I am transported back to the first time I entered a Closing The Gap exhibit hall. The year was 1987, and just inside the door I was stopped in my tracks, for there in front of me was a man using exactly the tool I was imagining for a student...and I didn’t even know it existed! It was the coolest tool I had ever seen!

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A debilitating condition, congenital disability or traumatic injury does not mean an individual cannot strive for great accomplishments or independence. Today, assistive technology offers much more than ever before, whether low tech or high tech. Technology is integrated into daily living for all of us –whether disabled or not.

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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that Individual Educational Program (IEP) teams consider assistive technology devices and services for all students with disabilities as a special factor in the development, revision, and review of student IEPs. This requirement has presented a challenge to educators who are unfamiliar with the range of assistive technology solutions available to support student access to the curriculum and to educators who do not utilize a defined decision-making process for considering a student’s assistive technology needs.

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Arlington, VA Public Schools A speech-language pathologist (SLP), teacher of the hearing impaired, and an audiologist were given the charge of developing a primarily oral program for students with hearing impairment in the Arlington, Virginia, Public Schools. A class of three students with hearing impairment, ages four to five, was the focus of the program. In February, a fourth student with hearing impairment, age six, entered.

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Every once in awhile, we like to tell you about amazing free Macintosh software. This is one of those times. In these days of tight budgets and ever increasing prices, we thought helping you save a few greenbacks might be a good thing for our karma.

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As we continue this two-part description of the features of scan and read systems, we’d like to remind you that our focus is on the products that have the scan engine built in, not all products which can perform as text readers. Products that we’ll be using as examples are Kurzweil 3000 version 8 (WIN), Kurzweil 3000 version 2 (MAC), Read & Write version 7, Read & Write Gold version 7, Scan and Read Pro version 6.01, Test Talker version 1.1, Word Smith, and WYNN (What You Need Now) version 3.5. Keep in mind, we are not recommending any one product over another one, this is in relation to becoming more informed of existing features to take into consideration when selecting a scan and read system.

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Abstract Two electronic travel aids (ETAs) that are currently available for use by persons who are blind for travel purposes were reviewed in this article. At the request of the American Printing House for the Blind, the author evaluated both devices and determined that each had certain inherent advantages and disadvantages when compared to the other. The article is an overview of both devices and argues a need for objective study by other professionals in the field.

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Screen magnification software has come a long way, baby. No longer limited to bitmapped stretched text on the screen, today’s offerings give smooth fonts, customizable color and can include integrated speech for text, menu and dialog box reading. The three major contenders in the North American market for PCs are, in alphabetical order, Lunar/Lunar Plus, MAGic/MAGic with speech and ZoomText Magnifier Only/Magnifier/Reader.

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QualiCHESS is the new module of the software platform QualiWORLD.

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VisuAide announces the launch of the Victor Reader Classic + with recording, an advanced new DAISY player with a recording function, so users can take vocal notes simply and efficiently.

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Freedom Scientific, Learning Systems Group has introduced TestTalker 1.2. TestTalker is a software solution designed to help individuals be more successful with taking tests, completing worksheets and studying. TestTalker 1.2 will now be available with French and Spanish language capabilities.

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MacSpeech announces the immediate availability of its new Transcription Professional Solution featuring the Olympus DS-4000 Digital Voice Recorder. This solution provides the greatest ease of use of any Transcription Solution, yet will meet the needs of the most demanding professional with features like a four function side slide switch, more than 11 hours of recording time, automatic backup of recordings, and multiple user profiles to support environments where recorders are exchanged amongst professionals.

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Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc., announces that the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the umbrella agency overseeing schools for the children of service men and women stationed at various military bases in the U.S. and around the world, has chosen Kurzweil 3000 as one of the tools to support the Learning Disabilities Program in their schools throughout the U.S., Europe and the Pacific.

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Several interested persons have asked whether the Jogger is available for trial use through the Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Lending Library. If you are not familiar with the PA Assistive Technology Lending Library, it allows persons with disabilities to try out assistive technology devices in their own environment before purchase. The library inventory ranges from highly complex devices to less complicated devices.

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IntelliTools, Inc. announces the launch of its IntelliShare Classroom Activity Exchange. This powerful, free service provides an on-line venue where the rapidly growing community of IntelliTools Classroom Suite users and authors can contribute and download activities.

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MacSpeech announces it has released a new training video on CD for its popular iListen program. “iListen Watch and Learn – Getting Started” was created by speech recognition Dan Newman <www.sayican.com>. The training CD will allow users to learn iListen quickly and easily, teaching them how to get up and running, how to teach iListen to recognize their voice more accurately, dictate numbers and names, and much more.

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GW Micro released Window-Eyes version 5.0 on January 19, 2005. The new version rounds out its support of Microsoft Word, creating the most thorough and stable support for the popular word processing program. Window-Eyes 5.0 also offers a complete color dictionary, and a lease-to-own program that allows a user to buy a full copy of Window-Eyes over several months.

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The One Write Company is very proud to introduce the Cyrano Communicator – a portable, self-contained communication device for people with speech impairment.

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