`The need to access computers has become one of the primary civil rights issues facing people with disabilities,” says Jim Fruchterman of Arkenstone, a non-profit body providing computer systems for the blind, .
He is one of around 3 500 people with disabilities and their carers gathering with computer programmers, designers and technologists in Los Angeles this week for the 14th international conference on technology and people with disabilities, hosted by California State University.
Schoolchildren can increase their awareness of the problems faced by the disabled in a virtual reality project being developed by Ottawa University with Nortel Canada.
The Disability Awareness Virtual Reality Scheme has simulated life in a wheelchair, in consultation with 15 pupils with cerebral palsy or spina bifida who attend mainstream schools.
Software users experience the frustration of trying to manoeuvre through tricky doorways or reach a drinking fountain. The software will be made freely available to schools via the Internet.
What does a Picasso sound like? A “video sonification software” package voice translates images from a standard miniature “eye-ball” personal computer camera into different sounds, allowing people to “see with their ears”. Every shape and colour has its own sound. With practice users can comprehend complex or moving scenes.
Visually impaired computer users will be able to run their fingers over the screen and “feel” its content with the MouseCAT from Haptic Technologies, . It converts images to pressure via small pads which press on to the fingertips, and can be used in conjunction with a speech convertor to read out text.
Perhaps the most futuristic technology is the Cyberlink Mindmouse from Leapfrog Technologies of Arizona. Three sensors in a headband detect voltages across the forehead which vary with brainwave activity, letting a user move a cursor by thinking about it.
“Prisoners in their own thoughts” is a description of some sufferers from Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s or dementia, used by Eva Lindh of the Department of Informatics at Umea University, Sweden. Such people often lose the ability to use language but retain other faculties.
She is working on Charm, a theoretical model, which proposes combining a number of cutting- edge technologies such as bio-physiological monitors being developed by defence agencies to monitor soldier health on the battlefield; body or garment computers; and systems to recognise emotions from facial expressions.
The resultant “embodied systems” would sit “on the axis between doing and being”. A safe environment for children with disabilities or serious health problems to make friends,
Tapped In has been set up by a team from SRI International, a non-profit research body formerly attached to Stanford University.
Teresa Middleton of SRI says children and young people who are critically or chronically ill – for example with cancer or cystic fibrosis – are often isolated from other children.
“`While they may get support from parents and doctors, the kind they get from their peers is irreplaceable. If one child is having rotten side effects from chemotherapy, the person she or he will trust is another who has gone through the same thing.”
Another Net-based support system is the DO-IT online mentoring programme developed by the University of Washington. New students with disabilities receive support by e-mail from former students or professionals who have beaten the same problems.
A United Kingdom team is demonstrating a robot arm which can help people with severe disabilities perform everyday tasks such as eating and drinking, applying make- up, shaving or brushing their teeth.
The “Handy 1” robot was developed by the Centre for Rehabilitation Robotics at Staffordshire University’s School of Art and Design. It consists of a chair base with a series of mains-powered or battery-powered arm attachments which have five degrees of movement: a rotating base, a shoulder, an elbow, and two wrist movements.