awesomeassistivetechnology

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Even just the pricing on switches here is amazing! They look to be 3.5 mm connectors, so this could also be used with a usb switch interface or other accessibility tools supporting 3.5 mm switch input. So, this could be great for disabled gamers on PC, too.

Sweet, more gaming accessibility! The kit is $100 USD and the switches can work not just for the Xbox controller but for other things you use switches on.

Enjoy!

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Interesting. The shortest height notch is 39 in, so not a good choice for me. But maybe for some.

[Image: A walking cane with a sort of squiggly, ergonomic, half-moon handle that is gripped more like a walking stick than standard canes. The bottom tip of the cane has a widened surface area for better balance.]

This looks really useful for folks with posture issues, and those with joint issues too! It looks like it lets you put a little more downward pressure on the cane than a typical walking stick—plus it has a wider support at the bottom.

The cane will set you back about $50, including shipping and handling; there’s at least one imitator that’s a bit cheaper.

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This guy is doing some really cool work!  And he’s selling his designs if they look like they could help you out, too!

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing! I currently use Dragon for emails/blogging/etc and LaTeX. And I've been using eye tracking (low cost eye tracker marketed to gamers) with an open source keyboard called OptiKey for writing code and working on the command line. I've experimented with natlink and vocola in the past, but never reached the point of finding them really useful.

One of my biggest challenges with Dragon is that it doesn't cooperate with most code editors. May I ask what what editor you use?

actually does anyone have any tips or product recommendations for chronic joint pain in the hands? i’m a compsci major and not being able to type well REALLY sucks

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

itt ergonomic keyboard

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

I just bought the sickest product ever, telecoil ear hooks. I just put them over my ears, next to my hearing aids, plug them into my phone, and listen to music using the T-coil setting on my hearing aids. The music is playing through my hearing aids, no more headphones required, no more taking my hearing aids out to listen to music and it not being loud enough for me but being so loud everyone can hear my music, no more people talking to me when I’ve headphones in and me taking about 30 seconds to find my hearing aid, put it in and wait for it to turn on before I can hear them. Now I can just change my hearing aid setting with a push of a button and go back to normal hearing and have a conversation.

This is the best thing I’ve ever bought.

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

To answer the original question (because I'm just glad to see people asking, even if it's not in the best place): I have written several several posts on the topic (just look through the archive; I'm on mobile and can't link right now) and would be happy to answer any more specific questions you have after reading those (or any of my) posts.

As an able-bodied person, I'm really glad I followed this blog as it's helped me greatly diminish the ableist attitude that I hadn't even realised I had! I definitely have a lot more work to do, but I'm very grateful that your blog exists and let more representation onto my dash♥ with that being said, I like creating games, and was wondering if you'd have any tips for how to make games more accessible and accomodating for people of all conditions? (Sorry if this ask comes off as pretentious!!!)

You aren’t coming off as pretentious, you’re coming off as entitled.  There are so many blogs out there that offer tips and pointers to people on how to make media more inclusive.

Have we ever once offered to expend our energy in that direction? Or did you feel like we should be grateful that you are even bothering to ask?

If you actually understood anything, you’d understand that we don’t owe you our time, or energy or any explanations. 

It’s incredibly fucking rude for you to come here to a place that has never offered to to be a resource for able bodied people and ask us to do this kind of work for you.

Google exists.  Find a fucking group that focuses on accessibility in gaming.  Go to the disabled and chronically ill people who HAVE OFFERED TO HELP and ask them.

I’m not here for you.  I am here for my fellow chronically ill people.  Feel free to continue following because obviously you have a lot to learn about what we as an oppressed group have to struggle with.  

Admin J

PS It’s going to take A LOT MORE FUCKING WORK than just following a chronic illness JOKE BLOG, to learn how to diminish your ableist attitude.  So I HIGHLY FUCKING DOUBT, you are as enlightened as you seem to think you are. 

I mean lets be real.  You thought this ask was appropriate and probably don’t understand why you’re being yelled at.  So maybe get your head out of your ass and do a little more work, instead of just being a passive listener.

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Y’all, this site looks totally rad!

It focuses on accessibility options in games as well as assistive technology, touching on a bunch of things in between. In addition to blog posts, there’s also a Twitch channel you can check out. And finally, the author is a WoW player, so you’ll find plenty of resources on that.

A mission statement of sorts, from Ability Powered’s Patreon page:

I believe in barrier free worlds.  I believe in thinking outside the box to overcome obstacles.  I believe through video games people can have experiences that we can’t always access in our every day life.  That’s why I started Ability Powered.  In virtual worlds I love that I’m never defined as “the girl in the wheelchair” instead I’m a dragon slayer, a guild leader, or whatever the game defines me as.  I make videos to share this freedom I’ve discovered.  I look at a variety of games and share the accessibility options and settings I find.  This way other disabled gamers can decide if the games have the accessibility options they need.  I try to point out why certain options are needed so developers can better understand why accessibility options are so important.  When I find tough obstacles in a game, I try to find alternative ways to overcome them and share my tips so other disabled gamers can easily bypass them.  

🎮👾🕹

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

The future is here, and it’s hella accessible! (jk, it’s not—but this tech is, at least 😜)

Learn more about Eye Tracking for gaming as well as quick typing with this guest article over at The Geeky Gimp from April at Ability Powered, the IGN of disabled gaming (yeah, this one’s getting its own post soon).

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Here’s a great starter kit for folks who are having trouble with typing for whatever reason. Desi discusses who can benefit from speech recognition software (spoiler: it could be you!) and includes 101 tutorials and software recommendations too.

If you already use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, check out his more advanced tutorials here.

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Haven’t tried all of these, but looks like a good list!

chrome extensions for disabilities masterpost

I have seen a lot of posts on here talking about individual extensions for chrome to help people, but I haven’t seen a place where they’re compiled together. So here you are! font/text

no caps - Makes everything lower case

Open Dyslexic: changes the font to Open Dyslexic and makes it larger. Personal favourite.

Dyslexie: changes the font to dyslexie and allows change to font size and colour (blue). Can be turned off. (Doesn’t seem to work on facebook)

Font Changer: Allows you to change the font on specific website or on everything using a Google Font. I believe you can also upload your own, if there’s a specific font you need.

BeeLine Reader: Uses a gradient so your eye follows along one line to the next

overlays/colour change

Color Overlay - Irlen Filter for Chromebook: Puts a coloured overlay over the screen. can choose colour and opacity. 

Sunglasses: Tints the screen grey to reduce contrast

Desaturate: Removes all colour and makes everything a greyscale

High Contrast: Change contrast or invert colour scheme

Deluminate: Similar to High Contrast, but tries to keep photos in tact

G.lux: Makes the colour of the display change depending on the time of day (also cuts down on blue light so it’s easier to fall asleep)

reduce visual distraction

Readability: Can change things such as margins, colours, etc… as well as reduce visual business

Ad Block Plus: blocks ads. What more needs to be said?

FlashControl: Stops flash animations running by themselves

Hide GIFS: Allows you to keep GIFS from displaying

Text Mode: Loads pages in black/white, covers images, with text only.

audio

SpeakIt!: Reads small section of highlighted text aloud

Chrome Speak: Reads small section of highlighted text aloud

Announcify: Reads full web pages. Warning: may stop in the middle of text or not read for the full thing.

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Lads, I just bought a new wheelchair and I have to tell the world about it because I’m so excited, I can’t wait for it to get here, everyone needs to see it!

Ahem.

It’s called the Zinger Chair.

Here’s a picture of it:

It’s an electric wheelchair that’s controlled by the levers on the sides (so yes, you do need two hands to operate it, just like a manual). It’s only 40 pounds and can be folded down to fit into any trunk. The creators/managers all seem to be wheelchair users. I personally talked to one on the phone who told me the features he uses.

You don’t understand, I’ve been in New York City for almost four months now and it’s been incredible and in that time, I’ve wheeled my manual chair about 300 miles (there are times I’m going up to 40 blocks a day) and I am so sore and so bruised and so tired and it’s going to s n o w soon and even though the city won’t get nearly as much snow as upstate, it’s still not going to be fun, but I’ve always been afraid to get a big, bulky, electric chair because I don’t want to:

A.) Completely give up my autonomy.

B.) Have a 500 pound electric chair run out of power and have to figure out how the heck I’m getting it and me home.

But this chair, this chair, lads…

This chair can get me all the way from my apartment down the island to Times Square and into Amorino for the world’s best waffles/gelato/hot chocolate before it even considers running out of power. And it only takes 3 hours to fully charge AND if for some reason, something happens, it can be folded up and put into any NYC cab and I’m just so, so, excited. NYC is filled with so many hills that I’ll now be able to go up/down without straining myself. I’ll be able to take the M5 down Riverside and still get to the center of the island without heaving and huffing and sweating. I just really, really, hope it all works out!

Note: Absolutely none of this is sponsored. I’m just really excited about this wheelchair. The Amorino part isn’t sponsored either but seriously, you should all go to Amorino at some point in your lives, I should stop going to Amorino because at this point, I go once a week and that is what we call Unhealthy. But I don’t care because life is short and Amorino is good. And so is this wheelchair (hopefully).

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

This is so cool! Obviously not really usable in its current form, but so much potential!

Good job, SparkFun!

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

Review of the Walk Aid Scooter

A bit over six months ago I got a new mobility aid. I think it’s time for a review. (As always, this is not in any way a sponsored post.  I purchased my scooter myself at market price.)

Basics: What is it? Two-wheeled scooter with a bicycle seat and handlebars with brakes. I will refer you to the company’s website for pictures.

Keep reading

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

So, I am not your follower, don't have a hearing impairment, and I stumbled on this post because I follow the assistive technology tag. But, I just took a whole semester class on assistive technology, and I'm actually using speech to text software right now to write this post. And I feel a little bad that this post only has 6 notes. (Because I have often had a horrible time finding help when I was looking for assistive technology myself…)

Anyway, those disclaimers aside, I can tell you a few things.

First, the word "tablet" can mean a lot of different things. Anything from a $100 android tablet that can barely were run a web browser to a $5000 Windows tablet computer capable of doing video processing would count as a tablet. But there is a big divide down the middle of the tablet selection, and what you choose does make a big difference for your software options. Basically, you have to choose if the tablet runs a mobile operating system (iOS or Android) or a desktop operating system like Windows. (I don't think Apple makes any tablets that run the full OS X, but I could be wrong about that.) If you have the budget for it, going with a full desktop OS will generally give you more processing power (which is important!) and more software options.

On Windows, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the current best speech to text software on the market. The problem with that is that it is speaker dependent recognition. That is, it creates a separate profile for each person using the software. That's not a big deal if your grandpa is sitting down and having a conversation with one person at a time. He would just make a profile for each person he regularly talks with, and load up that profile at the beginning of the conversation. But it's going to be really hard (if not impossible) to use in a large group of people.

(In fact, I suspect you won't find anything that works in a large group of people. The problem of how to just identify multiple voices in a recording is really hard, and computer science hasn't really solved that one yet :-( Microphone placement would also be a challenge in a large group of people.)

Dragon is available in multiple languages, but you would have to buy a separate copy of the software for each language, which could get expensive depending on how many languages you want to support.

Windows Vista and later also have some built-in speech recognition tools. I've never found the dictation recognition (that is, when you're just dictating a document) to be good enough to be very useful for text entry. Depending on how much hearing your grandpa has, he might be able to get enough information from the recognition to be helpful, but I suspect it would still be tricky. I would really recommend going with Dragon over the built-in tools. The accuracy is better, and it's going to be less frustrating for everyone involved.

One other thing you can play with on desktop is Google's speech recognition tools. This works as long as you have a reliable Internet connection. Just open up Google docs in Chrome, make a new document, and find the voice typing option in the tools menu. This has the advantage of being speaker-independent, which would make it easier to use with many people. It's still not going to do a good job with multiple people talking to it at once, though.

On mobile, I can only really talk about Android. Google's speech recognition tools are built in to various parts of the android operating system. They generally require you to either tap a button to begin listening to your speech or to say a call phrase like "okay Google." I've never gotten as good of recognition accuracy on my android device, but I do wonder about how microphone quality effects things. Regardless of what tablet you use, I would definitely look for a good quality external microphone. If a conversation partner is willing to wear a headset, that's ideal. If your tablet has a USB port, there are loads of USB headset options. Bluetooth should be an option on just about any device (more expensive, but no wires).

Applications on android can use Google's speech recognition framework, so you might find an app designed to facilitate conversation for people with hearing impairment.

Dragon has a subscription-based app for android. I've never messed with it, but their recognition accuracy is generally good, so it might be something to look into.

So, to summarize, the two technologies I would look at first would be Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Google's speech recognition framework. I'm undecided about which one I would rank first versus second. Probably it depends on the exact use case. If the goal is to facilitate short interactions with a large set of people, then I would lean towards Google. If the goal is to help with longer conversations with close family or friends, then I would probably look at Dragon first. But, like I said, I don't have hearing impairment, so take this all with more than one grain of salt. (I use speech to text software because of my physical disability.)

Also, just a couple other thoughts coming from the assistive technology course I took last semester. 1. If your grandpa is interested in medical intervention, he could talk to his doctor about a cochlear implant. People who lose their hearing later in life (and, in particular, grow up with spoken language) often have very good results with modern cochlear implants.

2. If he has any visual difficulties (also super common with aging), be sure to look in the accessibility settings of whatever device you choose and adjust text sizes/colors, mouse pointer size/shape/color, and any other relevant settings for his comfort.

3. Depending on the exact use case, some sort of a stand for the tablet might be super useful. Holding something like that up can get tiring really quickly. A case with a shoulder or neck strap to prevent accidental drops might also be a good idea (think of the strap on a camera). With any assistive technology device, positioning and durability are things to consider.

Once again, just my super geeky thoughts. Take them with a grain of salt.

Do I have any followers with hearing impairments?

I’m doing some research on apps and technology for my grandfather, and I was wondering if anyone has recommendations. 

My grandfather’s been dealing with some level of hearing loss his whole life, originally stemming a near-lethal case of measles when he was a child, and exacerbated by scarlet fever when he was a young man. Thanks to the marches of time (and age-related hearing loss), hearing aids really cutting it anymore, and social situations are increasingly tough for him. I’ve finally gotten him to admit that he could use some help, and now I’m determined to figure out what the best help would be. 

So if any folks with hearing impairments are reading right now, what tech are you actually using? Are there any brands of tablets, particular speech-to-text apps, or other tools you find particularly useful? The plan is to buy my grandpa a tablet and set it up with apps & adaptations, and then learn how to use everything, so that I can teach him. Obviously, I’m doing my own research as well, but I’d really appreciate any personal suggestions, particularly for things with good multilingual support. Thanks a ton! 

[awesomeassistivetechnology]

For structures that have no entry steps, ConvertaStep also makes ramps of three sizes that come in a manual as well as automatic version.

(via ConvertaStep | Wheelchair Accessibility | Ramps | Convertastep - Freedom In Mobility)

This welcome mat converts into a fully accessible wheelchair ramp. Beautiful and functional design. I want it.