Assitive Technology

I found our session with Lori Bailey to be extremely interesting and beneficial for my future career as an educator. I was fascinated with the variety of assistive devices available for use. When I attended community college I went to a similar session, but I was only introduced to I guess "the basic" reading/writing devices. The joy stick all predictive word/sentence assitive devices were all new to me; which I believe to be all extremely resourceful to people with disabilities. The story that really caught my attention was the lady who lived in Europe; I was amazed at how she ran her household all the while being paralyzed and unable to speak. It is so true that we assume too often and quickly that if one can not speak, one can not think. It's so overjoying to see that someone who could be considered in a vegetable state grocery shops and handles all the finacnes! It was humerous to see that her able bodied husband actually functions quite slower on the keyboard then herself- who would have known. I've never been a huge fan of technology, but this session defienelty has me thinking differently; tecnology is making these people's lives and allowing their disability to not stand in the way of living what seems to be an almost normal life via the computer.


I found the most interesting assitive device to be the head controlled wireless computer access. It takes place of a mouse and can be mounted on your computer , glasses, forhead, hat, etc. It then translates natural movements of the user's head into directly proportional movements of the cpomuter mouse pointer, crazy! It basically works as a mouse, but instead of using your hand you use the motion of your head. It enables that user to do such tasks as drawing, play games, graphic works and computer aided design. There's no software needed and it plugs into a USB port, making it easily transportable which is super convientent to the user. They have simialar devices that can be used in the same way, like the device Marie from Europe was using which was a wire attached to her cheek that picked up on her jaw movements and allowed her to surf the web. Now everyone can click away!