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Adaptive Technology in Universities and Colleges

What exactly is Adaptive Technology?

Adaptive technology is hardware or software that allows someone to access and manipulate either print or electronic information. This can mean anything from reading a textbook to participating in an on-line chat room. People who cannot access or manipulate information in the usual way use these devices.

Although this presentation is going to focus on the devices that can be used, it is important to remember that when electronic information is created and made available, it is important that it be presented in a way that is usable by people who are blind, low vision or learning disabled. The most obvious example is on a web site. An inaccessible web site cannot be used by even the most sophisticated adaptive technology. Simple features like "Alt-Tags" in graphics and keyboard commands that duplicate mouse clicks can go a long way to making a web site accessible.

Adaptive Technology in the ideal Computer Lab

In 1976, I was employed by the University of Colorado’s disabled student services office. This was the middle ages of computer technology. There were no PCs. There was no cable TV. Some people still used dial phones and calendars were kept on paper. Blind people thought talking books and paper braille were the only ways to read and most low vision people used hand held magnifying glasses. People with learning disabilities were doing their best to compensate in any way they could.

While I was at the University in Boulder, the campus received one of the first six Kurzweil reading machines. The computer was a Data General mini computer. The system cost $50,000. This was the first computer that many people on that campus had actually touched, blind or sighted. The system was placed in the library. I am not sure if there was a computer lab. If there was it was not for regular students but for serious programmer types.

Times have changed. Now everyone seems to have a computer. Many homes have more than one computer. In fact, today my husband and I are both telecommuting and we are each working on our own computer. This helps keep us from killing each other. The blind, low vision and learning disabled students who are coming to your campus probably are using adaptive technology at home or they have used it in their high school or previous university or college. They are going to expect that they will have this technology available to them on campus.

In the early days it was accepted that students would have a special place on campus to use computers that were equipped with adaptive technology. This has changed. Now that there are computer labs and libraries equipped with computers for the students and faculty to use, these labs and libraries need to be accessible to your students who need alternative ways to access print.

This presentation will show you how easy it can be to make your computers usable by your blind, low vision and learning disabled students.

Let’s start with a brief description of the four groups of software products you will need to know something about.

Screen readers

A screen reader is a TSR. This means it will stay loaded in the background to make your normal applications talk. The actual sound comes from your sound card through either speakers or headphones. This is a step forward from the separate synthesizers that used to be needed. The screen reader is able to determine what needs to be spoken as it appears on the screen and it gives you several ways to have the information spoken back to you as you type. You may hear either full words when you press the space bar or every letter you type. The screen reader will work better with some programs than others. It will depend on how close the program follows certain standards. Also screen readers come with scripting for programs that are widely used like MS Word and Internet Explorer. These programs will work almost flawlessly.

Screen enlargement software

These programs also load in the background. Both the widely used screen enlargement packages come in two levels. They can be purchased to just enlarge information on the screen or with an addition of speech to help people with more limited vision. This is not as much speech as in a screen reader and is not enough speech for someone who has no usable vision. These programs come with a collection of features that give you different ways of viewing the screen. They will magnify the information from two to sixteen times. As you can imagine, if you make the information too large, you greatly diminish the usability of the product. You can also change the cursor to make it easier to follow and you can change the background and foreground colors.

Optical Character Recognition products

OCR products are available for people who are blind and low vision as well as for people with learning disabilities. Originally people with learning disabilities used the blindness products but recently new products have been developed for people who can see perfectly well but have difficulties processing information. OCR packages use standard scanners to bring a picture of the printed page into the computer. The text is then recognized and read aloud as well as displayed in large print. The document can be edited and changed and brought into another program such as a word processor. The learning disability products add features for writing such as word prediction and include other features to help people study and retain information.

Braille translation software

You may not have many students who use braille. If you do you will need a braille embosser and a translation program. The braille translator will convert computer text that has been stored or created, into usable grade 2 braille. This is the standard braille that is used in the United States. Math will also need to be translated into Nemeth Code before it is embossed. Braille translation software makes it easy for someone who knows very little about braille to produce braille.

The majority of adaptive products have been developed for the PCs. There are very few products available for the Macintosh systems. There is one screen reader, one large print package, a braille translator and a few learning disability products. All of these Macintosh products are not as well developed as the PC products. This may change in the future but I don’t hold out much hope.

Hardware you should know about

Although you will be off to a good start by adapting your lab with the appropriate software, there are some hardware devices you should know about. You will find students using these devices even if you don’t provide them.

Video Magnifiers

Video Magnifiers have been around since the mid seventies. They are somewhat low tech but some high tech features have been added in the recent years. A video magnifier has three parts. The text, photo or object that the person wants to see is placed on a table that moves in both a side to side and front to back motion. Above this table is a camera similar to a video camera. Above the camera is a monitor or television. The user can control the size, focus, brightness and polarity of the image. Some of these systems can magnify up to 60 times. Many of these devices have automatic focus. Video magnifiers come in versions that display in color or just in black and white. Most people who just need to read text use the black and white unit because it is much less expensive. Most people will read with white text on a black background to decrease glare.

There are some portable devices that are used for looking at blackboards and other objects at a distance.

Electronic notetakers

This is a product line that is about to expand greatly. Blind people were actually the first people to have access to a portable device. The VersaBraille existed long before the PC or laptop. This was the first device to use a refreshable braille display. This display uses small pins, six or eight pins for each braille cell, to display braille text. This technology is very expensive because it is so hard to build.

Now there are several notetakers using various combinations of keyboards and output. There are units with QWERTY keyboards and with braille keyboards and devices that use speech and refreshable braille for output. Students use these devices for taking notes in class and organizing their lives. They are becoming more and more common. The devices with refreshable braille can be used as braille displays on a PC.

Braille displays

Braille displays are used as an output device for a PC. They are usually placed under the keyboard. This is the only way a deaf blind person can use a PC. Braille displays are very important when document format is critical such as in some kinds of programming. A braille display can make a braille user feel much more connected with what they are reading or writing. Just as you will find the ideal access for a low vision person is large print with speech support, you will find that speech with braille support is ideal for a totally blind person.

Braille embossers

Braille embossers are used to produce braille as well as raised line graphics. No matter how important electronic information is, there is often nothing like good old fashion paper. If you have braille readers on your campus, you will need a braille embosser. They range greatly in speed and price. Talk to someone who can help you make the right choice. Don’t buy more than you need but don’t be stuck waiting for hours for your braille to be embossed. You will want to put your embosser away from the computer lab because it will be noisy. You can buy sound enclosures but they only diminish the noise, they don’t make it go away.

What should you buy?

Before you decide what to purchase talk to your students. Find out what they are using or have used. If you purchase something they are familiar with it will greatly reduce the amount of training and support you and your staff will need to do.

Make sure you set aside part of your budget for training both at the time of purchase and in the future. New versions of the software will be released and your staff will change.

Purchase Software Maintenance Agreements on your products so it will be easy for you to remain current.

When making purchasing decisions, look at site license pricing. If you need more than three seats or you think you will, it may be cost effective to purchase a site license.

Purchase from a local vendor who may be able to offer and support a wider product line than a manufacturer. Manufacturers are not likely to offer you the best price.

You may want to look at products that can be installed on the network and used on any computer in the lab. The computer with adaptive technology can be used by sighted people as well.

Give your staff some instruction on how to work with disabled people. This is more than just showing someone how to use the technology. Provide your staff with information on how to treat a guide dog, how to be a sighted guide and how to explain the surroundings to the student or faculty member using the technology.

I think you will find the experience of having computer users who are blind, low vision or learning disabled a good one if you are well prepared.

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