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Reply To: | St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List |
Date: | Sun, 8 Jul 2001 16:14:12 -0400 |
Content-Type: | TEXT/PLAIN |
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Gary,
Why not check out Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
They have a huge ongoing project on telephone accessibility. The URL is
http://trace.wisc.edu.
Hope this helps.
Matt Conaway
On Sun, 8 Jul 2001, Gary Peterson wrote:
> Hello Listers,
>
> I work as a Consumer Advocate with the San Andreas Regional
> Center in California. I am totally blind and have Cerebral Palsy
> both from birth. I use an electric wheelchair with assistants.
> I have reasonably good use of my hands and the rest of my upper
> body.
>
> The majority of my time is spent out in the field traveling in my
> van. My biggest challenge is being able to use my cell phone
> totally independent of others. Right now, I have to depend on my
> staff to place all my calls for me because The buttons are way
> to small with very little spacing in between. Although my
> overall spasticity is relatively mild, there are lots of times
> when I end up losing calls while in the process of being handed
> the phone. My hand jumps, and I end up unintentionally hitting
> 1 or more buttons. Occasionally I even loose the phone
> altogether.
>
> The mottle is a Motorola 02044 I think it may be from a group of
> phones that the agency has recycled. From looking at phones of
> colleagues and friends, the brand doesn't seem to matter. They
> all seem to have the same draw backs across the bored.
>
> The other issue for me is finding a service provider with a voice
> menuing option. Others who are totally blind and use cell phones
> pagers etc, have told me they all face the same issue of having
> to rely on others to do their programming for them.
>
> So my question would be what are my alternatives here? Is this
> an issue for lots of you out there? Any recommendations of web
> sites or groups addressing these issues? Not only am I trying to
> resolve these issues on a work level, but somewhere down the
> road, I would like my own cell phone and or pager. However if
> the technology is truly as limited as it appears, I don't want to
> make the investment at this time.
>
> Please feel free to pass this along to as many sources as you
> think might be of help here. If there's something better out
> there, I would like to be able to go to my agency with it ASAP.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Gary Peterson
>
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