Hi Listers,
I am working with a young man who is severely
mobility impaired. He uses a discover switch that he activates via a switch
mounted to his wheel chair. He has no reliable muscles that he can control. The
switch is activated by swinging his head into it. He is also legally blind. He
sees some shadows and indicates that he sees letters larger than three inches,
though it is difficult to verify. When he uses a computer his aid provides
auditory feedback. He is currently making very limited use of the computer. He
uses a dynavox for an aug com device. I would like to try to help him gain more
independence by adding a screen reader to his repertoire. I have contacted Don
Johnston, and they assured me that the Discover switch would not work with a
screen reader for the following reasons, the Discover Switch holds the focus
when running TSR ( and there is no other way to run it), it is self voicing, and
it traps the keyboard. I have not tried to make it work.
I talked with the folks at Intellitools and they
think the Click-it software may work because you can select hot keys avoiding
keyboard conflicts. They did not know if Click-it would control the focus or not
and suggested I try it. I am in the process of finding someone who has Click-it
to do just that. Does anyone out there have any successful experiences
using switching.scanning software with screen readers?
Bill Hersh
Regional Engineer
Massachusetts Commission for the Blind