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Piecing together the technology puzzle
School Years: Access and Information Technologies and Adaptive or Assistive Technology
Brian Conway & Michelle Knight
(Presented by Brian Conway)
Co-ordinator, Student Support Service
VisionEd
Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children
361-365 North Rocks Road
North Rocks
NSW 2151
Australia
0298711233
The purpose of this presentation is:
There is a substantial use of video and photograph images in this presentation which, although not able to be produced in an accessible format for people with significant vision impairment, will be fully described. The photographs will be included in the proceedings but, unfortunately, the video images cannot. All PowerPoint slides used in the presentation have been produced and distributed in braille to those braille users present.
This presentation will take the form of a case study encompassing more than 10 years. The subject, Toby, is a young man to whom I currently provide our Student Support Service at his school in a suburb of Sydney.
I tell his story and use his first name with the full support and approval of both Toby and his parents.
Toby’s first three years of life were like that of many other children in Sydney. He was the second son of his parents and he had no disability. When he was three years old, he was strapped into the back seat of his family’s car when another car failed to stop at a “STOP” sign and slammed into the side of Toby’s family’s car. Although nobody else in Toby’s family was badly hurt, Toby received severe head injuries and remained in a comatose state for several weeks. When he recovered Toby was left with little sight, he had hemiplegia which effectively took away the use of his right arm/hand and his cognitive abilities were significantly affected. When he reached school age, Toby attended a special school for students who have vision impairment and additional disabilities.
One of the first issues addressed by his teachers was whether Toby had enough sight to be a print user or if braille would be a more successful medium. After much investigation, trialling of options and discussion with his parents it was decided that braille would be the best literacy option for Toby. However, there emerged an issue of how Toby could produce braille on a braille writer without the use of his right hand. Initially, Toby was taught to use a Perkins Brailler with the uni-manual attachment. Even with constant practice it was apparent that this would inevitably be a slow and inefficient method of braille writing. It would certainly not enable Toby to write at the same pace as his peers, particularly if he was ever to attend a regular school. A better method had to be found.
The teachers at St. Lucy’s School considered that the adoption of a Mountbatten Brailler would have great benefit for Toby if only an effective method of accessing it could be found. Its one-handed operation was considered but, again, its slow operation was a disadvantage. Some lateral thinking was required and it arrived with the design of a custom designed uni-manual keyboard which utilised the five fingers of Toby’s left hand for braille dots 1-5 and using the whole of his less functional right hand to activate dot 6. Needing to find technical assistance to not only develop a keyboard but also to modify a Mountbatten Brailler, the teachers at St. Lucy’s, with the assistance of an Occupational Therapist, created a keyboard prototype out of LEGO!
Quantum Technology, as we all know, is the producer of the Mountbatten Brailler. It also happens to have its office, and research and development premises in Sydney. The teachers of St. Lucy’s contacted Quantum for assistance with a keyboard and with the internal modifications of the Mountbatten Brailler. Thanks to the enthusiasm and skill of the Quantum team a keyboard was designed and manufactured, and the Mountbatten Brailler was suitably modified to enable the keyboard to take effect.
Although most recent comments have been centered on the technology, it should be remembered that Toby’s injuries had had a substantial effect on his ability to learn, remember instructions, and to organise his thoughts. The creation of this customised technology, whilst very valuable, was only a tool which might help Toby’s teachers to help him achieve literacy. Learning the new dot configurations was a major task as Toby had to learn to use different fingers to activate the various braille dots. For anyone, this would be a difficult task; for Toby, with the effects of Acquired Brain Injury, it was a very arduous and time-consuming quest. It took more than a year for Toby’s teachers to feel that he had finally mastered the new configurations.
As Toby’s confidence with the Mountbatten Brailler grew his teachers decided to broaden his options by asking the Robotron company to modify the Eureka braille computer to work with Toby’s existing uni-manual keyboard. This was achieved very quickly and this extra option gave Toby access to the social and recreational features of the Eureka. In the future it would also prove to be of value as the Mountbatten brailler would become less functional in a regular High School environment and the Eureka would take over the note-taking role.
Toby left the comfort of the St. Lucy’s special school environment at the end of 1995 and used his modified Mountbatten Brailler or the modified Eureka at his new school, Pacific Hills Christian School. This, being a regular, inclusive setting, saw the beginning of the involvement of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. Its Student Support Service (Vision Impairment) provided both itinerant teacher support and access to its Adaptive Technology Consultant. In time it became apparent that Toby’s future access to literacy would require different technology. To quote from the Adaptive Technology Consultant report of Michelle Burdis (Knight):
During 1998 Toby has been experiencing difficulties with his technology. On numerous occasions it has been returned to the supplier for repair. Unfortunately, this equipment (the Eureka) is fairly old technology and no longer manufactured.
After much discussion and investigation the decision was made to use a modified Braille Companion. Quantum Technology was, again, approached to modify the note-taker and to manufacture the keyboards. Although it was considered that Quantum had the expertise and experience to produce the modifications and the keyboards, the manufacturers of the Braille Companion, Pulse Data in New Zealand, was approached requesting that the existing warranty on the Braille Companion would be honoured with the modification. To their credit, this warranty guarantee was granted. An Occupational Therapist from the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, Harzita Hashim, worked with Toby to assess the requirements for the keyboard, i.e., the lay-out (Toby’s hand had grown a lot since the design of the original keyboard), & the size of the keyboard. Michelle Burdis ensured that all of the possible keyboard combinations that could be needed to be used by Toby would be physically possible. As a result, two keys rather than one, were placed on the new keyboard for two of the functions and, from these reassessments, the new keyboard was designed.
All was agreed, but where would the money come from for the project? Substantial funds would be required for:
On behalf of Toby’s school I wrote a submission to a department of the Commonwealth of Australia for funding for the project. Not only was money approved for the hardware but it was also approved for the research and development costs. The Association of Independent Schools, which administers the funding programs to independent schools on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia, was greatly supportive of our efforts to fund the project.
This presentation ends with a list of credits thanking all of the organisations that have been involved over the years in working with Toby and his family to help him achieve literacy. I have had some connection with Toby and his family over the last six years and I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from the experience.
But what can we all learn from this?
Overall, it is true that we, as teachers, may, at some time, come across a student for whom neither generic nor even standard adaptive technology will meet the literacy needs of that student. If the resources and the will are there, solutions may be possible.
Hopefully, this case study is an example of how collaboration, a little lateral thinking, and, not least, obtaining the necessary finance, can go a long way towards “Piecing together the technology puzzle”.
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