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Accessibility for People with Limited Mobility?

Posted by Cliff on from the hands-free-computing dept.

rscrawford asks: "There's an older woman at my church who suffers from advanced Parkinson's Disease. She's in good spirits but misses being able to communicate with her children who live far away. Because she she has advanced tremors and her muscles have atrophied, she can no longer use a keyboard; and because her voice quavers, she probably wouldn't be able to use voice recognition software. Now, I've seen tools for people who are vision impaired or who have cognitive impairments, but what about people like this woman? Are there any tools that would help her use her computer to e-mail her children?"

2 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. video phone by hoggoth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Forget email, set her up with Packet8 or Vonage VOIP with a videophone, and get her kids the same. Set up a big speed dial to dial her kids.

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  2. Have you tried voice recognition or just assuming? by gothzilla · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Dragon voice recognition software might surprise you. When I worked at a school district I got a pc set up for a disabled student. He could barely speak and unless you'd spent a few months with him learning to listen you couldn't understand him. Dragon picked up on it just fine and after a few weeks of training it was working beautifully. This was a number of years ago so I imagine the software has only gotten better.