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» Cursor control at the tip of your tongue

Published 10/13/2007 | Adaptive Tech | Rating:

Steering a wheelchair with your tongue sounds impressive enough. Doing so with your mouth closed and gadget-free is the feat allowed by a tongue-tracking earpiece due on sale later this year.

Typically, quadriplegics must suck or blow into a straw to steer a wheelchair or move a computer cursor. That can be unhygienic and irritating for the user, says Ravi Vaidyanathan, an engineer at the University of Southampton, UK.

Instead, he and Lalit Gupta of Southern Illinois University Carbondale have created a device that identifies a range of different tongue movements with 97 per cent accuracy, using a microphone that sits inside the ear.

» Types of Assistive Technology Products

Published 10/19/2006 | Adaptive Tech | Unrated

Assistive technology products are designed to provide additional accessibility to individuals who have physical or cognitive difficulties, impairments, and disabilities. When selecting assistive technology products, it is crucial to find products that are compatible with the computer operating system and programs on the particular computer being used.

Here are descriptions of the various types of assistive technology products that are currently available on the market today. You may also want to use a tool to identifying the right type of assistive technology that might be useful, then search the catalog of assistive technology products for products compatible with the Windows operating system.

» Switching to a Power Wheelchair

Published 08/18/2005 | Adaptive Tech | Rating:

For many SCI survivors, recapturing independence is your single most significant achievement. You view any concessions to that independence accepting more help, using more or different equipment as giving up, as failure, as the ultimate defeat. But it’s hard to deny the fatigue and pain that may come from years of pushing a manual chair. Switching to a power chair actually could be the way to maintain that independence …

» HeadMaster Plus

Published 02/3/2004 | Adaptive Tech | Rating:

Prentke Romich's HeadMaster Plus™ is a head pointing system that takes the place of a mouse. Just move your head and the cursor moves on the screen. Puff on the tube to make selections. Mouse clicks can also be made by activating an external switch (sold separately) or by dwelling with a dwell software program (sold separately). It is the only head pointing system that tracks both lateral and rotational movement. Also available for HeadMaster is an optional Remote Adapter providing for wireless infrared use and an optional Laptop Adapter.

» Equipment eases adjustment

Published 11/10/2003 | Adaptive Tech | Unrated

by Sharon Britton, Globe Correspondent

Paralyzed from the neck down and still dependent on a respirator, actor Christopher Reeve is nevertheless a man with much work to do. "I can't get down to my office the way I used to," he said in a telephone interview earlier this month from his home outside New York City. "But set up in the corner of my living room - from one station, I'm able to make phone calls, to fax, to return phone calls and to write letters . . . It really is one-stop shopping. It puts me in touch with the world."