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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
Tom NIkola – Ablenet – Switch access for iOS7 www.AbleNetInc.com
Holiday shows are coming on November 29 and December 6
Coming Soon! Assistive Technology Update will now include transcripts! Check our show notes for transcripts of episodes from October 2013 forward: www.AssistiveTechnologyUpdate.com
ANN ARBOR, Mich.: $4.5 million grant to establish research center | Technology | The State http://bit.ly/188yAiO
Tobii Assistive Technology Named CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering Award Honoree – Huntsville News http://bit.ly/1aGEkhx
AgrAbility Virtual NTW – National AgrAbility Project http://bit.ly/1aGDVLN
An iPad for the Holidays—Now What? | BridgingApps http://bit.ly/188vBak
“PUBLIC NOTICEFederal Communications Commission445 http://bit.ly/188uU0H
Response from Bridging Apps about Math question: Panther Connect: http://panthertechnology.com/
App: Gravatarium www.BridgingApps.org
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Transcript follows:
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TOM Denicola: Hi, this is Tom Denicola. I’m the national sales manager for the Environmental Control Division at AbleNet, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.
[Music]WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the Indata Project at Easter Seals crossroads and Indiana with your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Welcome to episode number 130 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on November 22 of 2013.
Our guest today is Tom Denicola, who is with AbleNet, and he’s go to talk to us a little bit about how you can use a switch to access the iPhone, the iPod or anything else running iOS seven. We talk a little bit today about an award that the folks over at Toby assistive technology has one. There is a training opportunity from AgrAbility for farmers with disabilities, and an article called “An iPad for the Holidays. Now What?” Where the folks at BridgingApps talk about how somebody with a disability or a special need might make the most out of an iPad that they’re going to get for Christmas.
We hope that you will check us out online. You can visit our website at www.eastersealstech.com. You can also shoot us a note over on Twitter @indataproject. We really love it when listeners call in and talk to us on our listener line. It’s just a voicemail box. You leave a message, and we might just include your feedback on the show. This time of year, we love to hear what you’re buying loved ones who use assistive technology or what you’re buying yourself for the holiday season that’s your coolest assistive technology gadget. Give us a call 317-721-7124.
WADE WINGLER: That’s right, folks. You’re hearing holiday music. It’s that time of year again. Every year we do our annual Assistive Technology Update holiday shopping episode. On Black Friday, as it’s known in the US, when folks are out enjoying the day after Thanksgiving shopping, we will be having a holiday show. That will be released on November 29. We plan on doing a two-part episode in fact. We’ve got so much interesting stuff to talk about that we’re going to have holiday episodes on November 28 as well as December 6.
We’ve got some interesting guests who are going to talk about all things related to apps, different kinds of gifts for folks who have disabilities and rely on assistive technologies. We even have some holiday hints about how to include people with disabilities anyway that may be a little less intimidating, a little more friendly. We even have some interesting stuff about holiday gifts related to service animals.
So stay tuned, it will come out with your regular Assistive Technology Updateepisode on November 29 and December 6. Happy holidays, and we’re looking forward to sharing our holiday show with you. And before we jump into the main content of the show today, I have another quick announcement.
We are very excited that we’re going to make Assistive Technology Update even more accessible. We’re in the final stages of working out an arrangement with a company who’s going to provide transcripts of our show each week. So for folks who are deaf or hard of hearing, or individuals who really do benefit from having the text transcript of the show, we’re going to be offering those. It’ll either be this show that your hearing or the next show when the caption start rolling in, and we’ve asked the company to go back to the last few of our shows and also provide transcripts of those as well, so if you or somebody else like to get a transcript of Assistive Technology Update, all you need to do is go to our show notes. You can find those at assistivetechologyupdate.com and look down through the episodes.
Each episode has some show notes where we include links and information about our guest. Near the bottom of that, you’re going to see the transcript where you can get the full text reading of everything that was said on Assistive Technology Update. We’re excited to make the announcement. We’re excited to be more accessible, and we’re excited to share our information hopefully with some new listeners who are going to benefit from having those transcript of our shows.
The University of Michigan and Ann Arbor just got a five-year, 4 ½ million dollar grant to establish what’s called the rehabilitation engineering and research Center on technology increasing knowledge, technology optimizing choice. This RERC is set up to work with youth and specialize in technology that relates to tablets and smartphones, video games, computer apps and all those kinds of things, so I’ve got an article here that will tell you a little bit more about what’s happening with that new RERC and give you some information from the director, Michelle Mede, who talks about some of the things that the RERC is going to do. So check our show notes. We’ll have a link.
Congratulations to our friends over at Toby assistive technology. They were named a CES innovations 2014 design and engineering award honoree. Their product was displayed in New York at the CES unveiling, and is going to be in Las Vegas at the big CES show. I love it when some assistive technology companies are acknowledged by the mainstream industry in computer electronics. These folks are looking at what Toby is doing as a Windows 8 solution, access solution for folks who work only going to use eye control. We’ll stick a link in the show notes, you can check out the award that Toby assistive technology has won.
Coming up in mid-December, the National AgrAbility National Training Workshop is going to include an annual web training conference. There’s a series of six webinars happening over the course of three days on December 10, 11th, and 12th. Some of the topics you’re going to find include alternative production systems for farmers with disabilities, the affordable care act for moral Americans, the work of the former veteran coalition, working well with veterans, product liability in the farm equipment industry, and selecting and evaluating farm enterprises for individuals with limitations. I’m going to stick a link in the show notes so that you can participate in these free webinars from the National AgrAbility Project. Check the show notes. Check them out.
Are you considering getting an iPad for somebody with special needs for the holidays? Our friends, Sammy Roman and Kristen Reed, over at BridgingApps have a new article coming out and Parenting Special Needs magazine that’s pretty fascinating. It talks about the basics on accessories for iPads, how to make a plan for using an iPad, and a different app suggestions when you get somebody with a disability and iPad for the holidays. So, in fact, the article is called “An iPad for the Holidays. Now What?” They going to stick a link and our show notes so that you can find the article in Parenting Special Needs magazine and learn more about what the folks at BridgingApps suggest for folks who might be getting an iPad for the holidays.
I got two choices here from the FCC, or the Federal Communications Commission, about how individuals are using telephones and some of the rules related to that. The first one is AT&T has made a request for clarification about the need to meet speech to speech, or STS, calls. This generally is going to be used by folks who are using an assisted operator call. The second one is Sprint requesting a reconsideration for some rules about how Internet protocol captioned telephone services are handled. So I’m going to pop a link to the show notes so that you can learn more about these public comments. It looks like there’s about another, based on the recording of this podcast, another 10 days or so for you to make comment on these. Check our show notes, and I’ll have a link over those press releases.
A few weeks ago, we got a listener question from Chris. He says, “I’m an occupational therapist working in a school system in New York. I’ve been listening to your podcast for a while now. I love it. Many of the ideas have come in handy in my day to day routines at work. I’m currently trying to find a program to allow a child to show their work for my proms on the computer. I found MathPad from Inteletools, but it seems to only work for up to eighth grade math, and it has some compatibility issues. Do you know of a method or similar program that has a grid type format. I’m looking for something like an app called Math Paper from Panther Technology; however, the axis needs to be with a mouse or similar device. Most of the kids at school dictate to a scribe to show work. But I believe that when working out math calculations, there should be a hands-on approach.” Well, I didn’t have a great answer for that myself, so I forwarded that to our friends over at BridgingApps, and Kristen from BridgingApps responded, and she said, “Thank you for the kind words about the podcast and the BridgingApps reviews. I’m glad you mentioned Panther math paper, as that is a math app we recommend for most access purposes. It seems that you’re looking for a program that’s available for a traditional computer and not a mobile device. Because the BridgingApps program focuses mainly on mobile device technology and applications that can be used for special needs, we don’t have a recommendation for the kind of math program that you’re looking for. However, you may be interested in another app called Panther Connect made by Panther Technologies that transforms an iPad into an axis tool in order to access programs on a traditional computer. Perhaps this will be of help in your work with this particular student.” There’s a link here about learning more about Panther connect them and I’ll pop that links to the show notes so that folks can find that.
If you have a question about anything related to assistive technology, please feel free to call our listener line. You can reach us at 317-721-7124. Leave your question there, will do the best we can to help.
Each week, one of our partners tells us what’s happening in the ever-changing world of apps. So here’s an app worth mentioning.
>>JULIE SMITH: THIS is Julie Smith with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. Today I’m going to tell you about an app called Gravitarium. This app was developed by Robert Paul Neagu. It’s available in iTunes for $.99, and it iPad compatible. Gravitarium is an app that can be used across all ages. By touching the iPad screen with one or more fingers, the user can create animated sparkles of light and patterns. By dragging your fingers across the screen, the particles continue to make patterns of light. Once the user has touched the screen softly, then calming music can be heard. This app is great to use to increase attending behavior, development persons who reach and purposeful touch, understanding of cause and effect, fine motor skills, and bilateral hand use. This app can be a go-to app to help a student work on these skills. With its simple interface, visually attractive white patterns and common music, this app is appealing to many students with multiple disabilities, their teachers and their therapists. We’ve used this app with a number of children who have autism. Many were clearly drawn to the visual display on the screen when the app is demonstrated. With that, some started to use the app independently while increasing attending behavior. Others students learned how to use the app with hand over hand assistance, working towards independent use. In one instance, Gravitarium had a calming effect when used one day with a small group of children. To learn more about this app, and others like it, visit BridgingApps.org
WADE WINGLER: Today on Assistive Technology Updates, I’m joined in studio by a new friend of mine, Tom Denicola from AbleNet. Tom, how are you today?
TOM Denicola: I’m doing great, thanks for inviting me over. I appreciate it.
WADE WINGLER: Thank you for being here. You spent some time with us today talking with our staff about environmental controls and switches and all kinds of stuff that AbleNet is doing for folks with disabilities in terms of the world of assistive technology. While you are here, we’re talking a little bit about the iPad and switch interfaces. I wanted to get into that topic a little bit, but before we jump into that, I want you to tell me a little bit about AbleNet and what you guys do. I think most of our listeners probably are familiar with the company, but can you give us a quick overview of who AbleNet is and what you guys do?
TOM Denicola: Yeah, that would be great. AbleNet, we’ve been into business for over 25 years. We invite a variety of different products to the disabled markets, to the school systems, any type of disability physical challenge we can offer you a variety of different products. We kind of break our company down in switches, mounting, computer access products, to medication aides, environmental controls which is what I do, and then we also have a curriculum division for classroom education type things.
WADE WINGLER: If folks are interested in assistive technology, AbleNet gets fairly close to being a one-stop shop for a whole lot of different kinds of assistive technology. Is that fair to say?
TOM Denicola: Yeah, we try to make it so they can come to us. We have a lot of that only materials on the website that they can download, they can watch at their own discretion. We try to make it a one-stop shop. There’s a lot of information out there, it can be confusing at times, so we try to consolidate that so that mom or dad or a rehab professional, really anybody can go on our site and find a lot of good resource materials and actually see the things either in action, we have a lot of videos, so it’s really important I think for people to see the products being used by real people. I believe we do a pretty good job with that.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent, good. One of the things that – well, let me back up a minute. You’re not new to this. He didn’t just start in the assistive technology industry a day or two ago, right? You’ve been working in the field for a while.
TOM Denicola: Right, I did my first ECU in 1998. It was an ECU called the Nemo from Europe. I put my first one in 1998. So this is my 15th year of doing installations, as well as training and programming and troubleshooting and all that stuff.
WADE WINGLER: it’s important to know you’ve been around the block a time or two. You know your stuff, and you can tell new technology and what the benefits are from things that maybe you’re not going anywhere.
TOM Denicola: Well, I try. I appreciate that. It’s still a learning process. You never learn everything in this business. I still learn things, actually as of this month about how to do a tour opener a little bit better, a little bit more efficiently with an ECU. So it’s definitely always a learning process.
WADE WINGLER: If you stop learning, that means you’re not doing it.
TOM Denicola: That’s exactly right.
WADE WINGLER: One of the things we talked about this morning as how the iPad and tablet computers really are changing a lot of the things related to the field of assistive technology. I see it’s almost in every area of assistive technology, and with iOS seven that just came out, oh it’s been a couple of months now I guess, maybe not even two months at this point as of the time we’re recording this show. Switch access is something that was a really big deal in terms of the world of assistive technology. I have to say, the first time I got my hands on a device running I was seven, I immediately jumped into the switch access panel, I took a buddy button switch and plugged it into the headphone jack of my iPad and started pounding on the switch thinking something was going to happen. I was sorely disappointed.
TOM Denicola: It was kind of rolled out. I don’t know if they did a lot of fanfare on it. I know in the industry, we knew about it, and we were anticipating it. Just an FYI, we do have a tutorial on our website that will kind of show in a basic way how the new iOS switch access works. But as of September 19 I believe is when they rolled it out, when it was available for everyone to download. It’s been I would say a game changer to say the least for the consumer market.
WADE WINGLER: I really think that has. But after learned that it was going to take something other than just a physical switch interface to make it work, I realized you need a Bluetooth switch. From that Bluetooth switch then you can branch out into other kinds of switches. It really wasn’t until earlier today that I got to see a good demo of what I thought was using the iPad with a Bluetooth switch.
So one of the things I was hoping to do today is you’ve got your iPad and we’ve got it connected to the sound equipment here. We’re hoping that we can hear it and it does something. I thought maybe you could walk me through the steps. If I am somebody who has an iPad, and I want to use it with a single switch, what do I need, what would AbleNet provide in terms of a Bluetooth interface, and how do I go for my iPad as not switch accessible to my iPad working with a switch. Can you talk me into that a little bit?
TOM Denicola: There is a setting that you’re going to go into. I don’t know if we want to get into that right now. I can give you the overview. First of all, the customer wants to get into the settings mode of their system. Then they are going to find a place in the general settings called accessibility. When they go into accessibility, they’re going to see all these different wonderful things. They’re going to go all the way down to the bottom right under the physical and motor section they go to take the thing called switch control. When you get to the switch control, this is where you’re actually going to be tell your iPad, here’s what I’m going to be up to you; here’s what I want my Bluetooth switch to actually activate. When I hit the left switch, what do I want it to do. I can do auto scanning through my apps or I can do step scanning which means the customer can control how fast the scan goes to the next choice. The second part of the switch could be your access where you get into that app or into Facebook or FaceTime or Skype. You can also do the auto scanning and have shortcuts to the Siri phone which is very very nice. It gives people the safety, the possibility of going right to their Siri phone where before, as of September 19, you have to hit the switch with her finger, or have some other type of device to turn on Siri. Now with the Bluetooth option, you can get right to it very quickly. Once you get into the switch control though, you have a variety of different settings. The tutorial I mentioned does kind of go over in some detail how you can change the color, how you can change how fast it scans. You also have the ability to put audio on it. So if you have a site impairment issue, you don’t have to physically see it. You can just listen as it scans to select what you want it to do.
WADE WINGLER: And I think here in a few minutes were going to turn the sound on and let people hear what that sounds like. We’re doing and audio show here so it’s hard to get the visuals. But tell me a little bit about the switch interface and the Bluetooth switch from AbleNet, because that was the leap of logic that I wasn’t able to make originally was how do I get from my iPad to switch access to not, and you guys have a product for that.
TOM Denicola: Right, as you mentioned, you’re not able to physically plug a hardwired switch into the iPad itself. It doesn’t have the capability. What the Bluetooth switch from AbleNet does is use the Bluetooth technology, it allows you – and Bluetooth was always in the iPad, but it didn’t give you the switch access. Now I can take a switch access Bluetooth device. Ours is called Blue2 and set that up to scan through. Then from there, if you’re not able to physically activate the switches that we offer from Blue2, you can plug in any switch. You can do a sip and puff, you can do a pillow switch, you can do a micro-light. Basically any switch that has an eighth inch jack you can now access. You kind of link all these products together based on what the customer is or what the limitations are.
WADE WINGLER: So the first step is I have an iPad, I have switch access turned on, I have Bluetooth activated, and then I have the Blue2 connected via Bluetooth to the iPad. It’s a switch, I can hit the Blue2 and use it as a switch, or is that physical form of the switch doesn’t work for me, I need something smaller and in a different position, I can hook a different switch in the event eighth inch mic jack into the Blue2 and then it provides the interface to the iPad. Right?
TOM Denicola: Right, and you have to obviously first get your Bluetooth device connected to the iPad. That takes a little bit of time, and that in the switch control there is a variety of settings. It’s going to be something kind of where it is a trial and error. Go in there and play around with it and see, do I like that color? I like the audio? Is it too loud, is it too fast, too slow? It’s a learning curve for all of us as it’s so new. It’s kind of exciting because we’re finding new things out daily. Oh, I can do that with it. I didn’t know that. It’s really kind of fun for us old timers to learn new things. It’s really great. Once you get that connected so your Bluetooth switch is connected to it, then you can have any type of pillow switch, go through your wheelchair even if you wanted to.
WADE WINGLER: And just for folks who might not be terribly familiar with switch access. This is usually going to be used by somebody who has a physical challenge of some kind or another, has a hard time with the physical interface of the iPad, the touch interfaces isn’t going to work. Maybe you’re using a switch near your head or your finger or your knee or whatever, and you have access to hit that switch. Most people probably aren’t going to use the voice output portion that were going to talk about today, although it’s nice that it’s there for people who really benefit from the auditory feedback or folks who have a vision impairment and might require that kind of access.
TOM Denicola: Right, this wish you do not have to visually look at it. You can listen as it scans, and you can select based on the audio prompting. Also, if you want to mention, this is such a game changer from all of the wonderful apps that are out there, and it really as of September 19? 99 percent of them, just throwing that term out, you can get to them unless you could physically put your finger on the app and open it up. You cannot take advantage and enjoy it, or if it wasn’t educational app, you couldn’t get to it. Now this opens up the iPad and all those great apps, and there’s millions of them. Now every one of them is accessible to everyone, and I think it’s such a game changer for the consumer, for mom and dad, for us in the industry. I just wanted to kind of mentioned that now you can get to things you normally couldn’t get to. It’s really wonderful.
WADE WINGLER: It’s a big deal. It really is. Okay, Tom, we got your iPad hooked in here. I’m going to turn the sound on, and let’s see if we can get folks kind of an audio walk-through of what it might be like to use the switch to access it.
TOM Denicola: There are some settings. I tried to slow it down to make it a little bit more legible. Going to back up to the home screen. [device dictating]. So that kind of gives you a little bit of an example. There is a little bit of some of the descriptions it takes so long for her to describe it, it’s already moving to the next app. So there are some settings there by slowing it down and simplifying the apps that are available, we can obviously move that and Christmas that, but that’s kind of a real quick sample of the audio scanning.
WADE WINGLER: Yeah, and it gives us an idea of how you can get through the icons and activate apps and things like that. The switch stuff is pretty addressable, you mentioned you can speed it up, you can slow it down, you can decide what the switch actually does weather goes through an automated scanning process or something a little more direct. There really are lots of different options.
TOM Denicola: Some clients do prefer will recall step scanning where they would be able to hit one side of their switch and have it advanced to the next icon but not actually do anything with it. The second part of the switch would be the select. That’s a different process. Some folks like the auto scanning, let the scanning be done by the device, and when they hear what they want, they had the same switch and he goes into the app. It’s completely flexible on what the customer prefers.
WADE WINGLER: And as we were meeting earlier, you had a waterproof case for the iPad, you have some different mounting devices. I saw a collection of products that would let us mount an iPad to a wheelchair, hook a switch to it and give somebody access to the iPad, Internet, some environmental controls. All tons of stuff that in the past would’ve been very challenging and probably require more expensive equipment. Can you tell me a little bit about how the cost is changing with the iPad and mentioned some of the products you guys have for that sort of a solution?
TOM Denicola: Yeah, obesity iPad price is coming down. Still, it’s an expensive investment, and everyone that has one knows that the actual iPad construction is not designed to take bumps and bangs, and it can be broken very easily. So at AbleNet we try to offer you some solutions to prevent that. Especially a lot about classroom environments where you have a lot of activity, a lot of movement, we want to protect the investment, so we have an iPad waterproof case that you can but the iPad in and it protects it from average bumps and things, you can get mushy on it, you can actually submerge it totally in a liquid for a short period of time and not damage the iPad. So we’re looking at, you know, you have this investment, answering all these great things, but we want to protect that. We have some quicker iPad mounting systems that are not as protective, but maybe your quicker to get in and out, so gives the option to the consumer of how much they want to protect and what they are mounting it to. So all of our mounting system will mount to a butcher, to a tabletop, to a bed rail if it’s going to be used in bed, and then again depending on how rugged you want your case to be we offer that.
WADE WINGLER: That’s great, and really I’m starting to see the coalescence of lots of different technologies for some solutions that are new. I would encourage folks to go to upset, watch the video about how iOS seven can be switch activated. What’s the website address for folks who wants to check out what’s happening with AbleNet?
TOM Denicola: It’s www.ablenetinc.com, and I think that if they go to it of course we do have the web store there, but I believe that they will find a huge variety of educational materials for every area of interest whether it’s the switches and planting, the iPad, again they can watch videos, they can download materials and this all can be done at their convenience and their homes. We invite you to come and take a look at our website, I think you’ll find it educational. Of course, if you have extra questions, you can get a hold of customer service or myself, and we’re here to give you more details.
WADE WINGLER: Very good. Tom Denicola is the national account manager for environmental controls from AbleNet. Tom, thanks for hanging out with us today.
TOM Denicola: It’s been a pleasure. I really appreciate the time. Thank you to you and your listening audience. We love to come back sometime.
WADE WINGLER: Great, thanks Tom.
TOM Denicola: Thank you.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Looking for show notes from today’s show? Head on over to eastersealstech.com. Shoot us a note on twitter @indataproject or check us out on Facebook. That was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with Indata Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.
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