Karen Ball made a point that needs emphasising. As a fellow Access
Centre manager I would expect her to take this view, which I suspect
is the opposite of what many would expect from the Federation. In
general, our position has always been not to use fancy aids just
because they are there, but to encourage the best achievable use of
mainstream technology.
Those of us go that far back will remember cases where switches were
used in the early eighties, quite unecessarily, which too often
resulted in muscular problems and even arthritis. The keyboard is the
conventional route into so much software and there is a great deal
that can be done to give people access (with far worse problems than
dyslexics have). Speech input will undoubtedly become a regularly
used alternative for everyone within the next few years, but having
access to the keyboard will make some things a lot easier to manage
for several years yet.
Dave Laycock MBE
Head of CCPD, Chair of NFAC
Computer Centre for People with Disabilities
University of Westminster
72 Great Portland Street
London W1N 5AL
tel. 0171-911-5161
fax. 0171-911-5162
WWW home page: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/ccpd/
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