Accessibility for Students with Mobility and Dexterity Impairments

Accessibility for Students with Mobility and Dexterity Impairments

I am blessed with two coordinated hands capable of typing words at warp speeds.  That was not always the case.  Several years ago I fell and broke my wrist in two places.  Fortunately, I was not left like Humpty Dumpty.  A wonderful talented surgeon came to my rescue.  She was able to put everything back together with the assistance of a plate and nine screws.   For the next twelve weeks everything I needed had to be accomplished with my one good hand.  Working in a timely fashion was frustrating, tiring, and painfully slow.  I desperately wanted to keep up with my colleagues and did not want to become a burden to my team.

The emotions I experienced were the same feelings Brian experienced when faced with his physical challenges.  Brian was a high school freshman in one of my classes.  He was burned on over 90 percent of his body from a house fire.  As a result of this accident Brian became a quadriplegic.  He had very limited use of his hands.  His speech was unaffected but the rest of Brian’s body struggled with day to day mobility and dexterity limitations.  Assistance for both of us was found within the Windows Operating System of our computers.

Windows Speech Recognition is a free software program that makes it possible to use a computer without a mouse or a keyboard.  Windows Speech Recognition translates spoken words into actions or text.

Two steps must be completed before engaging this wonderful program.

For the first step, a microphone must be set up.  If the computer has a built in microphone that will work; however, the use of a headset will eliminate some of the background noise heard by the computer thereby improving the accuracy of the speech recognition.  I have used both input options successfully.  Once the microphone is ready to use, run the set up microphone program by typing “set up microphone” in the desktop search box.  Next, click the “set up microphone” selection and follow the prompts.  A sample sentence read by the user confirms the microphone is working.

For the second step, the user must run the Speech Recognition training program.  The training program serves two purposes.   The program begins to learn how you pronounce your words as it matches the sounds you produce to individual words read from selected training passages.  The dialectic differences in spoken words do not affect the program accuracy to translate the sounds into actions or text once the training passages are successfully completed.  A student in my class with a very Hispanic dialect did not have any issues using this program because he completed the training program before running the speech recognition program.  Another benefit to running the training program happens once the user chooses the first selection of passages to be read during the training exercise. This selection provides instructions and guidance on the use of the Speech Recognition program.  The program establishes a profile for each individual user.  This becomes important when multiple users are running the program from the same workstation.  At a later date, if accuracy becomes an issue for any user, the Speech Recognition training program may be run again. In that case the user may select any one of the passages to read during the training exercise.

When I started using the program, I printed a list of verbal commands and taped the list over my computer for reference.  This list was a great resource to use while learning the commands for moving around a computer.

I used Windows Speech Recognition to write this blog!  Even though both of my hands are working again it is always nice to give your hands a break every now and then.

Linda Hunter, M.Ed.
West Chester University
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Microsoft Innovative Educator
National Senior Trainer- Intel(r) Teach Program
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Part Time Professional Development for Clarity Innovations, Inc.