Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

My trip to Austin and then San Diego has been filled with material for upcoming blog posts. Here is a collaborative recollection of one “adventure” I’ve had on this trip…and I maintained my finely worn Canuck politeness throughout it all…

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!

Mary McDonald met Glenda on Tuesday (March 15th) at 11am in Austin  We had lunch at the motel, then we went for a  drive; the scooter tucked back in Glenda’s hotel room).  We got back to the hotel at 1 pm, and started to wait for her shuttle.  Turns out that’s when the fun started – the reservation for the shuttle was for February 15th, not March 15th.

We didn’t discover this mistake on her inbound, because Mary had ALSO made a reservation for me, and that was probably the record they had.   Although they had the confirmation number from the pre-paid reservation (which was for February 15th), they also had Mary’s, with the correct month. The shuttle service didn’t notice that it was a different confirmation number. Mary called the shuttle at 1:30, and we discovered the mistake. An accessible shuttle was ordered and they said it would be there by 2:10 – cutting it close for a 3:20 flight, but still doable.

Of course, the shuttle didn’t arrive on time and we loaded into the shuttle (Mary following in her little hybrid) at 2:40.  By the time Glenda arrived at the airport it was too late… so we started working on Plan B. 

The only flight Glenda could get on was the 6:44 pm – which was going to be delayed in Austin, causing her to miss the connection to San Diego, stranding her in Phoenix for the night.  We also looked at flying Southwest direct to San Diego but that was $388, and had no room on it to boot.

Mary got us both through security and we went to the Continental Presidents Lounge (Mary is a member) to sit, relax for 10 minutes, then start making phone calls.  Mary called the travel agent back home, Belinda, who was very apologetic, and basically took over for Mary. Belinda worked her magic and got Glenda confirmed seating and got US Airways to guarantee that she would be accommodated in Phoenix, and got on the phone with the Holiday Inn in San Diego to get them to cancel without penalty the pre-paid hotel room (but keep the reservation for the following nights), etc.

Mary also lodged a formal customer complaint with SuperShuttle in the hopes of getting a refund

We had pizza for dinner, Mary pre-opened several granola bars, cookies, and cheese for Glenda to access them easily, and Mary also kindly packed a great cheesy bagel and butter.
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I will continue sharing the saga once I’m home and have recovered from the trip from hell.

I’m frantically working on my two presentations:

• “The Untapped iPad Market: Is Your Site POUR?“ for March 13th at South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference in Austin, and
• “The New AAC (Assistive and Augmentative Communication): Cheap and Disruptive?” for March 17th at the 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN) in San Diego.

i am really looking forward to both conferences because, after working in the web accessibility field for thirteen years, I am finally going to meet many of my mentors, colleagues and possibly even competitors. I’m looking forward to soaking up even more of their expertise, and to sharing latest best practices, techniques and frustrations.

Amidst drafting the presentations and preparing for my trip, I began wondering how I could possibly capture some of this knowledge, expertise and insights to share with my Blog Accessibility readers.

An idea struck…

In the Proloquo2Go app, I have prepared various interview questions,  which will enable me pick and choose which questions to ask (via text-to-speech) during the interview. And…I could record the interview using the movie setting on my camera, mounted on my scooter using the Gorilla tripod.

The result may not be a smooth flowing conversation, but rather a bumpy Q&A session. But that’s okay, right?

What’s amazing isn’t the technology to do it; it’s the confidence to try it. I wouldn’t have felt confident to give this a try a few years ago; I’m definitely on some kind of journey…final destination still unknown.

Will this iPad experiment work? Stay tuned…

With a trip to Austin and to San Diego coming in March, communicating with individuals unfamiliar with Glenda-ish will be necessary.

I have mastered using the typing option in the assistive and augmentative communication (AAC ) app Proloque2Go, which I shared in my initial review. But, the grid option with the cute icons pictographs still baffled me. Thursday afternoon, in between getting my passport photo done, having my haircut and wheelchair square dancing, i spent some quality time…all 55 minutes…with the rest of the communication app.

A few highlights of what I discovered:

• From the Home screen, pre-set words and phrases are organized into folders – indicated by folder-shaped boxes. Individual words are colour-coded; for example, nouns are boxed in yellow and verbs in pink. These two visual cues aid in locating words quicker.
• The default vocabulary is rather limited with 6871 default items available, according to statistics. 
• The vocabulary appears aimed at a young child age or lower elementary school grades. Much customization would be needed to have a productive conversation with, say, my gynecologist.
• The choice of words and the spelling is definitely American (enchiladas for breakfast?) A setting for spelling would be welcomed by this Canadian.
• The size of icon buttons can be set from Ultra Small to Extreme, depending upon the individual’s motor skills. Yet, the size of the Back and Delete buttons can not be adjusted from their fairly small size, making it difficult for some individuals to use accurately. Some times I had hit the Delete buttons several times to get it.
• The icons can be turned off from being displayed in the Message box, which was a relief to discover. If my message contained childish pictographs, individuals unfamiliar with me and my abilities might interpret my cognitive abilities to be less than what they are.
• I was also glad to discover that the settings can be adjusted so that only the completed message is spoken. This will be helpful when communicating with my friends who are blind; they don’t need to hear each icon I type.
• One thing I found confusing was the occasional endless loop; for example, listed within the Snack folder was a Snack folder icon. I didn’t try deleting it in case I messed up something. I’m not sure if its a bug or if the folder serves another purpose.
• Another point of confusion for me was how the customization settings are split between settings in the app and the iPad settings. No doubt there’s a reason for this split, but I found flipping between the app Options and the Settings annoying. Perhaps once the Appearance, Interaction, Restrictions and such are set to meet the individual’s needs, then they do not need to be modified as often as the settings in the app itself.

Being the first time that I had spent any quality time with this type of communication device, I found it overwhelming. Learning the organizational structure and memorizing where individual words were located to effectively communicate with this tool would require either training or several rainy Saturday afternoons curled up with my iPad.

Honestly…and this is nothing against the Proloquo2Go app itself, but rather the communicating method…at this point, I don’t see myself using the grid option much. It’s too limiting and too much customization would be needed to add the vocabulary that I use. Although I am very open to seeing how others use this kind of communication method for in-depth, meaningful, passionate conversations.

Rather, I see myself using the typing option much more; having the freedom to use the words I use without needing to go hunting for them mid-conversation. What would be sweet is if the TextExpander app was compatible with the Proloquo2Go app, enabling me to type something like “GH” and have it expand to “Glenda Watson Hyatt”, which would save me time and not slow down the conversation flow as much. A separate app would be better than an expansion feature within Proloque2Go because then I could use the same shortcuts across apps on my iPad.

In the end, I see using Proloquo2Go for brief face-to-face encounters and to assist when people get stuck on a word or two of spoken Glenda-ish. As individuals become more familiar with my speech, the app will be needed less in conversation. No device is as flowing, as freeing, as intimate as one’s own voice.

Last Monday morning…early last Monday morning…Mother Nature called me from my cozy, comfy bed. Begrudgingly I dragged myself up and into my scooter parked bedside.

Turning on my Zoom scooter, it did not zoom; it didn’t even budge, at all, after repeated attempts. I had been having trouble with the scooter and knew getting a replacement was in the near future, but I wanted to first pay off our Hawaii trip, the interior painting and March’s conferences trip before needing to buy a new scooter. Obviously that was not going to be the plan, but did the thing have to choose the most inopportune time to die? 

With Mother Nature now calling desperately, I was forced to take the ungraceful approach. I felt the strength of my Nana – who, on her hands and knees, crawled up and down her basement stairs to do the laundry while she battled bone cancer – as I got down on the hardwood floor, which felt even harder at that early hour.

Later, once he was up, Darrell managed to drag my ancient, juvenile-sized manual wheelchair over my side of the bed. I stuffed the somewhat-wider version of myself into the uncomfortable chair – the one no rubber left on its wheels, but that is another story.

With the foot pedals removed, I “walked” the hard-to-move-with-four-flat-tires-feeling chair through the minimal morning chores. Man, I was slow moving!

Finally at my desk, I booted my computer and headed straight for Scooter City’s website to see what they had available for indoor scooters. Sadly there was no Zoom listed, but there was a Go-Go scooter, which had been my second choice the last time around.

I then emailed Pam who has been my Scooter City contact through four scooters. Even though she was in Arizona, her staff arranged to have a Go-Go was in my home the next day for an extended in-home demo. Now that is customer service!

When choosing a scooter for indoors, there are three main points I consider:

1. Size and manoeuvrability:Although our place is fairly open, my big scooter does not work in here; hence the need for a second, smaller one.
2. Hand controls: A few of them I’ve looked at I could not use. It’s becoming harder to find ones that I can use.
3. Tippiness: I’ve learned this one from experience (and not a pleasant, pain-free one).

The Go-Go fairs well on all three, although the looped handles makes corralling my splayed fingers a conscious effort; but not as conscious an effort as a week ago. Improvement.

The one attribute that does puzzle me is the placement of the battery charger outlet: on the front of the battery case, under the seat. To plug in the charger, I need to either:

• lean forward with my head between my knees, fumble around with my “bad” right hand to lift the rubber protective flap, and plug in the charger with my “quasi good” left hand before passing out from blood rushing to my head; or
• get down on my knees, lift up the flap and plug in the charger before losing my balance.

Who designs these things? The rubber flap may be short-lived…

Now I can get there when Mother Nature calls; I only wish she would stop calling so early in the morning.

Since the iPad’s release in April, countless stories have emerged of people with disabilities finding creative uses for the mainstream gadget; the greatest life-changing use being communication. The iPad with Proloquo2Go or a similar communication app suddenly creates an affordable assistive and augmentative communication (AAC) device, which can only disrupt the traditional AAC industry.

I shared my initial thoughts on the iPad as an affordable communicator in an earlier post. Since then, my initial review has only been reconfirmed, repeatedly. How I wish the iPad existed years earlier.

A few years ago Darrell and I explored communication devices that might be suitable for me. He invited a contact to our home to demonstrate various communication devices he represented. One device – a Dynavox of some sort – looked interesting, something I might use, occasionally. The price tag was a hefty $8000, which, because I’m not employed I’m not eligible for Vocational Rehabilitation Services or other funding, I’d be on the hook for the full price. Nix to that!

(Photo credit: Becky McCray)

Darrell and I went down to London Drugs and, after much discussion, picked up a Toshiba Libretto – a fully functional computer in a small package for little more than a quarter of the Dynavox price. I have used it to give several presentations, take notes at conferences, and participate in group discussions. 

However, despite its small size, using it for spontaneous communication was clumsy: I had to unzip the laptop case, undo the Velcro straps, pull out the laptop, find a horizontal surface to place it on, boot it and run the desired software before I could type out what I wanted to say. By then the conversation had progressed and my contribution was old, disjointed. The laptop – although useful for some purposes – wasn’t really convenient for communication in the way I needed it to be.

Whereas, the iPad is easily whipped out of my handbag and quickly gets to the point where I can begin communicating. With the Proloquo2Go app, I have the flexibility to use the pre-loaded vocabulary and phrases or the onscreen keyboard with a font size large enough to read from a comfortable distance, even in a dimly lit location; like, a bar!

And, with a wifi connection, I can show something on my blog or elsewhere on the internet, taking the conversation even deeper – something that would not be possible with a single-function AAC device.

The iPad has given me a communication device that suits my current needs, for a price I could afford. Without the iPad, I – and so many others – would have continued going without a device for basic communication.

However, the iPad isn’t appropriate for every person in need of a communication device. Some individuals need the ruggedness and the simplicity of a single-function AAC device.

This is the topic Joseph O’Connor, father of a non-verbal teenaged daughter, and I will be exploring during our session “The New AAC: Cheap and Disruptive?“ at the 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), March 15-19, 2011, in San Diego.

Through our two case studies and from further research, we will  examine issues facing users, teachers and other professionals, school districts and other institutions, software vendors, and equipment manufacturers as we move into this new exciting phase of AAC development.