For persons with visual disabilities, accessing the outside world often requires accommodations, strategies, and technology. And while strategies and accommodations can be relatively easily put in place, lack of access to vision-correcting technology is still an issue for many individuals. The reason for this is simple: cost. For example, there are wearable devices for blind users that provide real time color and product information, face recognition, and more. This device, called the OrCam MyEye is an incredible piece of technology, but with a price tag of around $5,000, this technology is not affordable for everyone. So then that begs the question, what’s out there that is actually affordable for persons with visual disabilities?

NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open-source screen reader for Windows that has been in development since 2006. If you are not aware, a screen reader is a piece of technology that helps individuals with visual impairments access and interact with digital content like websites or applications via audio or touch prompts. Users control what is read by moving the cursor to the relevant area of text with a mouse or by using the arrows on a keyboard.

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With over 20 years of experience, Troy’s career as a chef saw him traveling the world and operating a successful catering business in Vancouver and later Ottawa, where he now lives. And there were some nice perks.

“I worked quite a bit, and I loved it,” he says. “There were so many times, where it was like, ‘Hey Troy, come up to the cottage for the weekend and you can do all the cooking,’ and I’m like, ‘Sure, why not?’ Vacation and get paid, all right.”

However, about four years ago he began having seizures, losing his balance, and eventually becoming unable to walk. After a long process, he was diagnosed with ataxia, a rare neurological degenerative disorder which affects the body’s motor skills, causing difficulty in speech and movement.

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On episode 8, we are joined once again by AT researcher and life-long assistive technology user Nakia Singh. In this episode, we talk about some of our favorite back to school apps, making friends with AI, apps for math, and Seaver’s recent experiences in joining the partially sighted community.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

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We’ve looked at a couple math calculator and equation breakdown apps in the past, but today we are going to look at a math app that instead focuses on building mathematical foundations. Montessori Numbers is a visual math app designed for children aged 3-7, and it offers a wide range of guided math activities that are designed to conform to common core standards.

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Text-to-speech apps allow users to quickly absorb articles, documents, emails, and virtually anything else found online. Of course, students and professionals aren’t the only ones who benefit from text-to-speech applications. Persons with disabilities including those with dyslexia, dysgraphia, visual impairments, and more, can all benefit from this alternative approach to reading.

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On this episode, we are joined by our K-12 Coordinator for Assistive Technology Programs and Services, Tracy Ryan. Tracy brings with her decades of experience in the disabilities community, and almost 5 years serving as our K-12 coordinator here in New Brunswick.

We talk about what it was like to provide services and training to schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the challenges, successes, and lessons that went with it.

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Episode 4 of our AT Help Desk‘s podcast, “We Have Solutions!” has been released.

On this episode, we are joined by co-host Nakia Singh. Nakia brings with him decades of personal experience with assistive technology, computing, and much more. In this episode, we touch on home automation, transportation for the visually impaired, and PC vs Mac vs Linux.

You can listen on Anchor, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

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Student life can be challenging for anyone, and for persons with disabilities, this is especially true. Of course, there are plenty of tools and apps available to help overcome barriers surrounding disability and education, and we’ve explored many of those solutions in past e-bulletins. Unfortunately, some of these solutions require extensive training, funding/purchasing of equipment, etc., which can sometimes present a whole new set of barriers to the student. Today, we are going to look at some cutting-edge accessibility features that come built-in to mainstream technology. These features are free, they already exist on the device in question, and they are typically fairly easy to activate and operate. Let’s take a look!

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Over the past several years, Microsoft has been gaining ground in the battle for most accessible computing systems. During that time, Windows has made vast improvements in its out-of-box accessibility. And now with a new Windows OS on the horizon, it’s evident that Microsoft has embraced the concepts of universal design and accessibility in a big way.

Windows 11 seeks to pack in even more accessibility features than the already impressive Windows 10. In today’s e-bulletin, we’re going to dive into those features a bit, but keep in mind, some of the features that we’re looking at today might change or be updated as OS continues to evolve.

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