>Posted-Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 08:32:45 -0600 (CST)
>Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 09:28:30 -0500
>From: Jamal Mazrui <74444.1076@compuserve.com>
>Subject: Trace Center research forging new ground
>Sender: Jamal Mazrui <74444.1076@compuserve.com>
>To: Blind.Copy.Receiver@compuserve.com
>
>DISABILITIES
>
>
>Trace Center's research forging new ground in assistive technology
>
>
>MARY ANN FARRELL
>Knight Ridder News Service
>
>Gregg Vanderheiden's philosophy of life is actually a mathematical formula:
>A to the third power.
>
>"Actually I call it my triple-a interface: any time, anywhere, anyone,"
>Vanderheiden says. "And when you accomplish the first two, you get the
>third one for free."
>
>Vanderheiden directs the Trace Center at the University<< of<<
>Wisconsin<< in Madison, a group that develops and helps create ideas for
>assistive technology. While the equipment often centers around the needs of
>people with disabilities, in the end, the devices make life easier for
>everyone.
>
>"The center got started about 27 years ago when I got tricked by a fellow
>undergrad into visiting a young lad who could not speak or write,"
>Vanderheiden says. "At the time I was a technician in the university's
>behavioral cybernetics lab. My friend wanted me to meet this 10-year-old to
>see if we could come up with a way for the lad to communicate.
>
>"He had an alphabet [board] with burned-in letters so he could spell out
>things, but it would take three to five seconds to point to a letter. He
>couldn't do his homework."
>
>Eventually, Vanderheiden quit his tech job, and together with fellow UW
>electrical engineering student Dave Lamers founded a think tank then known
>as the Student Cerebral Palsy Instrumentation Group.
>
>"I was about 21 at the time," Vanderheiden recounts. "We got 15 students
>together to try and work on this device, and about seven months later Dave
>went off to another job but I continued on with the students there. The
>next year we applied for a National Science Foundation project grant and
>got it. Now we were a team of 26 from all different disciplines from
>physics to engineers to occupational therapy to child development."
>
>The group came up with Auto Comm, a device with a multi-figured panel a
>person with a disability could point to at his own speed to communicate
>with others.
>
>How major is the Trace Center now?
>
>"We helped come up with the concept of keyboard emulation, a big word," the
>director says. "It's a device which acts like a keyboard for a computer and
>ties into the computer but it only acts like a keyboard. You use the board
>by talking to it, linking to it, pointing to it, using a [mouth]
>sip-and-puff device."
>
>Vanderheiden and his team also worked directly with Bill Gates and
>Microsoft to make Windows 95 and Windows 98 accessible for people with
>disabilities.
>
>The Trace director is also working with the Federal Access Board on
>adapting telecommunications devices.
>
>If you'd like to learn more about assistive technology and adaptable
>computer software and don't know where to turn, contact the Trace Center,
>590 Research Park Blvd., Madison, WI 53719.
>
>----------
>End of Document
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