Communicating with speaking software and switches

This page provides some links to videos of two speaking communication aids intended for people with diverse communication handicaps. The videos concentrate on access by switches and on research done in 2009, an extremely productive year for me. However, both aids can also be accessed by mouse, by keyboard and by eye-gaze.

Two videos of row-column scanning with tricks

Introduction to active row-column scanning with a moving matrix and an empty first column.

Details including single switch scanning, reversing direction with maintained dash, and Down accepts.

Write Easy

Overview of a text based communication aid with word prediction, Morse Code, maintained dashes and synthetic speech, accessed by a single switch. This ought to be in the Guiness book of records though clearly data entry was trained and the software adapted to it.

All synthetic speech is Cepstral’s Lawrence, that can be downloaded from their site, then registered and paid for. Extensive written documentation is available, start with a short report and with the links and references contained therein. Many more videos are here.

The software is available as sponsorware, click on either www.depratendecomputer.nl/speakingcomputer/edownloads.htm (english and spanish) or www.depratendecomputer.nl/demo.htm (dutch).

Please mail me any comments or experiences that you may have.

Joris Verrips