Today over forty delegates from around the West Midlands gathered at Hereward College for discussions on the use of assistive technology for students with physical disabilities. Hereward College is a general college of further education located in Coventry, West Midlands offering day and residential support for disabled students. Hereward students include people with:

• Physical disabilities including cerebral palsy, spina bifida and muscular dystrophy.
• Sensory impairment (sight & hearing)
• Learning difficulties.
• Brain and spinal injuries.
• Autism and Aspergers Syndrome.
• Medical difficulties including epilepsy, asthma and other rare conditions.
• Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Hereward follows an academic and vocational curriculum designed to encourage students to act independently to prepare them for future employment and enterprise when their studies are complete.

Four students told the delegates about their experience of using assistive technology through a video interview. It was a fascinating insight for us all. Number one issue was that the assistive technology should assist and not get in the way of their expression. Secondly, it had to work reliably and thirdly it needed to look cool. Actually, none of these points are rocket science!

Many thanks to Paul Doyle and Patrick Fox for the invitation.

Mike 

Since the launch of the Dream-Racer web site and blog we have been approached by lots of people asking for something different than the standard switches and other devices found in the assistive technology catalogues. These are just three of the "special projects" we worked on in 2007:

• Alan wanted to talk about using Morse Code to communicate with an elderly relative - amazingly she still remembered it despite not using it in over 60 years.
• Gillian had a problem with the wires on a standard switch. Every 3-4 months the cable frayed and eventually broke away requiring her to buy costly replacements.
• Karl needed four switches to plug into his Joybox that he could control using his available head movement.

Gillian's switch problem was easy to fix as the mechanism worked perfectly; only the cable was broken. Reconnecting the wire saved about £15 over the cost of a new switch.

This got us thinking: there must be many people needing something a little bit different or possibly something repaired. If that's the case, we would like them to get in touch with us to describe their problem. We may be able to help.

Our contact details are on the web site or, send us a message through this blog.

Mike

Only seventeen days into January but the Christmas and new year break seems, at best, a distant memory.

Last week we visited the BETT and Special Needs Fringe exhibitions in London to look for new ideas and share some of our own with prospective partners. QED, our UK distributor had a stand at the Special Needs event and had Dream-Racer on display along with a range of other assistive technology devices designed for individuals with physical disabilities. Dream-Gamer and Dream-Mouse will be on display at their future exhibitions.

Get in touch with QED if you would like to receive a copy of their 2008 catalogue "Innovative products for people with special needs."

Next week is an open day at the Hereward College in Coventry and we will be letting the students loose with Dream-Racer and Dream-Gamer. My plan for Dream-Mouse is to show how students can use it to better access the PC for school work (this may be popular with their teachers but could be a "big yawn" with the students.)

I'll have more to report on this next week.

Today's big news: we will participate in an initiative to promote gaming to a broader audience of disabled children and young adults using Dream-Gamer to access laptop, PlayStation and Xbox360 game platforms. The programme is scheduled to begin in February - keep in touch.

Mike