>> Cameron: Hello my name is Cameron
and I have a disability called cerebral palsy.
It affects me because
my legs aren't able to work as well as others' and it's not as efficient.
In the course of my day as a student, I use technology such as Dragon.
And Dragon is basically a speech input system that will
write for me as I speak into it
and that helps me become more efficient.
This is an example of how I use Dragon.
R-E-M sleep
is when the body goes through multiple stages.
R-E-M sleep
has four stages.
>> Blake: Hello. My name is Blake.
I graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma
with a Bachelor of Arts in urban studies.
I have cerebral palsy
which means I cannot take notes very quickly.
For me, quality education includes access to instructors' presentations,
notes or outlines of the lectures
so that I have high-quality notes from class lectures and discussions.
In college, I used this Dynavox
to communicate with my peers and professors.
I use word predictive software called Co: Writer
to speed up my typing on assignments and papers.
Co: Writer predicts words in a window as one is typing.
>> Teresa: My name is Teresa. I'm a high school student
and after high school I plan on attending college
and majoring in psychology and I was born without arms.
I use a Bluetooth keyboard and a Bluetooth mouse
so that I have full accessibility and I'm able to write down notes
and catch everything that I need to catch
in a more efficient way.
Without my arms I have the keyboard and the mouse on the floor
and then the monitor is just sitting on my table in the classroom.
When I'm typing notes I can usually type pretty fast
just because of adrenaline
but I'm not fast, as fast as someone with arms.
>> K: Hi, my name is K and I'm a congenital amputee,
meaning that I was born with some of my limbs missing.
For hardware I use a Surface Pro 3
and I really like it because it's super lightweight.
That was one of my biggest struggles when trying to find a computer to use
was that I couldn't lift a lot of laptops that were out.
I also love that the Surface is a touchscreen
which is also really helpful for me because
sometimes it's a little much for me to pull out a mouse to use something
so I can just quickly tap on the screen and it works wonders.
I use my iPhone for a lot of things.
I intentionally got the Plus model of the iPhone
so it was larger because I knew I would want to do a lot of
PDF reading on my phone.
I use a tiny mouse on top of that.
So many people have a mouse that they like to use with their computer
but all the ones I use are smaller because my hand is smaller.
So it's way easier for me to use a tinier mouse
that are usually the travel size mice
because it just fits my hand better.
As for software,
the two main things that I use
that are not already built into a device,
because I use many of the built-in features of the iPhone,
but I use Sonocent which is a note-taking software
that allows you to sync audio files of the professor or lecturer giving a presentation
to slides if they give you slides
as well as syncing it to notes that you might type during the presentation.
Wake up.
Hi comma
my name is K and I’m a senior at the University of Washington period.
I use Dragon Naturally Speaking quite a lot as well.
It's really helpful for me whenever I have to write long papers
and sometimes I do it even just for quick emails.
But also because of my wrist not being super strong
while I can type and actually type rather quickly
if I have to do it for any long period of time
I will really start to hurt my wrist.
Many hardware items have a lot of built in features.
I use a lot of built-in features on the iPhone for example.
One of my go-to things is the AssistiveTouch.
It kind of brings a little onscreen button
that you can position wherever you want it
and you can set that button to do a bunch of different things.
Right now I have it where if I do a long hard push
it automatically locks my phone.
I also have it set so that I can make it take screenshots for me
because a screenshot you have to hold down the home button and the lock button
at the same time which is a little hard with one hand,
especially when you only have two-and-a-half fingers.
So I really enjoy that feature as well.
>> Jonah: Using technology, it changes every year
because I don't know how I'm going to be next year
I mean, a lot of things can happen because
my disease is progressive.
I might be using something new next year.
At the moment mainly accommodations are just like
for notes I don't have to write.
My teacher will just give me a copy of their PowerPoint or something
and I'll just add a little minor things to it.
>> Jon: My name is Jon. I have cerebral palsy.
I use a computer that is calibrated to my eyes.
So whatever I look at it will type.
Before I would have to tell somebody what to write down
and now I can do it all.
>> Sheryl: My name is Sheryl Burgstahler
and I direct Accessible Technology Services
at the University of Washington in Seattle.
As you can see, it’s really important
that people with disabilities have access to the technology that they need
including assistive technology
so they can be successful in education, in careers,
and all the activities that they wish to pursue.
It’s also important that IT developers
including those that create websites, documents, software and other IT
make those products accessible to people who are using assistive technology
and to everyone else.