Open house will feature demonstrations of advanced technology to assist the disabled

State-of-the-art hardware and software designed to make life easier for people with a wide range of physical disabilities will be demonstrated on Tuesday, Jan. 5, during an open house at the Resource Office on Disabilities' new Assistive Technology Center.

Members of the faculty and staff are invited to the open house, which will be held noon-2 p.m. in Rm. 101 of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. A large blue sign indicates a wheelchair-accessible entrance on College Street between Wall and Elm streets. The public is also welcome to attend the event.

Enrico Melchiorri of the Can We Talk? division of EM Enterprises will provide demonstrations of the latest technology. Located in Guilford, EM Enterprises provides voice-recognition and other technologies for people with disabilities. He has been a consultant to Yale students with disabilities on their individual technological needs.

Among the technologies he will demonstrate are:

* Dragon Dictate/Naturally Speaking, a voice-recognition technology that allows individuals to dictate to their computers, which then transcribes the information into text;

* Kurzweil scan/read software for visually impaired persons or those with learning disabilities, which scans information and reads it in a computer-digitized voice;

* a screen magnification system for the visually impaired called Zoom-Text; and

* Jaws, a screen reader for blind individuals that reads aloud documents, computer menus, commands, etc.

In addition, Melchiorri will demonstrate Braille printers and Co-Writer, a word-prediction system that allows people to type in just the first few letters of a word and offers them options so they can select the word they want by keying in a certain number.

"While all of these technologies are designed for people with disabilities, many others find them useful in their work or for study," says Melchiorri. He notes that a trackball, an alternative to the mouse which locks into place and has keys for dragging and clicking, is a favorite of graphic designers.

The Assistive Technology Center was set up to give students with disabilities a public space where they can either use these technologies or work and study using their own equipment, according to Sally Esposito, coordinator of the Resource Office on Disabilities.

"Before this, there wasn't a specified place where students could try out new equipment or use it in a public space," she says. "We've been working since August to put this together. The center can be utilized to provide training on the latest equipment, assess people's individual needs and give them a place where they can more easily work."

The center is open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. For further information about the open house, contact Sally Esposito at 432-2325. For information about specific technologies, contact Enrico Melchiorri at 458-1380.