Bruce Toews' Thoughts

Mental Health & Disabilities

When I first started writing these Thoughts, I vowed not to go into autobiography. However, the "Blindness in Perspective" series has proven tremendously popular, and I am quite frankly humbled by the response I have gotten. So, I now present the last in this series, in which I will try to answer what is undoubtedly the most common question I'm asked: How do you use the computer?

I grew up knowing very well that I would never have a computer. Computers required wealth, I reasoned, and my family, though not what I would call poor, required a certain frugality. So I knew that a computer of my very own, one that could talk, was out of the question. My parents would tell me stories of amazing machines that could read books and speak them, and how they wanted me to have one of these miracle machines one day. I drank in these stories with awe, marveling that such amazing machines existed, but knowing in my heart of hearts that such technology was light-years beyond my grasp.

And so I was a little startled when, in the late summer of 1984, I found myself with a VersaBraille in my hands: a machine which featured a braille display, a braille keyboard for typing my notes and papers, and a cassette deck for storing all the data. This was followed a year later by an Apple computer at school, boasting an astounding 128 kilobytes of RAM. A computer of my very own followed some two years later, and I was hopelessly enmeshed in cyberspace. The computer I knew I'd never have was babbling away at me, leaving bystanders with the constantly-asked question, "Can you actually understand that?" My parents' dream of the reading machine was fulfilled three years after that when I received what is now basically the dinosaur of personal talking reading devices. Well, that's enough history. On to the present.

One of the ongoing myths people who don't know me subscribe to is that I use some species of voice recognition software. Truth be told, I would never be able to trust this technology. I would much rather type on my own. That way, mistakes (and successes) fall securely into the realm of my own responsibility. I'm in control of what I type, and I won't fall victim to the mumbling and overly-fast speech which tends to plague me now and then. My teachers, back in second grade, had the good sense to teach me to type. It was the only way they could get proof that I'd done my homework, short of hiring someone to write out all of my assignments in print. This ability has enabled me to use the standard keyboard with no difficulty, and I type with a relatively respectable speed of about 55 words per minute. It works for me.

While I don't use anything that recognizes my voice, I do use synthetic speech to "read" (listen to) what is on the screen. A program called JAWS (Job Access With Speech) for Windows analyses the screen and attempts to organize it in a way that can be conveyed with speech. My computer's sound card then speaks this information to me through the speakers. Various key combinations have been defined to simulate the movement and functions of the mouse, which is almost impossible to use without sight (though I'm assured it's been done).If I need paper output of a document, I have a very large, very loud, but very useful braille printer, capable of producing high-quality braille on both sides of a sheet of paper. This double-sided braille ability is important, because braille paper is not cheap.

For portability, I have a device called a Braille Lite, which is a much smaller and more advanced modern manifestation of the VersaBraille which I described earlier. With thousands of times more memory and the ability to store data on more modern media, the Braille Lite has opened up many doors to me, including the ability to physically read books that haven't been printed out in braille, and the ability to take notes wherever I happen to be at any given time.

So what of the future? There is a lot of technology out there which I would quite like to explore. Unfortunately, cost is a very inhibiting factor. The ability to get my computer to talk more than doubled the price of the computer. The Braille Lite cost over $6000, and the braille printer over $4000, all out-of-pocket expenses. I would like to use a braille display for my computer ($17000 for a top-of-the-line model) and a modern reading machine (around $4000). I throw out these numbers just to give you an idea of costs, nothing else). I am blessed to have technology available to me, even as it grows obsolete, and the ability to learn and use that technology.

With the help of technology, and with the help of friends who care (and I have the best of those), I have been able to more actively contribute to my life, the lives of others, and to society. Lastly and most importantly, there is one God to thank for all this, and I do with all my heart.

Well, anyway, those are one guy's thoughts.

 

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These commentaries are the intellectual property of Bruce Toews. They may be freely distributed or quoted, provided such distribution and quoting not be done out of context and attribution is given to the author.

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