No Limits to Life Blog

Since June 20, 2008, over 50,000 tickets have been sold to attend events in the paralympics which are scheduled for September 7th through the 16th in Beijing. It is interesting to note though, that American TV networks don’t seem to see them as a ratings grabber enough to broadcast them.

In an article by the IPC (International Paralympic Committee), a list of the countries and networks covering the paralympic games did not include the U.S. The list included the BBC which will cover the opening/closing ceremonies  and athletics, swimming, wheelchair basketball, and equestrian events which will be covered daily.

Other countries include China, which will show the events via closed circuit TV, Canada, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Japan, South Africa and Spain. Over 32 EBU (European Broadcast Union) locations and the Eurosport Network will be covering the games. Maybe one day the United States will get a clue and allow us to view too.

Disabled World has a piece in an article about the upcoming event stating that ESPN will do a 1 hour special on the events, other than that, in the U.S. we are out of the picture. I just want to say that in my mind, to be able to perform as a world class athlete and have a disability has to be the most incredible example of achievement by the human spirit. To all the athletes, I say “Thank you” and want you to know we appreciate you!

All the best to you!

Lon

 Debbie Wooten: Living a Life with No Limits…

Pretend you are 7 years old, then imagine you have Spina Bifida. Then let’s pretend you contracted polio at 5 months of age. Then let’s pretend you are black and live in Chicago in the late fifties and sixties, then add having an alcohol-abusing mother and being a victim of abuse. Then let’s add one more thing - you won’t accept the word “can’t”. You are getting an idea of the amazing personal strength of spirit that bubbles forth from the monologue of comedian Debbie Wooten.

Sitting in the theatre of Blue Mountain Community College tonight for the 10th Annual Spring Arts and Culture Festival keynote lecture, Debbie Wooten wowed the crowd. She shared her experiences as a young girl growing up in the ghetto of Chicago, wanting to be normal and attending a school for crippled children. Segregation came in more than color for Debbie as she grew through high school in a system that segregated  all disabilities to their own school. “When the polio shots stopped the polio kids,” shared Debbie, “ we got a new group, the gang-bangers that got shot and didn’t die. Their attitude was so bad - they would say, “What are ya gonna do to me - shoot me?” They had attitude just moving in their wheelchairs!”

Debbie’s monologue took us from laughter to serious thought as she shared her meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a child. She shook his hand and he spoke to her, giving her his undivided attention for a moment. After sharing that rare moment with us, she shook hands of some members of the audience and asked them to pass on the dream she had been carrying on from Dr. King. One by one, everyone passed the handshake on until the entire room had been touched.

The phrase that left with me from the evening was her mandate to be a “box cutter.” Debbie shared, “People will want to put you in their idea of a little box to live in based on their statistics about who you are, what color of skin, what disability, what gender, what amount of education you have, and so on. Be a box cutter and cut yourself out of the boxes -don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t be” 

Popular with the college lecture circuit, Debbie’s profile can be found on her link from her booking company’s website, “Portland Day and Night“. She combines humor with a serious message of not accepting defeat and living a positive lifestyle. Debbie informed us of her pending appearance this summer on a CBS reality show as well as her work with many great stand-up comedians.It is rare to find a speaker and a comedian that can make us laugh at our adversity and feel encouraged. If you ever get a chance to hear Debbie, go and you won’t be disappointed.

All the best to you!

New Video is posted on Youtube and I have it here too. Learn to make your own communication boards using Audacity, a free open source recording software, and PowerPoint. If you don’t have MS Office you can download OpenOffice Suite for free and use their version of a slide show presentation software.

Use a microphone - not the internal mic in the computer, and with Audacity, record the voice message or command and then export it from Audacity as a wav file. You can put a picture on a PowerPoint slide, right-click it and then choose action  settings. Select sound and then scroll the menu to the bottom where it says “other sound…” Browse to where you saved the wav file and choose it and open. Your sound is embedded in the image now. When you play the slide, bu clicking on the picture you have your sound.

Check out the video below to see and hear how it is done:

All the best to you!
Lon

I have been working on my administrative license through Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I am in the home stretch and I have FINALLY gotten smart and used Dragon Naturally Speaking to write my reflection papers and reports. I wrote one last night (instead of writing to you, unfortunately) and used it to get done faster. Here has been my method:

First, I read through the required reading, underlining and making notes for prompts on what I want to say to write a reflection paper, report, etc.

Second, I try and make my notes easy to find in the margins so I can organize my thoughts much faster.

Third, I open a word document, set the font, spacing, etc. the way I want (you can do it with Dragon too by the way) and then dictate. I just “talk” my report and use quote and underline commands when I need to read a direct passage. Last night I wrote a 4-page paper on three articles in about 20-30 minutes. There was no substitute for the reading though, it took awhile. If anybody comes up with a fast way to transmit information into the brain off paper without reading it, let me know and then I’ll have this whole thing really sewed up!

You can buy the basic version for $99, the preferred version, which has custom command assignments for $199. The professional, medical and legal versions can be quite expensive, but if you are in that profession and do a lot of writing reports and documents it is worth it.

Dragon Naturally Speaking is put out by Nuance and they have a nice demo video on their home page HERE.

All the best to you!

I found a great little software that is a large calculator on the screen. It can scan through the numbers and signs to do calculations by switch access. It also talks. We are using this with one of our vision students who is legally blind but can see things enlarged on the computer.

If you are visually impaired or use switch access to use the computer, this might be worth a look. You can download the demo program free. It will run 7 times to check it out. Go to RJ Cooper’s Talk ‘n Scan Calculator.

All the best to you!

Try these free pointer cursors! Since I am an assistive technology specialist and learning what resources are online for various disabilities. is a major part of my job, I find some good resources.  Because I work in the schools, money is at a premium, so free is an important item when it comes to showing new things. I found a nice free cursor software on a UK site for the visually impaired that I thought I would show you. The site, ace centre, sells supportive software for education, but they have “Large Pointers 1.0, that is free. There is also an installation guide pdf to download.

All the best to you!

 A One-armed Major Baseball Pro

I want to comment on a post put up today on the Disability Studies Blog by Temple University. Pete Gray was a one-armed baseball player that played in the majors as an outfielder. March 6th was his birthday (1915 - 2002). He lost his arm in a wagon accident when he was 6. Since he grew up in a coal-mining community where accidents and lost appendages were common, he was not discouraged in his desire to play baseball with others there. 

He played in the minor leagues while many players were in the war and was picked up in 1945 by the St. Louis Browns. He had a technique of catching a ball, throwing off his glove, catching the ball and throwing it in a single long motion.

Penny Richards, Phd at UCLA Redondo Beach, CA posts some wonderful biographical sketches of famous role models with disabilities on this blog. These people represent what I see as the perfect example of the no limits lifestyle. This is also a representation of the best in us all, the determination and ability to contribute to society in spite of what others might see as a disability . What a testament to the human spirit!

Penny is also the moderator of the Disability Blog Carnival. Check out the first edition post (it is from 2006, but gives you a great idea of it’s conception and purpose) and then check the links to it on my sidebar.

I have had my share of times when I was feeling tired of others not understanding my limitations and wishing they would give me some slack. On the other hand, I have had times when I wished others would stop worrying about me or asking me how I am doing, accommodating for in me some way and making a reference to whether I should be doing something or not.

I guess you just can’t get everyone to be, do and say what you want, so you have to adapt and let it go. I was called “grandpa” by the checker at the grocery store today when my son and I went through. She said “I assume.” That is a mouthful isn’t it? How often we assume what others can or cannot do, assume what others think, how they feel, etc. I am really tired of people assuming about me - but I need to be careful not to assume about others too. This brings me to the point of this post: If we could all be comfortable to be around each other without trying to control the situation, label each other and put expectations on the time together, we would have a far better time. I like calling it “being comfortable.” Have you ever enjoyed being with someone that you didn’t have to explain anything to? Isn’t it nice to be around people who let you try and fail and it’s OK?

I have a friend that lives in Oklahoma. He lives on a lake and has a pontoon boat. He likes to go out and fish with his cell phone and laptop! He wrote a software that he sold and now has the support contract so he can sit on his boat, fish and take calls and work people through issues. His name is Buddy. His personality and his name are exactly the same. He is a buddy. He doesn’t criticize, he doesn’t expect anything, he gives of his heart and will go the extra mile for you. I could sit on his boat and get my line tangled, have trouble tying a new hook on, getting my drag right and Buddy doesn’t care. He helps but never makes you feel like you don’t know anything. “It could happen to anybody,” he says.

Thanks for your example Buddy. I hope I can lighten up and be the kind of person that others feel is easy to be around. I pray that I have the patience to listen and not jump to conclusions or assumptions. How about you? Maybe you need to be on a pontoon boat on a lazy Oklahoma afternoon learning to be comfortable too.

All the best to you!

Lon

I reached out to shake a hand of a father at a birthday party my son went to last Saturday afternoon. As I reached out and gripped his hand, it felt different to me. I realized that he had a smaller and different-shaped hand. Without skipping a beat, I tried to cover any indication I had shown about it and finished saying hello. It had caught me by surprise and I wondered why.

 “So what?” I asked myself. “What does it matter whether his hand is one way or another?” He was very pleasant and we visited about his job as an accountant. Because of my assistive technology work, I was dying to ask him about how he accessed his computer, did he have an adaptive keyboard, was he fast with a keypad? I stopped… took a breath and tried to analyze my behavior. I needed to look at this as a situation where I could forget his hand and focus on the person. I imagine he wouldn’t have cared at all if I would have asked him about it - especially if I told him I was interested in light of my profession, but I decided it was not the right time.

I watched as he got up, got his 2 kids food and I was very impressed. He had spinal issues and it was a labor of love to take each step and attend to his family’s needs. I thought how he had lived this way his whole life and he was good at doing everything he did that day and certainly didn’t need my help. He was self-sufficient and being a regular dad to his kids.

Again, I was brought to the “No Limits Lifestyle” way of living in my mind. “This man is living the no limits lifestyle whether he knows he is or not,” I said to myself. He obviously has been determined to succeed and has. He is a professional, father and a terrific person - and has accomplished this with a disability.

There are a lot of people that have all their limbs in perfect working order that are hung up by excuses they have for why they can’t get a job, can’t seem to make good choices or never get the “lucky” breaks. There are people today with disabilities - the same one my friend has even - that have excuses too. I KNOW that no matter who you are, where you are, or what your condition, you can do incredible things to impact the world. How you do it  just might need to look a little different. That’s OK, we are all unique anyway.

It seems to me, that it doesn’t matter who we are or what are circumstances. We need to decide for ourselves what we want and not except anything less. When you make demands on yourself that stretch you, you grow. When  you sit around and maintain a “life as usual” attitude, before you know it, you turn around and it has been 15 years and what do you have to show for it. I know, I have been there.

I made a conscious decision a year ago after being in the hospital with a stroke, that no matter what happened to me, my life was going to be different from then on. I was going to stop making excuses for why things didn’t work out for me and believe that there were good things waiting for me. I live every day in expectancy that something good is going to happen. And you know what? When I expect something good, I get something good. If I expect something bad, I get something bad. If I expect the “same ‘ol, same ‘ol” that’s what I will get.

What do you expect? Are you able to believe there is something incredible in you and for you? I want to encourage you. There are principles that can super-charge your life to empower you to be more than you thought possible - no matter what your situation. Believeing in yourself and expecting good things are two of the hardest things to truly discipline ourselves to believe and live out daily, but they are foundation stones of success and freedom.

 Boardmaker with Speaking Dynamically Pro:

I had shared 2 posts ago about what happens when children with disabilities become adults. Here is a good example of someone transitioning into that situation. Maybe some of you can relate: 

Today I sat in a classroom with a boy with CP in a wheelchair. He is in high school and has the academic skills of someone in the fourth grade. The problem is that he has struggled with access to the curriculum over the years more than he has struggled with any cognitive issues. The issue has compounded because he wasn’t able to access the curriculum for pre-academic skills in elementary - until now in high school, he is so far behind he can’t read anything. He has visual tracking issues and he needs to access communication by scanning. His speech is very limited. He has a great advocate for a mom and he has a lot of caring people around him who are working for his best.

Our Speech pathologist that works with him is a veteran with years in hospital treatment. She is working hard to get him set up with a portable dynamic disaplay device by the time he exits from high school. He is a very sensitive boy and I believe he has huge potential. I believe if we could get his access issues resolved (they keep changing as his abilities change) he could be the one sharing this kind of material on a blog that he could write through access to a computer and a virtual keyboard with scanning capabilities. I keep saying that if there’s one thing someone in his situation has, it’s time to sit or lay and work with a laptop and scanning to get their thoughts out. He just needs to learn to read and write first! It is never impossible.

I worked with him today using Boardmaker and Speaking Dynamically Pro on his latop. We were able to use grant funds to purchase a Dell PC with Vista (still not sure what I think about that) and the Mayer Johnson Boardmaker with SDP. This program has power that I am still discovering. Let me tell you what I did with it today. I’m thinking about those of you in college, community courses or university that are looking for something that will let you take notes, yet have visuals and text to speech to help you listen to definitions, terminology, etc. This is a GREAT tool.

I opened a new board in Boardmaker w/ SDP. On the screen I made a large “button” that was half the page. I added a text block and began to write out a term and definition off the board. I also wrote some general notes that supported the main ideas.

After the note-taking, I double-clicked on the large button and opened the action settings. I chose “speak text” and then I copied and pasted the text off the page into the setting window for speak text. I tested it that it sounded right and hit “ok”.

When in use mode, the board becomes a large talking page with all my notes. Now here’s another cool thing: Underneath the large button, I made small rectangle buttons and typed a term on them with the text block. Then I double-clicked again and added a speak text command and pasted the definition. I made a button for each term. After I saved those and opened the page or board in use mode again, I had a “word wall” with the terms in front of me. I could drill from memory by looking and then click on the button and hear the definition to check if I had it or not.

If you have someone with auto scanning and switch access, the auto scan will cycle the notes area up above and each of the term buttons underneath. By hitting the switch on the one you want when it comes around, you can choose which definition you want to hear or the notes from class. I am going to try to do a video screen of it working and post it so you can see it work. It is pretty cool. Check back in a few days and maybe it will be up.

Even though this is an expensive program, (about $650), it is well worth it if you want to design custom communication and have a graphic tool with text to speech. It is pretty incredible.

I am hoping that as we work on this more, the assistant will be able to continue this on her own. I demonstrated this for her today and we are going to make this a goal to develop for the student. This is a way that the he can have more access to his curriculum and have a way to review notes, content, and do it under his own control.

If you are in school and have a disability or know someone who is, this might be an option to explore. If I would have had this in college, it could have supported me in many ways.

All the best to you!