LiveWire LD - Issue 1 November 2010

Welcome to our first edition of LiveWire LD - A Newsletter featuring the latest information on assistive technology for people with a Learning Disability.

The Write to Read Project

School children in the Port Macquarie- Hastings area are among the first in Australia to benefit from a region-wide roll-out of technology which helps overcome learning difficulties such as dyslexia. The Westport Club and ClubsNSW have jointly funded $55,000 worth of an assistive technology called WYNN for 11 schools across the Port Macquarie-Hastings region through an initiative called the "The Write to Read Project".

The Westport Clubs' General Manager Anthony Westman said speaking with local teachers has opened his eyes to the literacy challenges facing local schools. "Our aim is to make a significant contribution to the quality of life in our local community. We believe the future of our community lies in the hands of children, and this technology has the potential to make a tremendous impact on the lives of so many children in our region".

The statistics tell us the bigger picture of what is happening nationally. As many as 10% of school children in Australia suffer from a learning difficulty and around 52% of 15-19 year olds have a literacy level that's considered insufficient to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work.

WYNN brings new options into classrooms for students to participate actively in reading and writing. It can automatically convert text into speech, enabling students to listen to their books, assignments and tests. As each word is spoken it is highlighted on the screen so that students can follow along, improving both their reading and listening skills.

The Write to Read Project resulted from the tireless advocacy of Jim Bond, the persistent and strong support of Rev. the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes MLC, and the generosity of the Westport Club, Mingara Club and ClubsNSW.

Make Your WORD Documents Talk!

Student Support Teacher Margaret finds that EasyProducter can save her around five hours when creating an accessible talking book.

Margaret uses Dolphin EasyProducer to create DAISY books for her to print impaired students. She had previously used a variety of methods to make information accessible (such as audio recording and PowerPoint), before trying EasyProducer. "I soon realised that it was simpler to use, able to display text and pictures - an that it would cut about five hours off the production process!", she says.

Margaret now uses this state-of-the-art alt format software for turning school science curriculum material into DAISY books for use by students.

With EasyProducer, audio narration can be added to a Word document (either scanned in, downloaded or composed on screen) at the click of a button. A chapter of a book can be converted in just 90 seconds and pictures can be included and enhanced as needed.

Scholarship Winners!

Each year, Quantum is very proud to extend its Scholarship program to individuals around Australia as a way of contributing back to the community that supports us so well.

The WYNN Scholarship is aimed at people with a learning disability such as dyslexia and the prizes are a copy of a full licence of WYNN Wizard.

This year's winners are:

Anthony Cook, Tullamarine VIC

Rina Miller, Sydenham VIC

Caroline Camens, Myponga SA

Jane Leggatt, Uralla NSW

Julia Berenyi, Gordon ACT

Here is what one of the winners feels about WYNN:

"For the serious learner with learning difficulties, WYNN is an amazing program. I have been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to use WYNN and my learning outcome was that I achieved a High Distinction for my efforts. I owe it to the WYNN program because it has the distinctive speech output feature. WYNN assisted me in my final assignment in 2009. WYNN read my work and I can more easily note what makes sense and what can be improved. Results for my work using the WYNN has been a positive experience. Using the feature to download files on an iPod is valuable because I have short term memory loss and require repetition to maximise learning and remembering. Wherever I am and whatever I do, I can listen to text books on audio and reinforce learning. Understanding difficult concepts and theories in social work units can be time consuming but the audio feature is convenient, quick and easy."

EasyConverter - Making information accessible to all!

EasyConverter empowers you to quickly and easily create alternative format (Large Print, MP3 audio, DAISY talking book and Braille) versions of learning materials and other documents.

Schools, tertiary organisations and government departments can now have their paper documents, PDF files, MS Word and text files transformed into alternative formats that suit individual needs. EasyConverter will create files in Braille, large print, MP3 audio or DAISY formats at the click of a button.

The software will save hours of time in converting information for people who can't access traditional formats due to blindness, low vision or learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

EasyConverter is the first 'altformat' conversion tool in the work to incorporate a total solution approach, offering multi format input and multi option output. Spearheading the latest advances in converting standard printed books, graphics and texts into alternative formats, EasyConverter will:

• quickly and easily create DAISY, Braille, Large Print, text and MP3 files, without the need for alternative format creation expertise
• handle a wide range of input files including Word and PDF documents, HTML and text
• scan paper documents and simply convert them to an alternative format of choice
• effortlessly manipulate graphics and diagrams, and add text, audio or Braille descriptions where considered beneficial
• enable the user to choose an automatic creation option or edit the intermediary file to suit their need
• allow intuitive and intelligent large print conversion, carefully handling page breaks, headings, graphics, and other original formatting features
• act as simple to use, yet powerful, tool that saves hours of laborious manual conversion.

EasyConverter caters for a full spectrum of ages and disabilities from early years t university, for blind students, pupils with low vision, dyslexic learners and those will reading difficulties. It is also a cost-effective solution for educational institutions wishing to satisfy disability rights obligations.

Researcg from John Hopkins University in America has shown that when students with literacy problems are exposed to learning materials as combined audio and text, their test scores can increase by almost 40%. This bi-modal presentation of information can benefit many students who may not have been diagnosed with a learning difficulty.

Product Profile: PLEXTALK Pocket, Talking Book Player

Truly pocket-sized, the PLEXTALK Pocket is the latest generation of talking book player. It will play a wide range of talking books, including DAISY books, so you can even load MS Word documents and have them read out to you. The PLEXTALK Pocket is also a stereo recorder (record in formats such as DAISY and MP3).

Its small size, quality recording, and unique capabilities make it an ideal replacement for older technology like cassette players, earlier Digital Talking Book (DTB) players, or inaccessible commercial digital recorders. PLEXTALK Pocket is also an excellent music player and outstanding music recorder. The reading controls let you read a wide variety of books in both audio (human speech) and text (synthetic speech) format. Its ability to create Digital Talking Book recordings is unique. PLEXTALK Pocket contains state-of-the-art hardware including high-speed USB (for DTB cartridges, thumb drives, and USB CD-ROM drives) and supports high capacity SD cards (up to 32GB).

Dyslexia and Higher Education

Recently the Federal Government has been encouraging Universities around Australia to increase the diversity of students they enrol. This has raised some questions around just how Universities cater to the needs of students with disability or special needs. One group of students that have typically not moved into tertiary education are those people with profound dyslexia, which can be defined as a total lack of literacy skills.

Understanding how to educate a student with profound dyslexia is a challenge that Macquarie University in New South Wales is taking head on. Through their Macquarie University Accessibility Services (MQAS) they are in the early stages of a research project aimed at documenting the progress of dyslexic student Jim Bond through a degree in political science.

Jim has an extensive list of achievements as an advocate for people with dyslexia and knows first hand the challenges of living in a world that is so heavily dependent on reading and writing. Despite intensive interventions and remediation over many years Jim cannot read, yet he has been assessed as having an IQ in the highly gifted range.

Under the proposed research, MQAS is aiming to conduct a three year longitudinal study of the ways in which assistive technologies influence and contribute to Jim's learning, as well as to examine the ways in which teaching practices and curriculum development can be adapted to improve outcomes for students with learning difficulties.

Currently Jim uses a variety of assistive technology devices including the Zoom-Ex camera to convert printed text to speech, WYNN for reading and writing, and EasyReader to read information in DAISY format.

It is hoped that the data gathered will provide a picture of what works for students with profound dyslexia, which will potentially be the basis for developing a model that can be applicable across varying degrees of severity, and useful for all tertiary education facilities.

About MQAS:
MQAS is a National Service established under Commonwealth funding (Higher
Education Innovation Project grant) in 2004. In addition to extensive experience in converting materials into alternative formats for use with assistive technologies, MQAS has developed positive relationships with publishers, the Copyright Agency Limited and a wide range of education providers.

Contact Details:
Macquarie University Accessibility Services (MQAS) (A unit of the Learning and Teaching Centre)
Room 007 Ground Floor
299 Lane Cove Road,
Macquarie University
Sydney NSW 2109
Phone: 61 2 9850 1480
http://www.mq.edu.au/ltc/mqas/

Accessing Math

Some students who find reading and writing difficult may be good at math but find reading the questions a challenge. Well now there are a range of accessibly Math tools that can convert mathematical information into accessible formats. These include:

• MathDaisy, which can convert both text and mathematical symbols into speech. Words and symbols can be spoken and highlighted on the screen at the same time.
• QTCalc - an accessible graphing calulator application for PCs
• Platon - a talking scientific calculator

Call us for more information.