Raising awareness of mental illnesses is an important part of erasing the stigma attached to those disorders. Graphic designer Patrick Smith created these minimalist posters that perfectly illustrate a number of mental disorders in flawless style.
Mental illness is no laughing matter, and Smith doesn’t present these disorders in jest. Rather, he is presenting them in terms that are easy to interpret visually. His intention when creating these posters was to offer them as part of a mental health awareness program.
The posters came about as a personal challenge for Smith after he read descriptions of many different mental disorders. The designer wanted to see if he could create attractive, informative and minimalist graphics that would explain each condition. Given the striking results, it seems that he was quite successful.
(via kayseeang)
How will the big companies that make expensive dedicated speech devices respond to these new technologies? Will they develop their own apps and expand their work to utilize this new technology? Or will speech device makers ignore the rapidly changing face of technology, like the iceman stubbornly delivering blocks of ice until every house on the block owns a refrigerator/freezer of their own?
Now we seem to have the beginnings of an answer, and perhaps a quintessentially American one at that. They are going to sue the pants off the competition.
The Iceman Cometh, with his Legal Team by Robert Rummel-Hudson (via Dana Nieder <-Follow that if you want to look at some of the discussion on this whole case)
(It’s worth pointing out that one player, Tobii, have responded with Sono Flex, and PRC have actually dipped their toe in the water with “Apps” with their Silver Kite affair - but granted you could argue it feels rather a slow speed to what the market is demanding.)
Watch this little Raspberry Pi. If I had money, I would bet that this thing will do wonders for the AT/AAC sector (just like the BBC Micro B did that it is somewhat emulating). I have been playing with some small form factor electronics-come-pc’s e.g. an arduino (which the Tecla is based on) - but outputting graphics is, well, not very fun and pretending to be an input device is a bit of a pig (although do look at the Host Shield). If you are looking to play with input devices it looks like a teensyusb should be useful - it can pretend to be a HID interface in a snap (e.g. turn it into a programmable switch box for any computer, and here’s the fun bit, run a switch encoding-to-text converter on there (e.g. Morse)).
The problem though is that with both of these you are somewhat limited by the programming language you use and the input/output options (e.g. monitor). Raspberry Pi though should be able to do all of this and more - and at an amazing price. It also has an amazing spec for the cost (e.g. a incredibly low power consumption equivalent to 4xAA batteries). It could easily become the brains alongside your wheelchair controls for AAC and EC with a totally unhindered access to alternative controls. That’s pretty exciting stuff. If AT/AAC companies stopped focusing on Windows so much (and the Apple generation is helping this) this little charitable piece of hardware may really help to bring down the cost of equipment.
UPDATE: Neil from SmartboxAT mentions there is also the Cotton Candy Stick on a computer. That’s a pretty neat bit of kit taking pre-orders now but its significantly more and most importantly, its not exactly clear how much hardware hacking is possible with this little gem. The developer site has little on it. )
(An aside: People think I’m mad when I say this but I genuinely think there is a need for more OT’s to understand programming. The future is more and more electronics and electronic AT. If you don’t know what you can do to support your clients with any assistive technology how can you support your clients? A company selling you equipment shouldn’t be your only way of finding out whats possible. )
Snoopy’s doting Dad hated to travel, loathed hotels and was plagued by anxiety, panic attacks, loneliness and depression. According to his wife, he ‘worried constantly’.
from this incredibly interesting blog by an anonymous panic attack/GAD person (via JonRonson)
“don’t let your pride get in the way of doing what you need to do” (via AOTA)
At one time I was interested in getting into the AAC market because the mark-ups were obviously so outrageous. I got fairly far along with my device when I realized an app on a touchscreen device would instantly obsolete my planned invention.
This certainly seems like a case of money outweighing ethics.
if you can bang a shed together you can play the drums
Great Britain and Ireland by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr:
This nearly cloud-free view of Great Britain and Ireland was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite on March 26, 2012. Just a few days into spring, most of the land appears green, although not quite as brilliant as the summertime hues that give Ireland the nickname “the Emerald Island”.London can be seen as a gray circle situated inland on the tan-colored River Thames.Photograph: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team. via iamdanw.
Tylurker2: “My mother used to teach violin to a teenaged girl with selective mutism… [she] was one of the few people she would not speak to. My mom was always trying to help her “get over it” and just talk to her.”
mute_point: “No offense or anything, but your mom is my worst nightmare.”
Fascinating the constant “Have you tried MDMA?” questions - you also get these in ASD forums on reddit.
There are quite a few face detection software systems available to enable users to control a mouse by moving their head; some free and some not so free (e.g. Camera Mouse, eFMer, Claro FaceMouse and the enable e-Viacam for starters (oh and for an interesting musical application using this technology see AUMI)).
If you are interested at rolling your own face or object/image detection system take a look at OpenCV or some of these face detection libraries. I found the above after watching Kurt Grandis’ epic Squirrel Hunting machine presentation at PyCon and one of the questions at the end suggested looking at TLD - a project developed by Zdenek Kalal a Phd Student at Surrey University which neatly learns tracking detection. This is pretty neat - and, as the video suggests, could be of benefit to the Assistive Technology market.
How to face your fears and enjoy them
Damn it. Searching for “Monkey Jazz” apparently brings up nothing. Infact worse than that - the end of the internet. Really? I find it hard to believe that I am the only one who would classify a piece of music as “Monkey Jazz”. Pah! (from Last.fm)
Nice little video from Christopher Hills, a student studying IT in Queensland, Aus. Chris is using a Discover Envoy setup and pretty neatly too having edited this video. Interesting head switch setup - thats not a lot of positioning equipment going on there. Check out Chris’ other video too titled “Priceless”. Along with this video its a nice summary of AT(/OT?). Note how Chris is studying through TAFE (think Open University) too.
(via Endgadget - The title from Engadget grates the heck out of me though “Even cerebral palsy can’t stop this dedicated video creator”. Not sure if it’s worse than the Verge’s title: “Cerebral palsy afflicted teen edited these inspiring videos with a single key”)
“When I first meet people I don’t introduce myself as a poker player…When they ask me what I do its definitely an Occupational Therapist” (from A short film by PokerStars Team Online)
Ironically a fairly good advert for OT and CAOT. At least I think it is. Somethings not sitting right with me about it, but I can’t figure out what. Skip to 5m.49s where the OT bit is discussed more in depth but watch the whole thing to get the bigger picture. Interesting reading the comments too, e.g:
“It’s actually kinda cool to see someone who succeeds at poker but doesn’t have it as the main part of their life…”
Occupational Balance?
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