A Toolbox for People Who Are Blind or Have Visual Impairments

As Director of Counseling at the Deicke Center for Low Vision, Leah Gerlach has a very challenging role. She works at one of the busiest low vision centers in the Midwest with only the help of Deicke's small staff and a couple of volunteers, comprising a team of eight.

Leah meets with consumers and their families to help each one cope and make adjustments to sudden onsets of vision loss. Leah helps consumers set new, attainable goals—an encouraging first step in the rehabilitation process, and a hopeful one. Leah's presence as a guiding force at Deicke Center is credible to consumers because Leah herself is legally blind due to being born two months early.

Leah also runs Deicke's support group and oversees the outreach program, visiting many special education programs throughout Illinois. Out in the field, Leah and her staff make evaluations and recommend assistive technology devices. The Deicke Center can also provide devices because they work to raise private donations and corporate grants. Leah also writes the agency's grant proposals. How does she accomplish so much each week?

First, there's Leah's guide dog, Future, a yellow Labrador retriever and an active member of the staff. Future guides Leah wherever she needs to go, safely and efficiently. Future has been Leah's guide dog for three and a half years. (For more information on guide dogs, see the assistive pooch page of Infinitec's special animals section)

Then, Leah utilizes several forms of assistive technology: A primary tool for many people with blindness is the Perkins Brailler; Leah uses hers for taking notes at meetings or to write notes to colleagues who read Braille.

At work and at home, Leah utilizes JAWS screen reading software with synthetic speech for reading and writing in all programs, such as Microsoft Word, Web pages, and electronic mail. JAWS will also read back anything Leah types in, letter-by-letter, and complete words. JAWS has seven or eight different voices to choose from so that users can offset different types of text. For instance, one voice is used for body text and another for titles and paragraph headings. Leah sometimes uses Zoomtext Extra, another talking screen-reader.

For database work, Microsoft Access provides users with keystroke commands, rather than mouse movement and pull-down menus that must be seen. A hand-held telescope is very useful for reading street signs or airport monitors. Leah has both of these in her toolbox and uses them.

Arkenstone Openbook is a scanning program that uses an optical character recognition (OCR) device to scan anything in type and read it back aloud. Openbook can also magnify text scanned from a computer screen. Leah uses it to examine documents and read her snailmail. Text can then be saved and manipulated for future reference.

When it's time to relax, Leah likes to go hiking and canoeing in good weather, machine quilting by touch for indoors, and cooking all year long. She is married with two grown children. Her academic achievements include a Master's degree in Rehabilitation Administration and Counseling, a bachelor's degree in Interpersonal Communication, and a certificate in Adaptive Technology Applications.

When it comes to work, Leah has all bases covered. You can too with a state-of-the-art toolbox. See the resources below for all the software and devices mentioned above.

Resources
The Deicke Center for Visual Rehabilitation
219 East Cole Avenue
Wheaton, IL 60187
Telephone: (630) 690-7115
Fax: (630) 690-9037
The Deicke Center's mission is to provide the visually impaired with the tools and training necessary to function independently at home, in the workplace, and in the community at large. For more information, visit: http://www.deicke.org/

Freedom Scientific Low Vision Group
http://www.freedomscientific.com/index.html
Personal notetaking, Braille embossing, computer Braille displays and scanning & reading printed media.Screen reading, screen magnification, web access, scanning & reading and WYNN literacy software, accessories, training, support, and an online store.

Hand-held telescopes
Eschenbach makes many types of magnifiers and hand-held telescopes. Visit:
www.eschenbach.com

JAWS for Windows by:
Henter-Joyce, Inc.
11800 31st Court North
St. Petersburg, FL 33716-1805
(727) 803-8000 or 1(800) 336-5658
(727) 803-8001 (fax)
Visit the Henter-Joyce Web site for a free demo:
http://www.hj.com/

Microsoft Access
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HP052700241033&C
TT=4&Origin=CH062525981033

Perkins Brailler:
Howe Press
Perkins School for the Blind
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown, MA 02172-2790
(617) 924-3490 (Tel)
(617) 926-2027 (Fax)
Howepress@perkins.pvt.k12.ma.us
Perkins Braillers are available in manual or electric models, one-handed and large cell models.

Pulse Data
Innovations for People with Visual Disabilities
http://www.pulsedata.com
Video magnifiers and software, note-takers, scanners, Braille writers, display, embossers, learning disabilities software, customer support. Pulse data also took over Humanware.

Zoomtext Extra
(see Pulse Data above)

Note: Infinitec Inc. does not endorse or recommend the above-mentioned products and has no liability for the results of their use. Infinitec Inc. has received no consideration of any type for featuring this product on this Web site. The information offered herein is a summary; it is not comprehensive and should be carefully evaluated by consumers with the assistance of qualified professionals. The intention of Infinitec Inc. is to offer consumers a brief overview of various assistive technology devices and their applications.