Martin Finn - You’re Beautiful (Live @ Autism’s Got Talent 2012) - YouTube

The ramblings of a mad person. So I figure I can do something as a weekend bit of fun and do a Open source version of a Tandem Master using a Teensy. There is some code to work from (see the bitbucket listed here)

My soldering is shoddy. I’m going to hold my breath and try and dig deep to do some C to make this work - if you fancy giving me a hand I’m all ears (NB: There is a real need to get this working. It is for fun but there are users who need this..)

theotsiproject:

Terrific visual of handwriting grips. #OT #Handwriting #Grips

Real classy inclusion Mr Photographer

“If you want to take my parking, take my disability” Sign in Saudi.

I keep getting picked up on my pronunciation of town names up in Manchester and I think of this.

For individuals who struggle to re-position a mouse it can be useful to build a frame so when they hit the edge it’s a reminder to lift up and re-place the mouse in the middle. Well, make one or use your degree certificate..

Been following these ideas for a while since the early trials in Sweden/Denmark. Nice to see its working in the UK too.

laughingsquid:

Poynton Regenerated, English Village Revives Town Center by Removing Traffic Signals

Fab video - chuffed to bits for everyone who got involved with this. The outcome is great.

If you look at the research on vocabulary acquisition, you’ll find a surprising result: weirdly enough, learning groups of similar words (apple, pear, banana) is significantly harder to learn. You’ll be much better off if you either learn words in unrelated groups (apple, dog, red) or in groups that form stories (apple, sweet, to eat). — Interesting article discussing the research on efficient ways of learning vocabulary. In short - chain words together to learn them - not group them in categories. Be aware though - this doesn’t neccessarily mean categorising them in a AAC system is a bad idea - its just questioning how we learn the words. See here for the full article.

Hellen Keller and her communication system.

“It is not blindness or deafness that bring me my darkest hours,”.. “It is the acute disappointment in not being able to speak normally. Longingly I feel how much better I could have done if I had acquired normal speech. But out of this sorrowful experience, I understand more fully all human tragedies, thwarted ambitions, and the infinite capacity of hope.”

See also this video of Anne Sulliivan and Helen with some more information about her speech development.

This is a pretty amazing little film. Interesting for anyone interested in Occupational Therapy, Assistive Technology, AAC and Communication, film-making.. Everyone.

Wonderful little film. The backstory is just as interesting.

Shelter: a look at Manchester's homeless. Full film. from Mike Staniforth on Vimeo.

CiteUSync (python)

Updated the Music Switcher recently. Amongst other things:

Support for more switch boxes by using alternative key codes. Particularly useful for the Don Johnston box A better way to access help and the latched time using an option in the right click of the menu tray. Heck of a lot nicer. Support for VLC. I hate the way Windows Media Player (and iTunes to a certain extent) is awful at dealing with anything other than video encoded in 1998. So the music switcher now works with VLC too. The full details is here

Happy St Patricks Day/Weekend(!)

Loving Andy Councils work. (The babel tower of language)

This was for a feature on learning languages and communicating with people. It is a modern tower of Babel type thing. It goes from the bottom level where there is a language gene that people share with Chickens, Crocodiles and Cats to the top where people are able to communicate by reading each others thoughts!

Rubber bands rule (If you have a spare hour watch the much longer chat here)

A little montage from my walk round town

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Mark & Sam. Two fab people who use AAC & AT highlighted by the Guardian Christmas Appeal for the ACE Centre.

(via ACE Centre Christmas charity appeal – video)