by Nubyaan Scott, Program Coordinator for Ability Tools Tremors are involuntary movements that can make it harder to perform daily tasks. The most common of all involuntary movements, tremors can affect the hands, arms, head, face, voice, trunk, and legs. However, most tremors occur in the hands. While some people take medication in order to…
The following short closed captioned video provides a great, simple and easy AT idea for executive function or episodic memory loss. The idea? Use Twitter – a free program/app – to tweet to yourself about your daily activities. Then, you can search them easily if you don’t remember something that you did or what happened…
Here at Ability Tools, we enjoy following other assistive technology blogs, forums, and reviews from various sources. Here are a few for you to check out! 1. Bmeerz: This is an ambitious AT reviewer that offers many different reviews/demos of AT devices in a video format on Youtube. You can click on CC to open…
This year, in Zurich, Switzerland, a 15-unit apartment building opened, unique because it is “Europe’s first chemical-free housing complex” (chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org). The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tried something similar in 1994 but there were a lot of mistakes made – and a lot has changed since then, too! After looking into Multiple…
by Nubyaan Scott, Program Coordinator for Ability Tools Many of you may know Amazon for its widely diverse online marketplace where you can buy anything from a squat stand to a Roswell soil sample. But, did you know they also make a smartphone? A couple of weeks ago the company revealed that it had designed…
by Justin Harford Yesterday, June 3, 2014, I cast my first ballot independently as someone who is blind, using an electronic voting machine at my local polling place. This experience brought me a lot of satisfaction both because I was participating in the electoral process as a good citizen who had done their homework,…
By Rhett Simmons of West Coast Captioning Assistive Technology (AT) has been a major part of my life for the last 23 years. In 1991, I started using AT to provide captioning services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. In case you don’t know, captioning is the black box with words in it…
by Emily Flynn, Youth/Independent Living Specialist, Solano County I started working for Independent Living Resources of Solano and Contra Costa County in May of 2013. In the past year I have learned so much! I have learned how people with all different disabilities can live independently in their own way. This may mean getting them…
by Lady Love *** This post is of an adult-themed nature *** When I was in junior high school, a boy once asked me whether I can have sex and have babies — because I use a wheelchair. My immediate reaction was, “Yes, of course!” Then he asked me how and I replied,…
by guest blogger Laurie Hoirup, author of I Can Dance: My Life with a Disability Within the business world, financial success is the driving force for both concept and product design. Numbers matter and sadly, for the disability community, those numbers can have a detrimental effect upon independence and ability. Technology is a wonderful asset…