On Tuesday, July 11, DACS will be featuring a dual presentation on both the Voice For Joanie program and one of the assistive technologies that they use. Our speakers for the evening will be Shirley Fredlund, who founded the Voice For Joanie program in 1990, and David Goldberg, president of Health Science.

What is the Voice For Joanie program?

Imagine being sick and unable to speak…or consumed by thoughts, but powerless to express them in words…Suppose you couldn’t let anyone know that you were thirsty, cold or in pain. Imagine the creative adaptation of computer hardware and software to restore a paralyzed person’s ability to “speak” by activating a voice synthesizer with the blink of an eye!

 This is the Voice For Joanie program, a group of dedicated volunteers who research computer technology and adapt it to the needs of victims of ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Voice For Joanie has furnished, at no charge,Voice For Joanie communicators to a total of 488 people, 459 in 139 Connecticut towns, 13 in New York State and 16 in various other states.

Clients are referred to Voice For Joanie after all other medical, therapeutic and rehabilitative services have been exhausted. Referrals come from doctors, health care agencies and support organizations, as well as other ALS victims and their families and friends. Once an inquiry is received, a Voice For Joanie volunteer talks with the client and family members to evaluate the need and to determine which equipment will help and modifications are then made according to individual need.

Voice For Joanie communicators are used in various ways. Typed messages are “spoken” by the voice synthesizer, read from a printer or screen or transmitted via telephone through a computer modem. A blink of the eye can create artificial speech. Voice For Joanie frees people with the paralyzing, degenerative disease, ALS.

David Goldberg will present and demonstrate a new release of one of the products his company sells called My Tobii. My Tobii Eye Control System offers easy to use and truly effective communication for people with highly limited mobility. The MyTobii system consists of a specific computer display that can detect precisely where the user is looking on the screen together with a suite of application software which allows the user to communicate and interact using only his or her eyes without any external devices

What can you do with My Tobii?

• Easily and effectively use eye gaze to control specially designed applications, for example eye controlled e-mail, mouse moving and text editing. All programs from Tobii Technology.
• Use custom designed tools for eye controlled user input, for example innovative eye controlled on-screen keyboards and an eye controlled version of the Dasher for high speed text input.
• Communicate using leading third party communication and interaction software, which have been specially modified to integrate with MyTobii. One example is The GRID from Sensory Software and communicator from Viking Software.
• Directly control the mouse pointer to use any Windows software.
• Control your environment by using other software

Come and learn about the Voice For Joanie Program and My Tobii. DACS has supported the Voice For Joanie program for years and is always in need of volunteers.

DACS meetings are held at the Danbury Hospital auditorium. Activities begin at 7 p.m. with casual networking, a general question and answer period (Ask DACS) and a discussion of what’s new in technology followed by a short break and the featured evening presentation at 8:00.

As a reminder, our General Meetings are free and open to the public so invite anyone you know who would be interested in this topic.