Ain’t Technology Grand? Assistive Devices for the Vision-Impaired Writer

Reblogged from Crackin’ the WIP

by    D.M. Gutierrez

Since I talked about my vision impairment last week, I thought I’d expand on the topic a little. Some of you might be wondering how I write or read or critique. Well, there are a lot of assistive devices out there, and they sure have improved over the years. I’ll show you the ones I use, and maybe, if you know someone who has impaired vision and isn’t already aware of these world-expanding tools, you can pass along the information.

First of all, I want to give a lot of credit to both the California Department of Rehabilitation and the New Mexico Commission for the Blind. I was born with a retinal degenerative condition, but could see well enough with increasingly stronger eyeglasses until I was 18. By then, my vision had decreased to 20/200 with correction, the legal standard for blindness.

That’s when the Department of Rehabilitation stepped in. They helped me get audiobooks (first on vinyl records, then on flexible disc, then cassette tapes, and now in downloadable digital format) from the National Library Service’s Talking Book Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. My undergraduate college worked with Rehab to hire readers for my textbooks, recording them onto tape or reading to me in person. Later, Recording for the Blind (now Learning Ally) offered free recorded textbooks to vision-impaired students and professionals.  Here are some of the audiobook devices I have used. They can play the DAISY format books provided by the TBL, and the two on the right can also play Audible audiobooks.

I was writing on a typewriter back then. Lucky for me, I had taken a touch typing class in junior high so had no trouble writing both fiction and academic work. But trying to read and edit was almost impossible. Again, Rehab came to my rescue with a CCTV (closed-circuit TV) that could magnify what I was reading as much as I needed. Here is a more modern version of what I started out with. Now I have a webcam that works with software to turn my computer into a CCTV.

For working on the computer (writing and critting on Critique Circle, chatting with fellow writers, doing research for my WIPs, emailing submissions to poetry or songwriting contests, etc.), I have ZoomText, a program that can both magnify text and read it out loud. I generally listen to a story I’m critiquing a few times for a general overview, then visually read through to catch detail.

Portable visual aids include various magnifiers like these and also a SenseView. These are great for shopping so I can read the ingredients on a can of soup or the price tag on a pair of jeans. Also, for reading the return address of the latest royalty check I’ve received from an occasional sale of my print-on-demand picture books or CD, or, less satisfying, rejection letters.

My newest acquisition is a specialized netbook, the HIMS Voice Sense Qwerty. Small enough to fit in my purse, it has no monitor and is pretty much a keyboard that talks to me. It has many functions: word processor, audiobook player, web browser/email/Twitter/Facebook access, alarm clock, stopwatch, even a GPS—and so many more things I haven’t checked out yet. If only I would have had one of these in college, my life would have been much simpler!

So there you go, a brief tour of the assistive technology that makes my writing life possible. Now it’s time to start up the old ZoomText and get to work on those critiques.

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Hi, readers! Love to have you  share the technology that helps you in your writing/songwriting/poetry  endeavors 🙂  And don’t forget to link to this blog for anyone else who might be interested!