Skip to content
Assistive Technology and me enable ireland

ATandMe

Read, learn and share how assistive technology can help

Search
  • Home
  • About
    • Copyright
  • Resources
    • AT Learning Portal
    • AT Loan Library
    • Podcasts
    • Publications
    • YouTube Channel
  • Training
    • The James Brosnan Scholarship: Foundations in AT Course
    • Upcoming events
  • DATTN
    • Daily Living
    • Communication
    • Education
    • Hobbies
ATandMe

Category: AAC

AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication and is Assistive Technology to support communication

illustration of woman communicating on a mobile device - generated by Bing Image Creator
June 19, 2023 Karl O'Keeffe

Live Speech and Personal Voice – Apple Accessibility 2023 Part 2

…it can be used right from lock screen. This feature alone will make it extremely useful and allow people participate in spontaneous communication without having to unlock the device and find the app.

Continue reading
empathic - Seamless Care - smart phone with happy emoji on the screen
May 12, 2023 Aviva Cohen

New app interprets the emotions of nonverbal people

Empathic app helps carers interpret the emotions expressed by nonverbal

Continue reading
July 1, 2022 Sean Loughran

Voice banking: Learning from the experience of the broadcaster, Charlie Bird

Voice banking is a technology that allows an individual to

Continue reading
October 26, 2021 Sean Loughran

Puck.js

Introduction PucK.js is a programmable Bluetooth sensor and switch.  You

Continue reading
September 17, 2021 Sean Loughran

Tablet Devices and Apps for supporting Students with Autism

Author: NCSE Advisors and Therapy team members The Benefits of

Continue reading
September 9, 2021 Sean Loughran

Autism and Augmentative Alternative Communication

Author: NCSE Advisors and Therapy team members For some autistic

Continue reading
rainbow coloured space invader character
July 26, 2021 Karl O'Keeffe

Have fun – type faster – Zty.pe

The speed and efficiency at which we can type is

Continue reading
June 17, 2021 Saleem Rahman

Basics of mobile screen readers

By Saleem Rahman Accessibility Consultant InterAccess.ie  There are two types

Continue reading
March 25, 2021 Garry Toner

HouseMate: SmartHome Control

I use a product called HouseMate. This enables me to

Continue reading
March 2, 2021 Mary Relihan

Cosmonaut Wide-Grip Stylus for touchscreens

Product Details Cosmonaut Wide Grip Stylus for Touch Screen –

Continue reading

Posts pagination

«Previous Posts 1 2 3 4 … 6 Next Posts»

Categories

In this video I'll briefly show how to easily build an Optikey Dynamic Keyboard using our build document and an AI assistant that can be used as an alternative interfaces for games or apps.

Descriptive Transcript
[Video starts showing the optikey on screen keyboard typing "optikey" on a blank document. It then switches to the Special Effect webpage about EyeMine]
Narrator: OptiKey is a free on screen keyboard that
people control with their eyes, head, mouse, a joystick or a touchscreen.

It can do much more than type though. The UK gaming charity Special Effect
built EyeMine from it so that people could play Minecraft with their eyes.

[The Spotify control keyboards are shown on screen here. 3 keyboards. One to launch Spotify, YouTube or VLC. One to control the apps with buttons like Next previous, play pause and a favorates keyboard.]

OptiKey also has dynamic keyboards. They are small text files that describe
keyboards, what each key says and what it does, such as pressing a key or opening a programme.

It's a similar idea to the grids in software like the Grid 3 or Communicator.

In my experience, dynamic keyboards are underused because there's no editor with buttons and menus.

You have to write the files yourself. That's where an AI assistant comes in.

[Claude AI chat interface, prompt added and edited. Build document uploaded. Screenshot of game controls uploaded]

We wrote a build document and instructions with working examples. I'll upload it, then add a short message,
the app I want to control, the functions I want and how the person will use it, and a screenshot of the game controls in
this case.

Although I could just write them down. Or sometimes you could even just ask the AI to find out the keyboard shortcuts for you.

A few moments later I have a first draft, a layout, the keyboard files, and the setup steps.

I saved the files in a folder. There's an extra step here that you won't need to do because the new prompt asks
the AI to give you the file to directly download.

If you're an optic key user, put the file in your dynamic keyboards folder or if you just want to use this
optickey for this purpose, as we show here in the console, you can set Optikey to look for this keyboard file on opening so we can
restart optiKey.

And here's our new dynamic keyboard.

[Keyboard docked at the bottom of the screen controling the supermario game]

It's a bit hit and miss for these browser based games, but for well designed and implemented games and apps this should work pretty solidly.
Optikey Dynamic keyboards: Accessible alternative access for apps and games
Musician Cillian McSweeney gives us a brief history of his life as a musician who uses Assistive Technology. While he tells his story we see a montage of clips of him playing music live and on TV. We see him using a sound beam, switches and eye gaze. and playing with various bands and musicians in different venues. The second half is a screen recording where he shows a free program that he uses called Eye Play Chords. At the end of the video there's a QR code linking to My Breath My Music where the software can be downloaded.
Eye Play Chords
Smart Support AT for Alzheimer's Management
How to set up an Action Block on Android to make WhatsApp calls
Subscribe

Other Resources

  • AT HIVE
  • CALL Scotland
  • David Banes Access Services
  • Enable Ireland: Additional Training and Support Resources
  • Enable Ireland: eLearning Courses
  • Eventbrite National Assistive Technology Training Service, Enable Ireland
  • Freedom Tech
  • GPII Unified Listings
ATandMe Eventbrite

ATandMe YouTube
Assistive Technology and me enable ireland
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}