Wyoming residents—UW students included—who have trouble seeing, hearing, or speaking, or just find themselves struggling to wake up on time or read their textbooks might find help on campus.
Wyoming Assistive Technology Resources (WATR) exists to help anyone who needs it—from the slightly struggling to the severely disabled, from schools to retirement homes.
Wendy Alameda, WATR project coordinator, said people are often surprised at the variety of resources provided.
“Technology changes all the time,” she said. “Most people don’t even know what’s available.”
For example, when someone uses a smart pen to take notes on paper, those notes also appear in a corresponding iPad app so the note-taker can jot down lecture notes as fast as they can write and also have a digitized copy that can be edited later.
A magnifier can be placed directly on a book page or newspaper and display the text beneath on a screen which can be adjusted for contrast and zoom. This little device can aid individuals with poor eyesight in leading a more normal life.
WATR also serves more severe disabilities, as Chele Porter knows firsthand. Porter’s daughter, Kylie, suffered a stroke at birth and as a result now suffers from cerebral palsy. Though her cognitive functions are fully intact, her physical limitations often kept her from communicating her thoughts.
A Colorado program with aims similar to those of WATR set Kylie up with the same speaking device famously used by the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. But this device cost thousands of dollars and required the Porters to frequent the University of Colorado.
WATR introduced the Porters to an iPad app that cost only a few hundred dollars, but had similar capabilities and trained Kylie how to use it.
“We have now gone to simpler, cheaper technology that does the same thing,” Porter said. “She can surf the web and communicate with her friends on social media. WATR has opened up her ability to be independent.”
Assistive technology devices can be expensive and knowledge about them scarce. WATR loans out their materials for trial periods (usually six weeks) so families or individuals can see which devices improve their lives.
“The neatest part about WATR is that they work directly with individuals with disabilities,” Canyon Hardesty, deputy director of WATR, said. “There are lots of opportunities to drastically change people’s lives. You develop relationships with families across the state.”
WATR started as an educational resource and continues to work mostly with schools and students, but also caters to anyone who could benefit.
“We serve birth to death,” Alameda said. “We serve the whole spectrum of disabilities categories. We have to look at the entire spectrum.”
Anyone can check out the available assistive technology on Thursdays between 1:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. when the department holds an open lab in the Health Sciences Building.
Wendy Alameda, WATR Assistive Technology Project Coordinator (left)
Gisele Knopf, WATR Assistive Technology Assistant (middle)
Darcy Regan, MA, CCC-SLP, WATR Speech Language Pathologist (right)
The E-bot, an assistive technology device, magnifies print documents and distance information. That information is then translated a tablet screen and can be magnified or read aloud for individuals with low vision.
