To Not Feel Alone in the Universe

MH Speaking 074

Remarks by Dr. Michelle Harrison, Founder of Shishur Sevay, invited speaker at Conference “Empowering Disabled Persons with Accessible & Assistive Technology” organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries of India in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice and Empowerment, held at Le Meridien, 11 February, 2016. Invitees represented banks, PSU’s, and corporates. Dr. Harrison was the only speaker from the NGO sector as Shishur Sevay was the first NGO for disabled children in India to utilize the Tobii Eye Tracker technology for its most severely affected children. This technology allows a child who has no ability to use her hands or feet, nor does she have a stable head, to be able use her eyes on the computer screen to communicate with others. ASSOCHAM invited Dr. Harrison to speak about the “on the ground” reality of accessibility and assistive communication technologies.

Good Afternoon

COMMUNICATION and ACCESSIBILITY are the themes of this conference, but Why is communication so important? What is its function?

  • To not feel alone in the universe as an individual
  • To have some ability to control your environment.
  • To feel a part of some community of other people

The person who cannot communicate is locked out of these basic needs. For those whose only means are their eyes, even that technology has now helped to resolve. For those who have no mobility, accessibility is required or they cannot be part of the community of other people. Communication and Accessibility, the common human needs.

My relationship with India began in 1984 when as a single parent I adopted an infant from Kolkata and raised her, along with my older daughter in the US. But I always wondered, “what happens to the children who are not adopted?” What does India do for these children?  What is India’s policy for its lost, abandoned, abused, disabled, and un-chosen children? As my daughter grew and we visited India, I kept hearing the refrain, “Nothing can be done.” I KNEW this was not true, but I also realized it wasn’t even in the imagination of people what and who these children could become.

In 2006 my one daughter graduated from University and my other from Law School, and I left for Kolkata. I had sold my house the year before and with my savings and pension I was determined to show what could be done. Shishur Sevay will be ten years in June 2016. We became what we hoped to be, a best-practices model of inclusive non-institutional care for orphan children, some of whom have profound disabilities.   We are very replicable and relevant as India moves in intent and action to improve the lives of these children. From the beginning, we lived inclusively; two years ago we established a small school Ichche Dana Inclusive School which we want to expand into the community. In December 2015 we became the subject of research on inclusivity out of Vanderbilt University because of our unique history and establishment of inclusive education. We have begun our own Research and Training Center, the Tuni Harrison Research and Training Center.  It is named after a baby with Down Syndrome, found under bushes, and brought to us by the Child Welfare Committee.  She died in heart surgery, but she died loved, with a family, and with a name. Her portrait sits beside the Gods.

What is our secret? We started with the children, understanding who they are, and what they needed. That’s how we became inclusive, as we had little room, and they liked being together.  They needed each other, the abled and those with disabilities. How did we become leaders in advanced communication technology? Ganga, a profoundly disabled but intelligent child was desperate to communicate and all other technologies over the years had not quite worked.  Her fingers were too weak to manage even a special keyboard; her toes flexed in the wrong direction when she tried to use her feet on a keyboard;  Her neck couldn’t hole up her head enough for her to manage a head pointer.  Deciding eventually on the purchase the Tobii Eye Tracker was a leap of faith on my part as there weren’t any in India to try. I didn’t even try to look for a donor because I didn’t know if it would work.  I dipped further into my dwindling savings, as I have for all of this.  We have just ordered a second Eye Tracker so the girls can communicate directly with each other.  Ganga, who came to Shishur Sevay at 4 years of age, weighing 7 kg has been our leader.  Sometimes I think she is an old soul with a challenged body, determined to teach us how to get it right.

Why Inclusive Dance? Well, the old soul insisted she wanted to dance!  Dance is an ancient way of communicating and of being together as a community… It requires music, rhythm, synchrony, and a certain freedom of movement which is limited by being in the wheelchair. Ganga, with her spastic quadriplegia wanted to dance with the others. So we called Ferdinand Rodricks, who came from Mumbai to help create a harness based on the model of the Kaye Suspension Harness.  We later made a second one, and the girls can move and sway as the others hold them up.  Now we  want to incorporate the Kaye Suspension walker into our dance, if we can get the funds and figure out how to get it to India, or find someone in India who would make one similar.  We have done several public performances of our Inclusive Dance, and we have a channel on You Tube.

As for physical accessibility, at Shishur Sevay we had to find a way to refit as much of the house as we could, and to do it in an attractive way. People coming in don’t even realize that the contours of the entrance are because we needed accessibility. It was a necessity so we figured out how to do it, always being aware that our purpose was to demonstrate what could be done.  

What are the messages I want to leave with you?

  1. We have to change our mindsets. My initial thought when these 12 girls came, aged about 2 yrs. to ten, was that I had to separate the children into two groups by those with disabilities, and those not with disabilities. Why? That’s what you do! The problem is we had very limited space, AND the kids enjoyed being together. We were watching TV together, eating together, having evening Prarthana together and it was working fine.  When interviewed for the research recently they each said they wished they could understand better what their sisters wanted.  Three of our older girls want their careers to be around special needs children.
  1. We have to change society’s mindset with respect to acceptance of people with disabilities in public spaces. We won’t have accessibility until people want it, or until it becomes mandatory by law and enforced. In Kolkata there is almost no accessible space, no accessible buildings. ECO Park is a 480 acre recreational park opened in December 2012. The land is completely flat. There is only one accessible entrance though, at the far end, almost 2 km from the first gate. How hard would it have been to make all the gates accessible? In truth, people in wheelchairs and others with disability are not really welcomed.

There is ironically one truly accessible place I know in Kolkata, the South City Mall, where entrances are graded, there are lifts, clean accessible toilets, and for the abled children, the escalators which are almost as much fun as amusement parks.

  1. Processes and structures to improve accessibility, to develop better products and advanced communication cannot be dependent on market forces and the private sector. There is very little market for them and that will not change until we come to value their lives and want them to be among us.  Entrepreneurship must be encouraged and supported, but not with any expectation of immediate financial returns.  Innovations and implementation must be supported by government and public private partnerships.
  2. Solutions have to begin with input from the end users and those around them. Sometimes inventors make a product and then figure out who can use it. But when you start with the user, everything changes. The core of your ideas may be the same, but the presence of someone in need, a need you see and understand, can result in your tweaking it slightly differently. Hang out with the potential users… informal time…. they might not be able to tell you what they need because they haven’t yet dreamed it either. Include family members and caretakers…. Help them all to imagine.
  1. Include the girls and women in the implementation of technology for those with disabilities!!! They are the ones who provide most of the care. If the technology is only in the hands of men, the times it can be used will be very limited. It takes a change of mind set for mothers to be included in the technical aspects of assistive technology. Women need skills in dealing with electronics, taking computers apart, building switches, hooking up batteries. If we are trying to reach the “underserved” we have to include the women because too often they write themselves out of the picture. “NO, I can’t,” is as common as, “It can’t be done.”
  1. We have to be able to dream. The Indian educational system punishes the dreamers, the challengers to status quo, those who question… Students need to be able to experiment, to go off syllabus. Rote memory cannot produce inventors or inventions. Shishur Sevay was a dream but it required a lifetime of skills to make it right and make it better.  Dreaming isn’t enough; making it happen is a harder challenge. I’m a visionary. I look at something as it is, and then I imagine how it could be even better, and with Shishur Sevay, I built the better model. We have to be able to dream.

What do those with disabilities (and the rest of us) need?

  • To not feel alone in the universe as an individual. They need to communicate, which often requires technology which is rapidly appearing.  Now it must get to those who need it.
  • To have some ability to control their environment.  Whether it is to turn on a light, choose their work, or press a call button – without some capability they are helpless, and alone.
  • To feel part of a community of people by going accessible places, like schools, government offices, parks, public transportation, or even just being able to take part in online communities. When our orphan children first arrived they thought India was about cricket and football. The first thing we taught them was that Shishur Sevay was their Home, and India was their Country.

For those with disabilities to have what basically we all need, WE must

  • Want to have them among and beside us,
  • Listen to their dreams,
  • Walk in their shoes, or AFOs,
  • Take risks,
  • And let ourselves dream.

Then we can do anything!

I thank you all for your time and attention.

Dr. Michelle Harrison, New Delhi, 11 February, 2016 {shishur.sevay@gmail.com}

 

 

Cats Welcome in the Park; Ganga not welcome.

 

Cat welcome, Ganga not welcome

Cat welcome, Ganga not welcome

The girls went to a local park yesterday, a large scenic walk around an artificial pond having a boat and ducks.  Seema Gupta our Board Member, and recently retired Joint Registrar of Calcutta High Court took them.  As they were walking around the park the “caretaker” came up and belligerently said they could not take that car (the wheelchair) on the walk as it is for people walking.  Seema took him on, full force demanding to know who he was and who had given this order.

The walkway that surrounds the pond.

The walkway that surrounds the pond.

The Big Pond. The walkway goes all around the pond.

The Big Pond. The walkway goes all around the pond.

After their walk around they went to the local ex-councillor’s office, as it is near to the part, and complained.  He called the current councillor, who said we could use the park, and that was communicated to the caretaker.   Then they stopped at another park, right across the road from this one but the wheelchair can’t get in so Seema waits outside guarding the chair, and the girls go in, carrying Ganga.

Their favorite bench swing in the park.

Their favorite bench swing in the park.

Turnstile gate the wheelchair can't get through.

Turnstile gate the wheelchair can’t get through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it turns out that the day before, the same caretaker had gone up the one of the girls who had put Ganga on the bench swing and asked her why she was putting that big girl on this swing as it was only for babies.  She had argued with him and refused to take her off, but had not told us. So this was the same man who then tried to stop us yesterday from using the park with the big pond.   Although at the moment we have “permission” to go, no one really wants to, and Ganga says she is worried.  She has been noticeably upset.

Well, there is more.  There are only three parks in the neighborhood, these two, and the one very close to our house, right at the start of our lane.  I wrote about that park 11 September 2011:

It was a long time ago and we successfully occupied the park, but essentially it means that we have had trouble with acceptance at ALL THREE neighborhood parks.  This morning I went out early and took all these pictures.  I visited our close park and took a picture of two young men sitting on one of the swings we had been told there were ONLY for children, and clearly not our children.

Our closest park, with two young men sitting on the "children's only" bench swing they didn't want us to use.

Our closest park, with two young men sitting on the “children’s only” bench swing they didn’t want us to use.

Coming home to Shishur Sevay, our safe place

Coming home to Shishur Sevay, our safe place

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming home to Shishur Sevay, our safe place for now.  Soon I will write more about our plans to move.   We really need larger facilities to have the programs we plan.  Now we are 14 kids and me living in about 1500 sq. ft,  and running a school, and office, and rehabilitation, and many plans for the future.

In the meantime though, In 3 hours Anjali Forber-Pratt will be arriving from the US and we will make this community take notice of disability rights.  Ganga is very excited and we talk about Anjali Didi and Ganga leading our occupation of the park with the big pond,

Raising Ganga – A Middle Chapter

“Raising Ganga” should be a book one day.  This is just a middle chapter.

Today we were driving to Apollo Hospital for Ganga’s check-up, I kept thinking of the harrowing and frightening drive there just eight days earlier, late in the night, as Ganga had thrashed, cried, kicked, yelled, and could not be soothed.  Whatever lingering doubts I still had about having wanted her in the hospital have now disappeared.  Ganga was clearly back with us, with her naughtiness intact.  We had some answers, but even more important, she was better.

I’d intended to post a blog when we brought her home.  I wanted to thank all the people who had written and messaged us on FB, and who sent their wishes, prayers, and told us of crossed fingers and toes.  Ganga loved hearing about their messages.  And I was immensely strengthened by the support.  Well, WordPress disappeared the post after I’d worked on it for seven hours. It’s taken me this long to put it together and add what we have learned.

CPSS-1542_WAs background, Ganga originally came to Shishur Sevay by the West Bengal Child Welfare Committee on 22 February, 2007 along with six other of the girls.  She was said to be 3-4 years old and weighed 7 kg.  She was floppy, unable to use her limbs or lift her head.  We received no medical information or history, other than the name of the hospital she had been prior to the government institution. Posts about her are listed in the Category “Ganga”

Last Wednesday Ganga became incredibly agitated and could not get through any of her classes.  She would be kicking, calling out, thrashing, laughing, crying…. and she was like this more of the day.  She didn’t want to use her eye tracker.  She was just miserable.  A few months ago we had started treatment for absence seizures.    Three years ago the neurologist disagreed even though the EEG showed changes indicative of epilepsy.  It took trips to three hospitals before anyone could sedate her enough for an EEG. Then a few months ago we started with new doctors, and initially she had major reactions to two of the medications, and was not any better.  So a month ago we took her off all meds, slowly, and she was relatively good for three weeks.  She again became miserable and irritable.  Then last Wednesday night we were totally unable to calm her down.  She had been unable to sit through classes, even Bengali class which she loves.   I felt helpless and afraid, knowing it wasn’t so simple to get medical care in the night. I didn’t want to be carrying this alone, and I was afraid I was missing something.

Ganga’s neurologist was out of town, but we were able to arrange for an admission, (we thought) which would mean we could have an EEG the next day.  We have no insurance, and the hospitals are eager to fill beds.  Once there we discovered that the ER team had to do their own evaluation.  After exam and routine blood tests they told us to take her home, that she was just irritable, and come back to OPD the next day.  I argued for her admission, and they said they could keep her for 24 hours but it would be in a general ward and no one could be with her and since she was thrashing about they would have to put her in restraints.   That refrain still haunts me, that they would put her alone, with no one she knew, and no one who could communicate.  So we got ready to leave for home.

Ganga and her Didi in the Emergency Room. Ganga was alternatively angry, frightened, and thrashing about.

Ganga and her Didi in the Emergency Room. Ganga was alternatively angry, frightened, and thrashing about.

Then the ER docs reached the doctor who was supposed to be the admitting doctor.  He told them that she had to be admitted to the PICU for 48 hours and in restraints.  No one could be with her.  No, we couldn’t have a private room.  Again, I said we were leaving.  The doc said, “We can’t let you take her.”  In the US this could be literally translated, so I asked whether he would call the police if I tried to take her out. “No, we won’t but you will have to sign that you are taking her against our advice.”

“I’m signing nothing.  I’m paying my bill and leaving with her.  An hour ago you told me she didn’t belong in the hospital, and now you say the PICU for 48 hours and NOTHING has changed except who you spoke with?”  I asked for the ER bill and then amazingly, they said she could be admitted to a private room and one person could stay with her.  I  lifted her off the bed just to demonstrate my ability.   In the end though, Purnima Massi and I both stayed.  The admitting officer gave us two passes, and we ended up on the Platinum Wing.  I was really worried about the cost, but I put the deposit on my American Express Card, and we were in.

Ganga thrashed in the night. They started an IV and said someone would have to hold her hand all night to make sure she didn’t take it out, AND, to make sure it didn’t bleed on the linens.  By 3 am they started a new anti-epileptic drug IV.  She just kept thrashing and moaning.  I would hold her hand and doze off through the night.  Sometimes she thrashed and called out.  I was grateful we were there.Holding her in the night, making sure she didn't rip out the IV.  There was a couch in the room, and Purnima slept there. By about 5 am we were sleeping and no one really bothered us for a few hours.

Morning rounds had a surprise for us.  The pediatric cardiologist who had evaluated her some years ago at Medica, and who had taken care of Tuni came with the other doctors.  He had been in the labs in the morning and heard someone talking about a patient named Ganga, and he thought it had to be our Ganga.  I was really thrilled to see him and his knowing us changed the atmosphere.  Now they understood about Shishur Sevay and about me.  The doctors all laughed now as i told my stories of how I had challenged the ER docs.  They apologised, and the head doc said, “I’m just sorry it happened to you.”  I said, “Don’t worry. It’s OK.  It’s my karma.”

I think the medication was helpful and Ganga was calmer when she woke in the morning.  Later on Thursday she had the MRI.  I was allowed to go in, and then invited to sit with the docs and watch through the glass and see the images.  Out in the hall they had said I couldn’t and Ganga looked at me fiercely.  I whispered to her, “Don’t worry.  If they insist on no, I’ll squeeze under the door or up over the ceiling and I’ll be there, even if you can’t see me.”  She grinned.  She understoodOn the stretcher about to go into the ambulance between MRI and EEG..   And what I said to the doc was, “I’m really asking you please to let me go in. I’m 72 years old and I’ve decided that having some peace of mind is really important.  I know she will be fine, but I will be at peace if I’m there and I won’t be if I’m sitting in the hall worrying.”

Friday morning she got her “naughty” back.  The nurse came in while I had her up sitting on the bed.  The nurse put the thermometer under Ganga’s arm, and turned away.  Ganga immediately raised her hand, watched the thermometer fall, and grinned. She had her naughty self back.

By now we felt there was nothing acute going on and it was time to try and talk with her by Tobii (her eye tracker device).  Purba came early with Ganga’s Didi, and they set up the Tobii.  Ganga usually prefers I not be involved.  She wants to talk to others.  So first on Tobii she chose all the people she wanted to come and visit.  She did NOT want to go home but definitely wanted everyone to visit her in the hospital.  The message bar at the top of the screen shows thumbnails of all the people she had chosen to come and visit.

2015-06-12 10.21.00_W

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And then the doctors came on rounds while she was on Tobii, and so she spoke with them.  She asked, “Where do you live?”

2015-06-12 10.41.15_W     2015-06-12 10.41.37_W

She next asked, “What do you do? “The doctor explained his work taking care of children.  It took him a while to understand she wanted to give him her hand, but he finally got it.  She is a patient teacher.

2015-06-12 10.43.18_W   2015-06-12 10.43.20_W

When she then said, “Come again,” he laughed and said he thought it was time for him to leave.  What he said about her was that it wasn’t that Ganga wasn’t ready for the world, but that WE are not ready for Ganga.  He said she would have to teach us and I said, “that’s why she is here.”  He seemed startled and I just said, “Yup.”

We used Tobii much of the day, simply used the time  as a teaching opportunity.

2015-06-12 13.51.54_W  2015-06-12 13.52.09_W

Most of the time Ganga seemed fine, but sometimes she was just miserable.  I have some thoughts about it all.

The MRI was essentially unchanged from three years ago.  For the EEG we only have a preliminary report that there were no spikes, unlike the one three years ago.  That’s good, if true, but even more important it means there is nothing neurologically major going on right now, and that is a huge relief.

They would have preferred we stay til Saturday morning, but I really wanted to get back to Shishur Sevay.  She had started the oral medication and was doing fine with it.   I wanted us home, in bed, waking up for Saturday morning Dance & Movement. We reached home by midnight.

A week later I’m even more certain about my thoughts.

1.  Since starting the medication she has had no staring spells or fearful looking at the distance.   So I think she was having absence seizures and this is the right medicine for her.

2. I’m certain she has Pseudobulbar Affect:  PBA is a neurologic condition characterized by uncontrollable, disruptive laughing and/or crying outbursts that are often contrary or exaggerated to the patient’s inner mood state.   Ganga still has bouts of uncontrollable laughing or crying, or a mixture.  Rani bit her hand and she started laughing and then crying and laughing, and couldn’t stop.   This has gotten worse over the past two years, but I’ve not been able to get the attention of the doctors on this.  Now I have their attention.  There is a relatively new medication, Neudexta, cleared by the FDA, and available in India.   PBA was part of what was going on last Wednesday.  We will begin treatment for this.

3. Ganga has often spoken up when girls have talked about finding their families.  She has insisted on joining the conversation, and what we can understand, she does remember her time before Shishur Sevay and she does want some sort of contact.   When she came, she would become really animated at the sight of any old people in white, reach out to talk to them, and puzzled when they didn’t seem to know her.  Records show she was in a hospital in Digha before transfer to the Government institution, and then to us.  When we were on vacation at Mondarmani Beach, we also went to Digha for a few hours.  She didn’t want to go, cried, pitched her body backwards.  We just thought she didn’t want to leave the beach.  When we finally left Digha, we realized we had been sitting along the water in front of the hospital where she had been that we put it all together.  Some records should be here in Kolkata but we have not yet been able to get them.  It will be a long process of trying to get the government to release the records, but we have to do that.  Searching for Ganga’s roots will certainly be another Chapter of “Raising Ganga.”

This has been a time of a lot of adoption talk, with Judi Kloper here, and then Reshma McClintock, an Indian adoptee with her film crew as she returned to Kolkata as an adult.  We don’t know what Ganga heard, or what she heard other people saying about them, or about adoption.  Both these issues, her past, and a lot of adoption/birth family talk may be why she is suddenly far more clinging and dependent on me.  We need to set up some Tobii pages for this.  This week all the girls talked about the areas they were found, and one remembered the village she was from.  It’s only taken eight years.  We will be putting up a map of West Bengal with markers from where each has come.  Ganga’s will be Digha.

5. Ganga is not at all at peace with her limitations.  She wants to talk and she wants to walk.  She is angry.  Last week she insisted on walking out the gate (she yelled at the guard to open the gate) and went in the lane and “chatted” with some of the local women.  I have video of it all.  All it needs is editing (and time).  Maybe we can skype with kids who have CP.  She wants a social life.  When she wanted to go to South City Mall, and we took her, she spent the time talking to sales people.  She looked at clothes but didn’t want to buy anything.  She misses school.  I can’t get her into any school here, but we have to find a way to create a better life for her here.  I hope one day to be able to create opportunities for her in the US, or Australia, or Germany, or elsewhere accessible, and more welcoming of people with disabilities.  I say this with sadness, including for the Indians who are equally upset with what goes on here.  Ganga is moving into the preteen years so we are dealing with hormonal changes.   When she was in school she always had a group of girls and boys who looked for her, talked with her, missed her when she wasn’t there.  Ganga wants to get married one day.  She wants a life like others.  In a staff meeting this week we talked about trying to pull together some kids just to take them to the mall once a week.

6. Ganga is a tense and stressed person.  She worries about tests, performance of any sort, and we need to find ways of her relaxing.  Her first real episodes of the PBA and absence seizures were when she was in school and had exams.  She needs to chill, but as we all know, that’s not so easy to do.  We have people coming to volunteer who do yoga and storytelling and I hope that will help her.

Looking back, I was afraid I was missing something medically.  I was just plain afraid.  As I write this, I realize how much I needed respite from sole responsibility for what was going on with her.  I needed to feel that help was a call button away.  And I needed to be able to focus on Ganga completely.    So I guess Ganga and I are both better.  We have some answers, and plans on how we approach her needs, and I have gotten some relief.

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Ganga is here to teach us……

 

 

Ganga Speaks With Her Eyes!

Ganga with her Tobii eye tracker

Ganga with her Tobii eye tracker

Ganga’s eyes focus on the screen, then on the boxes, and when she holds her gaze long enough, the words are said via digital voice.  This is her first day working with the materials prepared for her.  But given her dry humor and tendency for being naughty (or cheeky as our Australian friends say) this could well be what she intended to tell us. “Do something else, bored, bored, bored,” became her first words.

Buying the Tobii was a leap of faith.  I’ve had my eye on this type of technology for her.  She has worked with switches, head pointers, and specialized keyboards, but always hampered by her severe motor limitations. The eye tracker offered the ability to operate  windows  in addition to the specialized communication software.  She could eventually learn to surf the web, without ever having to use her hands or fingers.  This version of eye tracking, originally used for gaming was said to be less sensitive to head motion.   Buying without any chance to try it felt reckless.  But I kept coming back to Ganga’s current and future needs to break out of the isolation of her disabilities.  Among all our girls, she is the one who tries the hardest, loves to study the most,  cares about geography, history, and news, and understands humor and sarcasm.  I placed the order with the company in Mumbai that sells the product made in Sweden.  Apparently we were their first customers for the Tobii PCEye.

Soon after we purchased the Tobii but before it arrived, we had an amazing group of volunteers from Equal Health in Australia, all connected with early childhood education and disabilities who came to help and guide us for a week.  Their leader Kristy Tomlinson contacted her friend Amy Litton of Independent Living Center in Nedlands.  Amy Litton is a TRAINER in the use of the Tobii as well as other assistive devices.  She and her team enthusiastically offered to help Ganga.  Below is a Skype screen shot of speech pathologist Amy Litton and occupational therapist Jessica Rigden learning about Ganga.

Amy Litton and Beth on Skype talking to Ganga and me about the Tobii

Amy Litton and Jessica Rigden on Skype helping Ganga with Tobii

This is a clearer picture of the Tobii PCEye Tracker, the little black device at the bottom of the screen.  The red dots are where the infared lights connect with her eyes in order to operate the laptop.

the eye tracker on the laptop at the bottom of the screen

the eye tracker on the laptop at the bottom of the screen

This is one of the personalized pages Amy and her team prepared for Ganga.

The partially complete red circle in the

The partially complete red circle in the “I love to dance” box shows that this is where Ganga’s focus is. In the picture below you will see the circle complete and the voice synthesizer will have said, “I love to dance.”

The red circle (incomplete) in the

When the circle is complete, namely when she had held her gaze long enough, the sound will play.

In both the above pictures there is a side bar on the right, representing eye tracker control of mouse functions.  Between substituting mouse functions and using the screen keyboard, the usual Microsoft and internet work can be accomplished.

A keyboard can be called up at any time and operated by eye tracking.  Ganga has already typed GAN and is focusing on the G. The red circle fills as she holds her gaze.

Ganga has already typed GAN and is focusing on the G.  The red circle fills as she holds her gaze.

Now Ganga has already typed GANG and is focusing on the A. The red circle fills as she holds her gaze.

With GANG already written, she adds A.

Ganga's eyes do speak.  Here she is saying that she has done well and deserves a photograph.

Ganga’s eyes do speak. She is telling us that she has done well and now she deserves a photograph.

Good work Ganga.  So many of us are waiting to hear what you are thinking, what you dream about, what you want us to know about yourself, and some day to read the book you want to write. 

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