Technology at it's finest

Last week I went to The Arc state convention and was able to see demonstrated a new communication device called the Intelligaze. This is an amazing device that uses what is very similar to a computer and has voice output. What's even better is that it is operated by eye gaze. So basically, it can read where you are looking on the computer screen. So your eyes operate much the way a mouse would with select and click.

We tried a similar device on Andrew just over a year ago, but it was unable to read through his eye glasses due to the uv tinting. The Intelligaze does. I tried it myself and while not perfect, I definately had control with my eyes.

So with the vender there and Andrew's teacher's number in my cell, I immediately called and set up a time to try it out with Andrew. That happened at 10:00 this morning.

Andrew did very well. We had some issues with positioning. I wasn't able to watch his face directly so I couldn't tell if it was that he wasn't looking at the screen or if it was his eyes, because his right eye tends to wander a bit. He did much better with his glasses off.

I don't have a camcorder (it's on my wish list) but am able to take video with my camera. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out how to edit the video. So I uploaded two that I took and they are posted below.

Andrew is actually using his eyes to make selections with the pictures (noise is other students in the background). When he is looking at a picture it turns red. There is a circle in the picture works much like hour glass by the curser. When it fills in that is the selection. We had difficulty with positioning which is why we are holding his head up. There is another circle which is difficult to see but when it is green there is a good connection, when it is red there isn't a good read and when there is an "x" it's not making contact at all.

The plan right now is to get it for a 30 day trial when school starts again in the fall. It's extremely expensive (insurance pays for it) so we want to make sure it works. And if it doesn't, technology continues to advance so something will come along.

You'll want to pause the music play list when you play the videos.


I stopped in the middle of Sponge Bob on this one. It lasts almost a minute and he like it so much he kept going back to listen to it.