CHLUNNEY%ECUVM1@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (David Lunney) (05/01/91)
Index Number: 15259
Bill:
Happy to reply! The stuff below gives a brief overview of a) our
previous work on using speech technology to make lab measurements
accessible to disabled students, and b) a current project on improving
access to science and engineering careers for disabled students
in our corner of the world.
David Lunney
ADAPTED COMPUTERS AS LABORATORY AIDS
FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITES
David Lunney
Department of Chemistry and
Science Institute for the Disabled
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858 USA
CHLUNNEY@ECUVM1.BITNET
I. Introduction
Most of the computer adaptations that will be discussed at
this workshop are intended to give disabled people access to the
same computer tools that non-disabled people use in business and
education: word processors, spreadsheets, data bases, and so on.
Access to these tools can give disabled people educational and
employment opportunities that they never had before; it is with
good reason that the personal computer is so widely regarded as
the most liberating and empowering device yet developed for
people with disabilities.
But if in addition to adapted human interfaces the computer
is fitted with suitable interconnections to the physical world, a
new universe of possibilities opens up: an adapted computer with
data acquisition capabilities can make the laboratory accessible
as well as the office. Most laboratory measurements are now done
with instruments, and access to instrumental measurements can
help to make scientific and technical careers more accessible to
people with disabilities. The computer can acquire data from
instruments and sensors, control experiments, and assist in the
analysis of data. An adapted computer with a data acquisition
system does not solve all the problems for every disability, of
course. A person who cannot perform manual operations may still
need some help from an assistant. And, as we shall see later, a
visually impaired person may need data analysis tools that can
substitute for visual graphs. In short, the adapted data ac-
quisition computer cannot remove all the barriers encountered by
disabled people in a laboratory, but it can lower a lot of them.
II. Previous and Present Work at East Carolina
Robert C. Morrison and I first became interested in the
problems of disabled students in the laboratory in 1977, when a
blind chemistry student brought the problems to our attention.
We decided to use high technology to develop a flexible, micro-
computer-based aid that could give visually impaired college
science students independent access to accurate measurements
performed with scientific instruments. With support from Special
Education Programs in the U. S. Department of Education our
research group has developed a system of microcomputer-assisted
laboratory instruction for visually impaired college chemistry
students (1-4). Since everything needs an acronym, we call our
system the Universal Laboratory Training and Research Aid, or
ULTRA. The present version of the ULTRA consists of a quasi-
transportable (20 kg) data acquisition microcomputer with speech
output, keyboard input, and a variety of analog and digital in-
puts and outputs. It can be interfaced easily to both scientific
instruments and sensors (pH probes, resistance thermometers,
etc.), and we have developed an extensive package of software
that can give visually impaired students independent access to
most of the instrumental measurements encountered in freshman and
sophomore chemistry laboratories. The system uses a speech syn-
thesizer to present instrument readings as synthetic speech; in
addition to speech, the system can output tones of varying pitch
to enable the user to locate maxima and minima in experimental
data (a very old technique). The present version of the ULTRA is
built around the STD bus, for which a fairly large number of
board-level products are available; the machine is essentially an
industrial-strength data acquisition computer that talks and
whistles.
The ULTRA can also be adapted for other disabilities: for
example, we added a voice recognition terminal to an early
version of the system so that it could be used by students with
upper limb disabilities, and we have written software for some
voice-controlled laboratory experiments and a voice-controlled
calculator (5). The current version of the system could also be
adapted for breath control by adding an STD pressure sensor board
and writing appropriate software.
After we had worked with the ULTRA for a while we found that
although it could give visually impaired students better access
than ever before to instrumental measurements, there were sit-
uations in which the experimental data were too complex to be
presented conveniently as spoken numbers or as rising and falling
pitches. We needed a means of presentation which would enable
visually impaired students to perceive patterns in data, and to
get the kind of quick overview that a sighted person gets from
looking at a graph. Taking our inspiration from a landmark art-
icle by E. S. Yeung on auditory presentation of multivariate data
(6), we set about developing schemes for representing complex
data patterns as complex sound patterns. We have now developed a
few effective methods for presenting multivariate data --
especially data from infrared spectra -- as recognizable and
fairly memorable musical patterns, using a computer-controlled
music synthesizer.
We are continuing and extending our work on auditory pre-
sentation of data under a grant from the National Science
Foundation. We are again using infrared spectra simply because
they are a convenient source of information-rich data. In our
present work we are using artificial neural networks to extract
information on molecular structure from the spectra; this ap-
proach gives results that are roughly comparable to those ob-
tained from an expert system. Our next step will be development
of schemes to map the network's output vectors into auditory
parameters. The use of neural networks gives us a great deal of
flexibility because a suitable network can be "trained" to map
any input vector into any output vector, and the output vector
can then be used to control a variety of auditory parameters.
Our final scheme therefore will not be limited to infrared spec-
tra, but will be capable of mapping any sort of multivariate data
into sound patterns. (Readers who are interested in auditory
presentation of data should consult Ref. 7 for an excellent
review of the subject. Ref. 8 gives an overview of our approach
to auditory presentation of data, including some things that we
tried that didn't work.)
III. Future Possibilities
Modern scientific instruments are more often smart than
dumb, and a well-designed smart instrument can be controlled by
an external master computer: if the master has suitable adapt-
ations a disabled user can control most aspects of the instru-
ment's operation from his or her personal computer (with suitable
software, of course). For a person who is unable to perform
sample manipulations, some help from an assistant may still be
required. But in the future, laboratory robots will be able to
perform the manipulations. Laboratory robots are now in the
early stages of their evolution, and their level of performance
is sure to improve with time.
We have not been able to find a manufacturer who would be
willing to build the STD version of the ULTRA system for a number
of reasons. We intend to solve part of that problem by porting
some of the ULTRA's software to the ubiquitous IBM PC and its
clones. At the time we designed the STD version of the ULTRA
very few serious data acquisition products were available for the
PC, while about 2000 board level products were available for the
STD bus. Now, the situation is reversed. The STD bus is in
decline, and the IBM AT bus has become the most widely used bus
for industrial data acquisition and control systems. It now
would be possible to replicate all the ULTRA's important func-
tions on an AT platform.
Also, IBM has introduced the Personal Laboratory System
(PLS), a flexible, expansible, modular data acquisition system
intended for school laboratories. The PLS can accomodate several
kinds of sensors, and is simple to program because it communi-
cates with its host computer through a serial port. In education-
al laboratories many of the functions of the ULTRA could be per-
formed by a PLS and PC system equipped with suitable speech
output.
IV. References
1. D. Lunney, and R. C. Morrison, Journal of Chemical Education,
58, 228 (1981).
2. D. Lunney, R. C. Morrison, M. M. Cetera, R. V. Hartness, R.
T. Mills, A. D. Salt, and D. C. Sowell, IEEE Micro, 3 (4), 19
(1983).
3. R. C. Morrison and D. Lunney, Journal of Visual Impairment
and Blindness, 78, 418 (1984).
4. R. C. Morrison, et. al., Personal Computers in Chemistry, P.
Lykos, ed., 164-176, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1981.
5. R. C. Morrison, et. al., Journal of Chemical Information and
Computer Science, 24, 271 (1984).
6. E. S. Yeung, Analytical Chemistry, 52, 1120 (1980).
7. S. P. Frysinger, "Applied Research in Auditory Data
Representation," Extracting Meaning from Complex Data:
Processing, Display, Interaction, Edward J. Farrell, Editor,
Proc. SPIE 1259, 130 (1990).
8. D. Lunney and R. C. Morrison, "Auditory Presentation of
Experimental Data ," Extracting Meaning from Complex Data:
Processing, Display, Interaction, Edward J. Farrell, Editor,
Proc. SPIE 1259, 140 (1990).
A PROJECT TO MAKE SCIENCE CAREERS MORE
ACCESSIBLE TO DISABLED COLLEGE STUDENTS
IN EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA
The Science Institute for the Disabled at East Carolina has
been awarded a grant of about $99,000 by the National Science
Foundation for the purpose of improving access to science and
engineering careers for disabled college students in Eastern
North Carolina. Under this grant, the Institute plans to
disseminate information among college teachers in the region on
teaching science to disabled students and on career opportunities
in science and engineering for disabled students. The Institute
also will provide college teachers with consultation on problems
encountered by disabled students in science courses, and plans to
operate a "lending library" of adaptive technology and special
science materials for the benefit of disabled science students in
the region's community colleges. Another important activity will
be recruitment of disabled college and high school students into
science-related careers. The current grant is limited to
activities which serve college students, but we are seeking
additional funds to broaden the project's reach to include
science teachers and disabled science students in the public
schools of Eastern North Carolina.
One of the most important messages that we would like to
bring to parents of disabled children, to teachers, and to
counselers, is that science and engineering are quite reasonable
career goals for children with disablilities. The most important
qualities that make a good scientist or engineer -- intelligence,
curiosity, perseverance, creativity, a zest for problem-solving,
and so on -- are qualities of character and intellect that can be
found in both disabled and non-disabled children. If you examine
some of the career information put out by the various scientific
and engineering societies in the U.S., you will find these mental
qualities mentioned again and again, but you will find almost no
mention of physical or sensory requirements. I can point out
examples of disabled men and women working productively in almost
every branch of science and engineering.
Although disabled people have proved that they can be capable
scientists and engineers, they are still grossly under-
represented in America's science and engineering work force.
Why? A recent report by the National Science Foundation Task
Force on Persons with Disabilities offers this as one of the most
important reasons: counselers, teachers, and even parents often
steer disabled children away from challenging studies like math
and science, sometimes to shield the children from possible
failure. Science and engineering are indeed quite challenging,
but they are also highly rewarding occupations.
The Science Institute for the Disabled is a very small
operation, and consists now of a half-time director and a
graduate student. It will soon add several part-time
undergraduate assistants and a half-time electronics technician.
But the Institute is not just these few people: it is supported
by a sizable group of sympathetic faculty members and
administrators in many parts of the the University. The support
of this University network has so been vital to the Institute's
activities that we would now like to widen our network to include
industrial supervisors of scientists and engineers, science
teachers, special education teachers, and parents of disabled
children who want to see all reasonable career options kept open
to their children. If you would like more information, please
write or call me.
David Lunney
Science Institute for the Disabled
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858
919-758-6453 919-757-6713
CHLUNNEY@ECUVM1.BITNET