I may be getting way ahead of myself (I frequently do) but with the assistance of my Psychologist and others, it is my hope that I can eventually provide a service to directly assist individuals with a disabilities in the selection, acquisition, or use of an assistive technology device.”   The service could include all of the following possibilities:

• evaluation of the technology needs of the individual, including a functional evaluation in the individual’s customary environment;

• purchasing, leasing, or otherwise providing for the acquisition of assistive technology devices for individuals with disabilities;

• selecting, designing, fitting, customizing, adapting, applying, maintaining, repairing, or replacing of assistive technology devices;

• coordinating and using other therapies, interventions, or services with assistive technology devices, such as those associated with existing education and rehabilitation plans and programs; 

• assistive technology training or technical assistance with assistive technology for an individual with a disability, or, where appropriate, the family of an individual with disabilities;

• training or technical assistance for professionals, employers, or other individuals who provide services to, employ, or otherwise are substantially involved in the major life functions of individuals with disabilities.

Using windows speech recognition to Blog

As the title says I'm using windows speech recognition to blog.  My objective is to compose, edit, publish and manage this blog entirely by voice.
My Psychologist told me of a client who is a quadriplegic that he helped to acquire Dragon so she could communicate with others.  She hoped to use for voice control and dictation of her PC for Email  but was not successful because she was not provided with adequate training, assistance and follow up.  The Psychologist suggested that I might provide support and training to individuals.  He indicated there was no one available for this in the area and there is a definite need.  I would like to help people succeed with speech recognition. It would be very satisfying to see someone make contact with the outside world independently.  It would also be a great way for me to make some money and build my self confidence.
I have used Dragon dictate in the past and found it to be very helpful as I have difficulty remembering keyboard fingering.  I was considering obtaining an up to date version of Dragon naturally speaking but my son asked why I didn't just use the Windows speech recognition application that is included in my Windows 7 operating system.  He said it works great but no one uses it and Microsoft does little to promote it.  I had no idea!  I ran through the setup and training and found the program worked flawlessly even using an old damaged USB headset.  I am going to test Windows speech recognition using every application and windows function that I can figure out.  If all goes well I don't see why I couldn't teach persons with disabilities to use the free Windows application rather than having to pay for Dragon.
Time will tell and I will detail my results here.