If you select predictions without typing, you’re fine; NVDA will read the word and it appears onscreen with no problem. But if you type toward a word prediction before selecting it, NVDA will actually screw up the text output in a particular way: it will put the word after the letters you’ve already typed, and backspace the last letter or so. For instance: I aam trying to tytyp. Also, NVDA prevents Virtual Keyboard’s automatic punctuation from working properly.

NVDA will work with the Windows 7 onscreen keyboard. The drawback, however, is that the completion isn’t as good or customizable, and perhaps more importantly, the dwell time can’t be lower than half a second. If you’re a fast selector, that could become inefficient very quickly. To an extent, it will also work with Click N Type, but there again you have completion rather than prediction. At least it’s more customizable than Windows.

Narrator works with neither the Windows onscreen keyboard nor Click N Type.

As for screen readers that work with Virtual Keyboard, I’ve found one: the text to speech option in WordQ, which is kind of redundant since you’re using a word prediction program to read other word predictions in your onscreen keyboard. There is also the very rudimentary Screen Reader freeware by Jacquelin Potier, which will read literally everything under your mouse cursor. Be aware that you’ll have to slow your dwell time for the keys to be read properly.

Also note that if you’re using switch scanning on any onscreen keyboard mentioned above, neither NVDA nor Narrator will announce the keys until they’re actually sent.

NOTE: If you use Virtual Keyboard, this script won’t help much unless you really fine tune it, because Virtual Keyboard requires the cursor to be over its “Sweep Click” box in order to use switch scanning. Nor will it work with Click N Type, because Click N Type immobilizes the cursor in Scan Mode. It will work with the Windows onscreen keyboard as long as you use a keyboard key to scan. The same would probably be true of commercial keyboards like WiViK or BeKey that can use the F11 and / or F12 keys for scanning. Just put the key in the script to suit yourself.

SendMode Input
CoordMode Mouse, Screen ;doesn’t matter where mouse cursor is
SetMouseDelay,-1
p=25 ;pixels mouse moves
WheelUp::Pause
WheelDown:: ; to start
Loop {
MouseGetPos x1,y1 ;original cursor position
Sleep,500 ;wait for keyboard to scan, set to keyboard’s scanning speed in milliseconds
MouseGetPos x2,y2 ;second cursor position
dx:= (x2-x1)//p, dy:= (y2-y1)//p ;distance; if distance is other than 0, indicates movement.
If dx>0
Send,{Space} ;or other scanning key or click
If dx<0
Send,{Space}
If dy>0
Send,{Space}
If dy<0
Send,{Space}
}
return

The thickness concern brings me to my next point: the rare perk of being one handed and things coming in pairs. While the Crutcheze cover is fine for me in winter with the added bulk of my coat and clothes, it can still slip a little on my bare arm in warm weather. The cover allows for adding extra padding, so I inserted the neoprene from the second cover into the first. All you have to do is turn the cover inside out, slip it through, and turn the cover rightside out again.

The cover also seems to go over the cuff more easily, which is no small thing with a V design cuff. Once you get each pocket a tad over each side of the cuff, you can just pull the cover straight back and it slides right on. It doesn’t bunch up like the original did sometimes.

The only problem I had at first was that the Air Flex are supposed to fasten around the back of the crutch with Velcro. That doesn’t work on the Millennial forearm crutch cuff. Even if you can get the straps around, the fasteners prevent the cuff from moving on its hinge, which restricts my movement somewhat and is slightly less safe if I should fall. So I cut off the Velcro, and it was fine; the cover stayed on with no problem. Later, I took out the Velcro stubs with a seam ripper when I noticed it snagging my backpack. That was a bit of work, my hand strength being what it is. When I asked Crutcheze for suggestions, they sent me a pair of Air Flex without Velcro. It meant a lot to me; I depend on that little slip of fabric for my stick to be usable.

Comfort and customer service–what more could you ask for?

I’m not going to start with the details, because those alone are very small and petty. I can hear the accusations of oversensitivity already, because that’s exactly what I got when I tried to defend myself. Instead, I’m giving you the effect and the aftermath. You figure out what it sounds like to you.

I don’t sleep anymore until I’ve leant my stick against the bedroom wall, and I don’t let it get far from me in daylight. It has become a talisman by being my means of running. Also, the metronome clack as I walk reassures me I’m still here. Sometimes I doubt that; I feel very much like I don’t have enough skin over my bones. Any privacy I might have had is gone.

I forfeited it when I had to prove I stopped speaking one afternoon because a new pain med was affecting my voice, not because I was having a fatigue spell. It didn’t matter that the med I was reacting to was supposed to (and did) eliminate much of the fatigue. It didn’t matter that I told my coworkers it was just a side effect; my now non-existent fatigue symptoms were ultimately written down in detail, along with how inconveniencing it was to communicate with a writing person.

I dropped my speech half an hour before I was supposed to punch out; I’d worked until that point. “I don’t mean to hover,” said a coworker, “but the parent in me wonders how you’re getting home.”

Walking very slowly, I replied via post-it. Bus. And for the next hour or so, she argued that I couldn’t do that, it was hot, I should accept a cab or let another coworker drive me home. Said coworker interrupted me often, and when I talked about where I come from, xe always had a reason it couldn’t be so or brought up the straw disabled person who yells when people hold open doors. I didn’t want to owe such a person.

No, I wrote, and at one point xe took the pencil. Fuck it, I thought, if they don’t believe me I’ll show them by doing. I put on my stick and keys and walking glove and started toward my backpack.

“Not if I take it,” xe said, and xe did. I thrust out my palm, indicating Give it back, twice. Twice xe slapped me five, xyr palm sliding down the pad of my glove, and carried my bag on xyr shoulder for some time. Somebody talked about their kid’s favorite high five. Nobody said, “This is ridiculous.” I faced xyr and crossed my arms as best I could, tilting my head: This isn’t funny anymore. Xe responded by throwing my gesture back at me, with an exaggerated pout.

At some point xe set my bag behind a box, and when xyr back was turned I got it over my left shoulder and it slipped to my elbow. Instinct told me not to bother with the right strap; that would require taking my stick off my arm. I took a step and was pulled short when xe put xyr arm through the other strap. My elbow contracted and started to jerk, making it hard to slip out.

“Aww, that’s precious!” a coworker said, and xe  agreed, “We’re bookbag buddies!”

I finally disentangled my arm and walked out, only to remember that I needed something in my bag. I shut my eyes and walked back into the room, and heavily wrote Cab. “Ride,” said my coworker, “when you’re ready for your ride you can go.”

Fine, I wrote, because there was nothing left. My coworker hugged me sideways without warning, so hard that I stood on my toes not to fall. “Come on, can’t I get a smile?” I sickened myself by baring my teeth. I didn’t look at my coworker in the car. Suddenly I was homesick, remembering a teacher who sometimes offered me a ride when it snowed. Yes, I said, or No, thanks, and it was very simple.

I bolted my door behind me and started to scrub my skin. There’s a temperature at which the human voice melts and turns cloying, reducing you to a small child or a cat–some unruly but ultimately manageable creature. I wanted to hiss. I couldn’t scrub it off. I disassembled my stick and washed it, too, hypnotized by the flecks of metal in the paint.

It did not go in my favor when I reported it. “You’ve been sick before, and you were vulnerable and asking for help before, and you need to own up to that.”

I didn’t ask for it that time. I refused it in capital letters.

“We could be liable if something happens to you. Besides, they were just showing concern for you.”

I thought of the colleague who’d invited me to Thanksgiving dinner when I thought the threat of losing my benefits and possibly my housing would kill me with the stress. I remembered the professor who’d sent me home to an alcoholic father with a piece of sea glass and a copy of Jane Eyre. Not that way, I wanted to say. There was no faith in me. They took my strength from me. They took my body from me. I LIKED these people. I thought we were equals.

“Sure, it might have felt like an assault, but you know, once a parent always a parent. I’d do the same with my kid.”

I’ve been over 21 for some time now. I have a mother. I was the first disabled person she ever met, and she was afraid of everything. And she never would have pulled that shit.

“You need to understand,” they interrupted me midsentence, usually shortly after telling me, “I can’t imagine what you go through.” They said I couldn’t communicate. But a funny thing happens when people talk over you and you can’t interrupt them back: you become whatever they say you are, because the only words are theirs. If you do get a word in, the point you wanted to make has been detoured so badly that you can’t get it back. There’s no time left. So you throw any anecdote or metaphor you can and hope something sticks. Or you start with a disclaimer, hoping to mollify them so their knees don’t jerk and they won’t interrupt you. “I know you didn’t mean to do or say that, but it makes it hard for me… Oh, just forget it.” And there goes your point again, and too many attempts to explain make you a harpy. I wasn’t good at picking my battles, but I didn’t know I’d have such a large one later. I wasn’t born an advocate. I thought I could stop the little cuts before I bled too badly.

“You have issues,” they said, and thunked their books down and said, “I’m done walking on eggshells.” The idea that respect was an unreasonable request flooded my bones with a briny ache that still hasn’t quite gone away.

I’ll spare you the little kneejerk acts of retaliation over the following months, the times people I’d respected said things I hadn’t said or done. It wasn’t good for my record, let’s just say. Finding that out was a stomach punch; no one asked me whether I’d actually said them. It potentially lessened my chances of getting another job. And then just like that it was as if nothing happened, and they’d forgotten. I don’t think I’m going to, not completely. It’s not a grudge; it’s just that I can’t afford to forget altogether.

There’s nothing quite like physically realizing that for much of society, bodily autonomy doesn’t apply to sick or disabled people. Things that qualify as bullying or inappropriate for nondisabled people are done for disabled people’s own good, and consent doesn’t apply. If consent is given once, it’s permanent and we can’t revoke it. I have a feeling sometimes that in the back of people’s heads, disabled people exist to make nondisabled people feel good about themselves, and if we stop doing that, we’re at very high risk of being screwed both literally and figuratively. And we’re not worth apologizing to, because nondisabled people “can’t control how you CHOOSE to INTERPRET things.”

Nothing I’ve said here is unique; anybody writing for BADD has experienced disempowerment, and in potentially more life-threatening ways. All the same, I think something in me burned away. It’s really hard to write now, because it’s hard to feel that my word as a disabled person is worth anything. On the very bad nights, I believe everything they said.

I’m not totally gone, though: I know I didn’t CHOOSE to ruin my teeth with a mouth full of acid.

The interface is fairly simple. The idea is that you can create buttons for phrases, and organize the phrases into tabbed categories. The buttons can be labeled with text or pictures. You can bring up your onscreen keyboard from the bottom menu to type a novel utterance. A long press turns the phrase into a button. I’d like to see a way to clear the text field; at the moment you have to backspace or long-press select then backspace.

In typing mode, Free Speech also stores your history. There doesn’t appear to be a way to clear the history. If you want to go back to your buttons, you have to exit typing mode.

It will work with voices from Ivona, Acapela, Cereproc and SVOX, as well as the built in voice. You can use voices in other languages as long as you set that language in your main device settings. Be aware that Free Speech will use whatever speech engine you’ve set as your device default unless you change your device settings via Language & Input > Text-to-speech output. You might want to restart the app after you do that.

I thought I might use this program for group meetings where I tend to be talked over by some people and can’t get a word in, and made buttons for “Excuse me” and “Could you please let me finish?” and so forth. I haven’t had to use it yet, but I think it could work. With a few improvements to the typing mode and adding the ability to use typing and buttons simultaneously, Free Speech could turn into a fine text based augmentative communication app for daily use.

#IfWinActive, Words With Friends on Facebook – Mozilla Firefox
; Allow multiple threads so that this hotkey can “turn itself off”:
#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 2
XButton1::
#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 1
if drag_drop = y
{
drag_drop = n  ; Signal the other thread to stop.
return
}
drag_drop = y
Loop {
if drag_drop = n
return
Click down LButton
Sleep, 4000
Click up LButton
Sleep, 4000
}

You can turn on Click Lock for the left button in Windows (Control Panel > Mouse >  Turn on ClickLock), but I wanted to use the extra button on my trackball so nothing would interfere with Point N Click’s operation.

; Simple drag lock
XButton1::
GetKeyState, state, LButton
if state = U
{
Click down LButton
}
else
{
Click up LButton
}
return

; Easier context menu clicks
RButton::
Send, {RButton}
Sleep, 3000
Send, {LButton}
return

I also wanted to make the right button more logical to me. When I click the right button, it’s almost always to select from a context menu. So in the second part, the right button brings up the menu, waits so you can point to your choice, then performs a left click. That script will work with Point N Click, which means you don’t have to use their button for it, which means more screen space for you.

Esc::Suspend

WheelUp::
Send, {LButton}

WheelDown::
Send, {LButton}

Go to about:config. Ignore the warning if you get one.

Right click on the screen and choose New, then Integer.

Call it ui.caretWidth and enter your chosen value. You can modify this later if you need to.

However, if you want to do common program, navigation and media tasks without scripts, the freeware X-Mouse Button Control will do everything TrackballWorks can do regardless of your device. It works with dwell click software buttons as well. Any and all device buttons can be programmed, including the scroll wheel. You can have 5 application specific layers and set hotkeys to switch among them.  About the only thing it doesn’t do is alter the pointer acceleration. It might be particularly welcome on devices like the Roller or Wave (Optima), which are simple for a reason but might frustrate people who want to do more.

So if your device is a bit basic out of the box, X-Mouse can enhance it with ready-made common tasks, without scripts.