During the early part of 2009 we spent some time comparing different text-to-speech utilities that could be be used to read text aloud from web sites and published our conclusions in our Reading the Web information sheet. At the time, we found the best option was to use the free Click Speak utility with Firefox. There wasn't an option for Internet Explorer that we were totally happy to recommend: Read and Write Gold worked well, but is expensive, while most of the low cost / free utilities had some feature that we were not happy with. There have been a few developments over the past year so it is worth providing a short update here, prior to revising the information sheet.

Firstly, a couple of web browsers now have text-to-speech facilities embedded within the program. On the Apple Mac, Safari users can now access a pretty primitive text to speech facility by highlighting the text to be read and using the mouse to select - Edit - Speech - Start Speaking. The computer will now speak the text using its default voice. There are a couple of text-to-speech extensions for Google Chrome, Read Me Please! and Chrome Page Reader, but we couldn't get either to work!

A Solution for Internet Explorer?

We recently came across a nice little utility, Panopreter, that can be used to read out files in a variety of formats and can also create MP3 / WAV sound files from text. Two versions of the program are available, Basic and Plus. The Basic version is free and can be used to read text files out aloud, or to create MP3 files. Unfortunately, the text files cannot be seen as they are being read, which limits the use of this program. The Plus version, costing $29.95, is much more useful. Text is visible as it is read, with each word being highlighted as it is spoken and the program can even handle PDF files. The Plus version also adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer, which provides options for either an entire web page, or selected text to be read out loud. Individual words are highlighted as they are spoken. It is also possible to use the Panopreter Plus to convert a web page into an MP3 / WAV file that can be played back by an MP3 player. In terms of value for money and ease of use, Panopreter Plus is probably the best option currently available for reading text from Internet Explorer.

Allan Wilson from CALL Scotland will be demonstrating free / low-cost software at meetings of branches of Dyslexia Scotland in Fife and West Lothian in September. He'll start off by demonstrating a few free utilities to make a computer screen visually easier to read and will then move on to look at a number of free, or low cost text to speech programs that can be used with word processed documents, web pages and other text. There will also be chances to see a free speech recognition program and programs that can be used to help organise your thoughts. There will be opportunities to ask questions throughout the presentation.

The meetings are relaxed and friendly and are open to anybody to attend - not just members of Dyslexia Scotland.

Dates:

• Markinch, Fife. 7pm, Thursday 2nd September - Memorial Hall, 252 Betson Street, Markinch, Fife KY7 6AA.
• Livingston, West Lothian. 7pm, Wednesday 15th September - West Lothian College, Almondvale Crescent, Livingston, West Lothian EH54 7EP.

Anybody who is interested in augmentative communication for their pupils, clients or family member needs to be aware of the annual Communication Matters (CM) Symposium. This is a UK-wide conference - actually becoming increasingly international - held every September (26-28 September, this year, in Leicester). It may seem expensive but is actually excellent value considering that all accommodation and food are included.

The programme is relevant for both children and adult clients and always offers a great mix of practical, research, technical and AAC user-led presentations, for all levels of AAC experience. The conference is accompanied by a major exhibition of AAC equipment (free access). It's also a tremendous opportunity to network with AAC specialists. If you are interested, you can view or download this year's Programme.

This year's Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland study day, to be held in the Stirling Management Centre on Tuesday 9th November will focus on the use of Eye Gaze as an aid to communication.

Eye gaze has always been a useful technique for helping people with communication difficulties to express themselves, whether by eye pointing at objects, or at symbols on a communication board or book, or letters on an e-tran frame.

Recent years have seen exciting developments in technology allowing some people with severe and complex disabilities to control a computer or a communication aid by eye gaze. But the technology is complex and expensive and it is not suitable for everybody with a communication difficulty.

This Study Day will explore issues surrounding eye gaze within both low tech and high tech communication systems and will help to raise awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of such systems.Speakers will include:

• Dr Mick Donegan from the University of East London. Mick was Coordinator of the User Requirements element of the COGAIN project, which led research into the use of eye gaze technology by people with disabilities
• Janet Scott, SCTCI, will present a number of short case studies providing a glimpse of some of the people who have worked with SCTCI to use eye gaze as their means of access to communication.
• Claire Latham, formerly from the ACE Centre in Oxford will describe their Look2Talk project on learning to communicate by eye pointing to low tech systems.

There will also be opportunities to find out about the various eye gaze systems currently available in the UK during short supplier presentations.

Further information is available on the Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland web site.

Calling all Boardmaker users!

There's a new product about to be released by Mayer Johnson called Boardmaker Studio.

This promises to make creating resources even easier by providing studio starter templates and pre-programmed 'gadget' or function buttons which can be dragged onto a page in any activity. It also has more of a Microsoft Office look about it ( more user friendly?) and doesn't require a CD in the drive!

You can import activities from Boardmaker and Boardmaker Plus! v6 to edit and print out and also download activities directly from 'Boardmaker Share.'

The 'Boardmaker Share' activities and many of the Boardmaker Studio resources have a very American theme to them. When will we see some more UK themed resources available?

Boardmaker studio costs around £250, about the same as buying Boardmaker Plus! as a new product.

What we're now waiting to hear is whether there will be upgrade deals, will Studio be replacing Boardmaker Plus! and will this product make the whole 'Boardmaker Family' easier to get our heads around?

A 30 day trial version will be available from September 7th. We look forward to trying it out!

Is it worth it?

Watch this space.

If you teach or support children and young people with dyslexia, you will be interested in the Dyslexia Scotland Education Conference which this year will be held on Saturday 25th September at the Edinburgh Conference Centre at Heriot-Watt University.

The theme of the conference is "Innovative Practice in Dyslexia: A New Decade". The conference is again chaired by Dr. Gavin Reid and speakers include Rob Long (Chartered Educational Psychologist); Laura Ann Currie (HMIe); Fran Ranaldi, Dr Margaret Crombie, staff from Lochaber High School, Jennifer Drysdale (PT Learning Support, Fife) and yours truly. There are also panel sessions and an exhibition.

This conference is always a great event and if I wasn't otherwise engaged talking at the same time, I'd be at Margaret Crombie's session on the new Assessing Dyslexia Toolkit, and the workshop from the Lochaber team, who have created a web site with downloadable audio materials for revision.

To find out more and book, go to the Dyslexia Scotland web site.

Forbes Smith, who is coordinating a working group looking at provision of accessible formats in East Dunbartonshire, emailed recently to say that East Dunbartonshire Library Service now has a service for providing downloadable audiobooks. So far they have over 560 titles available for immediate download onto PC, iPod or mp3 player and Forbes says they are adding 30 titles a week. Forbes says he signed up and then within half an hour of returning to his base, he had downloaded an audio book novel. There are an extensive range of materials available including lecture materials for university students.

To find out more, go to the East Dunbartonshire online library site, click on My Account, then on Audiobook Downloads.

Forbes' email prompted me to ask if other library services are doing the same thing, so I've just spent a few happy hours googling and exploring the online library catalogues in all 32 local authorities. I couldn't find many that have downloadable audio books, but almost all of them have audio books on cassette and CD, and also Large Print books.

South Ayrshire has downloadable 'eReads' (eBooks) as well as audio and Large Print, although they are Adobe ePUB format which is OK for readers with a physical impairment who need the book on screen, but not so good for people with visual impairment or dyslexia because the maximum font size is quite small and you can't read the book with text-to-speech software.

I've made up a table with the contact details and we'll add it to the Finding Books page on the Books for All web site.

So, when looking for books in accessible formats, don't forget your local library service!

We were recently in contact with a member of staff from an adult day centre in Edinburgh. One of his clients, Stuart Hepburn has just finished writing a book, A Most Curious Detour, which describes his experience of becoming disabled as a result of a massive stroke in 2005. The stroke left him paralysed and unable to communicate. The book describes the impact of the stroke on his life and his encounters with the medical system in Scotland. He also reflects on his past life as a business consultant  and describes some of the dreams he has while in hospital. The book can be seen as a Scottish answer to Jean Dominique Bauby's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and is definitely required reading for anybody wanting to find out more about the impact of an acquired disability on a person's life.

The book can be purchased through the Lulu web site. All profits go to charity.

On 28th May we blogged that the CLA announced a new Print Disability Licence to replace the 'VIP' licence, and today we received our copy of this new licence. Why is this good news? Well, the Print Disability Licence is for:

• "an educational establishment or a body that is not conducted for profit" who
• "wishes to make and to distribute multiple copies of copyright material in a format accessible to persons who could not otherwise read or access such copyright material by reason of visual impairment or other disability where no such format is commercially available."

This means that holders of the Print Disability Licence can now legally make, for example, digital copies of books for pupils with dyslexia, learning difficulties, autism or hearing impairment. Some of the terms and conditions:

• You must legally possess an original copy of the book from whch you make the Accessible Copy.
• You cannot make an Accessible Copy if one is commercially available in a similar accessible format.
• Your Accessible Copy must contain "a statement that it is a copy of the original Work made under a CLA licence for the personal use of an Authorised Person".
• Your Accessible Copy must contain the title, name of author and publisher, and the published edition from which you have made your Accessible Copy.
• You can add facilities for navigation around digital formats and you can enlarge, reduce or change colour of text or illustrations, provided these changes do not "amount to a derogatory treatment of the Work".
• You can give an "Intermediate Copy" to other CLA licence holders. An Intermediate Copy is a copy which you have made as part of the production process - for example, it could be a digital file which you made in order to create a Large Print or a Braille copy.
• You must keep records of copies made, and send the records to CLA annually, on 1st May each year. The report should list the title, ISBN, author(s), publisher, edition, format, number of copies created and the date they were created.

This new licence will lead to big changes and developments because the potential 'market' for Accessible Copies is now much larger and more diverse. It means that charities like Calibre can lend all their audio books to dyslexic readers as well as those with visual impairment, that dyslexic readers will be able to download text files of books from The Seeing Ear, that local authority transcription services can share Accessible Copies far more freely than before, and importantly, it also means that all Print-Disabled pupils can download and use Accessible Copies of books from the Books for All Scotland Database.

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on Secondary Legislation arising from The Equality Act 2010.The consultation seeks views on new rules of procedure for the Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland (ASNTS), to enable them to hear disability claims (discrimination, harassment and victimisation) cases in school education.

Details are available on the Scottish Government web site.