A Programming Environment for the Near-Paralyzed

Research in communication for people with vocal impairment has led to the development of scanning systems by which the movement of a small number of muscles e.g., jaw clenching can produce an output text to express their intentions to a trained assistant. This output is usually in a natural language. This paper discusses the development of a programming environment in standard microcomputer systems. The disabled user scans over fragments of programming and command languages to communicate with the computer and other programs instead of human assistants. The environment has been implemented in Apple IIs without hardware modification so that public domain programs and utilities may be accessed in a manner which is not stigmatory to the disabled user.