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Hi, Chris! My name is Inda Immega and I am a computer geologist. I have taught literally hundreds of people to use computers but I have never had so challenging a learner as my Mother-in-law. She has been diagnosed with PD and is motivated to learn to use a computer because of the weakness and lack of control of her hands and fingers. I have found the mouse, in all of its manifestations (Mac and PC) to be a dead loss for her. I have good resources for such things and have tried all manner of ergonomic pointing devices. The problem seems to be that she cannot coordinate the idea of motion of the pointing device with motion of the cursor. Fortunately, there is VERY LITTLE in Windows that will not work with keyboard commands -- and since M. is a good typist and learns things quickly, things have progressed much better since we gave up the mouse almost completely. The other thing that has been difficult to teach is the idea of how electronic documents work. It is hard for her to grasp that something scrolled off the screen is still there. It is hard for her to understand that moving the cursor back through the text is different from backspacing -- insertions and deletions within existing text were difficult to envision. She understands intellectually, I think, but not mechanically. The best thing that has worked so far is is printing out a document in big type, then cuting it apart to show the effect of insertions and deletions, covering up part of it to show scrolling. We are making progress here, too. She can now write and print letters on her own and has resumed her correspondence with friends and relatives. There are lots of wonderful programs around, such as the ones you mention, and lots of machinery (eyeball trackers, voice control, footpads, etc.) but a lot of them are not as useful as one might want. I think it comes down to keeping things as simple as possible and adding hw and sw components as they best benefit the person who is trying to communicate. Because many things will be sub-optimal, it is probably a good stategy to borrow and try things before putting a lot of resources into them. You might also be interested in some of the publications and letters from the SOREHAND listserver -- they are concerned with repetitive stress injury and ergonomics, and talk a lot about things that might make computing easier: > **Getting On the List**: subscribing > Send a mail message to: <[log in to unmask]> > No Subject is needed. Send the message: > > subscribe rsi .. > About the Newsletter > -------------------- > Produced by: > Caroline Rose, 970 Paradise Way, Palo Alto CA 94306 > <[log in to unmask]> --- None of this represents professional advice or endorsement of any product or service. Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect policies or holdings of my employer. ====================================================================== Inda Immega, Pecten International Co. [log in to unmask] ======C=o=m=p=u=t=e=r===A=i=d=e=d===I=n=t=e=r=p=r=e=t=a=t=i=o=n=======