Technology Assists Students with Disabilities

 

Beginning in 1990, years before the advent of the WWW, Nathan Hale High School began using the Internet to facilitate communication of a severely disabled, but gifted high school student. This student, Wai Kin Chiu, did not have functional use of his limbs and had serious difficulty producing understandable speech. Despite these handicaps, through the use of adaptive technology, Wai Kin was able to access a computer, the Internet, and the hearts of many people around the world.

Using a switch similar to that of scientist Stephen Hawking, Wai Kin communicated with friends in Hong Kong, New Zealand, England and Japan. He eventually began his own little LISTSERV group "World Friends for the Disabled" (WFFTD) mounted on a server in New Zealand. A cousin of this project can be found in the World Friends pages mounted on the Nathan Hale server.

Wai Kin later visited his Hong Kong friends in person with close friend and Augmentative Communication Specialist Janis Funk.

Wai Kin attended North Seattle Community College after his studies at Nathan Hale were completed.

A description of four other students assisted by adaptive computer access at hale can be accesed below:
Networking, Adaptive Technology, and Disabilities: Four Students at Nathan Hale

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