Free suite of assistive technology tools are available; My Study Bar

Unique Dyslexic: Embracing Diversity Celebrating Difference

 Hi everyone, Steve Unique Dyslexic McCue here. Hope you are all well,

Assistive technology can be very liberating for people across all communities, including dyslexic, neuro diverse, blind, deaf etc. 

A note of caution before I go any further. Assistive technology is not a universal solution or panacea. For example, I find speech to text software impossible to use. It just gets in the way of the creative process of writing. The only way to know if assistive tech software is to try it out. That why I always advise using a, try before buy, option which many assistive tech companies offer.

I will put together another blog on support available for UK students and people in employment or seeking employment. 

What I will advise anyone who considers them selves to be disable in any way. If you are going to take a degree or HND or already taking a degree or HND ask your college of University about Disabled Students Allowance.

If you are in employment or seeking employment there is the ACCESS to Work Grant. Probably the least known about Government scheme disabled people in the UK. Below is a link to the Government  ACCESS to Work site. But, getting hold of ACCESS to Work can be problematic.

ACCESS to Work link

There is another way forward. Its called My Study Bar which is a suite of free to access assistive technology tools that can assist with Planning, reading, writing, speech recognition and vision based tasks.

Below is a link to the Call Scotland, My Study Bar site here in Scotland. 

My Study Bar Link

Why not click on the link and have a look at their site?

My Study Bar is a floating toolbar made up of 6 sections with over 10 apps to use.

• Planning
  • Xmind – mind mapping.
• Reading
  • T-Bar – to customise background colours.
  • Vu-Bar – an onscreen ruler to read single lines of text.
  • ssOverlay – coloured overlays.
  • ATBar – select text to hear it read aloud (also with font and background colour options).
• Writing
  • Balabolka – a talking word processor with options to save text to audio .

    • Balabolka can be slow in loading, please be patient.

  • LetMeType – flexible word prediction - over 30 topic dictionaries including; Ancient Rome, Cell Biology, Global Warming and much more).
  • Rapid Typing – learn to touch type.
• Voice
  • Windows Speech Recognition - speak to your computer.
• Vision
  • System Font Size Changer – customise font, colour settings in Windows.
• Help
  • Find out more on technology to support dyslexia.
  • Download the Scottish voices.
  • Download WordTalk.
  • Ease of Access Centre.
  • High Contrast.

Thanks for reading, your feedback, likes and comments are welcomed Why not subscribe to my Unique Dyslexic Clan? Let me know how you get on with My Study Bar please.

Please note: whether to download the software or not is your decision. 

#PeaceLoveGrovvyness to you all

Steve Unique Dyslexic Eye McCue