You Need
Dates: 13th - 15th January 2010
Venue: Olympia Hilton, Kensington, London
Opening times: 9.30am - 5.00pm
Prize Draw
Simply register at the Fringe for your chance to win a great prize, and receive a free drink voucher.
To celebrate the tenth year of the show, the first prize is ten great software titles from Inclusive Technology. They include activities for numeracy, literacy, developing ICT skills and more. The prize includes new Switch Skills Champions, Target and Touch: Music and MyBoard as well as Switch Skills for Two Set 1, Big Bang Pictures, SwitchIt! Bob the Builder, Choose and Cook, ReadIt! The Best Thing, ChooseIt! Ready-mades Numeracy - Number 0 to 100, and SwitchIt! Facemaker.
Five runners-up will each win a year's subscription to Special Children magazine (the official media partner of the Fringe).
What's New for the Fringe
Here is a selection of new products that will be on show at the Fringe:
Inclusive Technology will show the new Inclusive One Touch - an all-in-one touch PC designed specifically for education. It has a robust design for classroom use as well as an extra tough touch screen. The PC can easily meet the needs of different users, having adjustable height and tilt capabilities. It uses capacitive touch screen technology for reliable yet light touch access. It also features an integrated webcam and microphone, front-facing USB ports, extra quiet operation and very low power consumption.
The Inclusive One Touch PC comes with a collection of free educational software. It also includes free MyZone - a new configurable desktop from Inclusive that provides a personal workspace for each pupil. It's easy to create individual 'zones' for each learner with easy access to their programs, activities and games. You can also allow access to selected websites and pages. Pupils can enter their zone using touch, a mouse or switches. Each screen can have up to 12 icons to choose from - or just one, for simplicity! MyZone includes twelve simple games including Colouring In, Making Music, Tops Middles and Bottoms and Make a Pizza. See more information at www.inclusive.co.uk
Speaks4me® is a new electronic communications and voice output application device that was initially created for the founder's young son Callum, who suffers from severe autism and learning difficulties and cannot speak. Speaks4me is easy to learn and use. Simply drag and drop the required picture from the main window to the "virtual" sentence strip to create a single or correctly structured multiple word sentence, then press "Speak" and Speaks4me will read out the words.
Lightwriter® SL40 series, widening the scope of communication
Toby Churchill Ltd is one of the longest established manufacturers of communication aids in the world. Its founder Toby Churchill became disabled and lost his speech in the late 1960s following an attack of encephalitis while studying as an engineering student. Dissatisfied with the communication aids available at the time, he designed the first Lightwriter® for his own use and, after meeting other people with similar needs, started to manufacture them.
The latest example of this product is the new Lightwriter® SL40 series. Not only does this exciting text-to-speech communication aid provide the capabilities to communicate efficiently and effectively either through face to face communication or by SMS texting, but the SL40 Connect gives the user the ability to make mobile phone calls from this small compact device at home or when they are out and about.
In the middle of the recession one American company has taken a bold step, of setting up its own UK division, Logan Technologies to distribute its communication aid, the Logan ProxTalker, in the UK and across Europe.
The Logan ProxTalker is a device developed for autistic children, to enable them to exchange pictures for real words, but useable by children and adults with a range of communication disabilities. It is portable, very robust and easy to use, ticking all the boxes for use by people with autism, their families and school.
Glen Dobbs, who has a 12 year old son with autism, developed the Logan ProxTalker with his engineering colleague and friend Kevin Miller, to help him communicate beyond the boundaries of school and home. Using RFID technology, symbolised tags retrieve spoken words from the device and enable the user to have a voice.
'Logan was a great user of PECS, the well known picture exchange communication system, but he had no speech and I wanted him to be able to order his own burger when we went out at the weekend.' said Glen. 'There was nothing on the market that was easy enough for Logan to use or robust enough to withstand the rough handling I knew he would give it. Using his ProxTalker he can order his own meal and 'talk' to his Mom and me on the phone from his residential school, building on the PECS he has achieved.'
Lifetool have two new software titles.
AboutNumbers is a maths game dealing with counting, quantities, numbers and numeracy in the number domain up to 10.
An important feature is the structured representation of quantities (2 lines and 5 columns) to facilitate non-counting strategies of recognizing quantities, the understanding of the relation among numbers and the notion of numbers in general.
Use a mouse, keyboard, touch screen or one or two switches.
KonZen 2.0 is the follow-up to the successful visual training program Kon-Zen. With three different playing modes available - "Quick Fit", "Matching Pairs" and "Flash Figures" - the skills in optical differentiation, position in space, short-term memory, attention and concentration will be trained and eventually improved.
The program stands out due to its wide range of setting options of the data as well as of the level of difficulty and it is designed for children, young people and adults who want to improve their visual and cognitive skills.
Also visit the Inclusive Technology stand to see the new Intel® Reader. This portable handheld device is designed to help students with reading-based difficulties, such as dyslexia or impaired vision, access printed material.
It combines a high resolution camera with the power of an Intel® AtomT processor to convert printed text to digital text, and then read it aloud to the user. It transforms printed text into speech, anytime, anywhere!