Devices help give voice to students who are autistic
By Luis Zaragoza
Mercury News

Joanna Ho-Young Lee / Mercury News
Autistic student Trevor Fu, 13, uses a ChatPC device to type out words at the PACE School in Sunnyvale.


It looks like an ordinary computer keyboard with a narrow display screen running across the top.

Boxy. Plain. Nothing extraordinary.

But this drab device translates keystrokes into spoken words -- a concept familiar to anyone who has heard the clipped yet engaging computer-generated speech of eminent scientist Stephen Hawking. The technology offers hope of faster and easier communication for some people with autism, a neurological disorder characterized by difficulty in verbal communication.

So add potentially life-altering to that plain keyboard's description.

That's why the Pacific Autism Center for Education in Sunnyvale, a school for young people with autism and other developmental disorders, would like to have two LinkPLUS keyboards ($2,500 each). It's part of a family of what are called augmentative and alternative communication devices.

What this means for Jan Netto is that her son Joey, who attends PACE, now has a voice.

``He's come into his own since he's had access to those devices -- he's kind of clever with that kind of thing,'' she says.

To see autistic students break through the speech problems and sensory overload that typify autism and finally interact with the people around them ``is monumental,'' says Kurt Ohlfs, PACE's executive director, who has a special connection to the technology.

On any given day, classrooms at PACE resonate with the sounds of learning. The soothing voices of therapists and aides combine with an ever-changing array of sounds produced by children of all ages who sometimes lash out in frustration. Behavior issues are a chief reason public schools refer autistic students to specialized schools such as PACE.

PACE was established by parents and instructors who realized public schools are not equipped to give autistic children the personal attention they require. In the specialized environment that emphasizes order and routine, the breakthroughs big and small keep PACE's instructors motivated. Like expert locksmiths, they prod and cajole students in hopes of landing the right combination of therapies to put them on the road to self-sufficiency.

It's a huge task.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans have some form of autism. It is such a vastly complex condition that no single therapy or device can be applied across the board.

Still, technology is evolving so swiftly that PACE instructors are eager to employ devices that help students express their curiosity and reduce the frustration that comes from their inability to easily relay wants and needs.

LinkPLUS was developed for people who have lost the ability to speak -- but can still type or use a stylus -- because of a brain injury, stroke, disability or degenerative disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. It's also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and it's what caused Hawking's paralysis and loss of speech.

Sixty percent of the 53 students at PACE don't speak. Therapy for some involves classroom study. Others use devices with touch-screen technology that foster interaction between students and others -- a key aspect of learning at the school.

In one exercise, a therapist guides Joey Netto in using a touch-screen device that displays various icons representing pre-set questions and objects. Playing the role of library clerk, Joey helps other students check out books from the collection. He uses a stylus to select questions such as, ``What is your name?'' The device translates the set message into spoken words. The student selects another icon to ask a student his classroom number. Another icon results in a simple ``Bye'' when the transaction is over.

``Good job!'' therapist Christy Gaber says.

The exercise shows just how comfortable some students can be with technology. And that's what makes something like the LinkPLUS device so exciting. There's no telling just how much an autistic student has learned until a way is found for him to express himself.

Ohlfs says he's observed some students who are somewhat bored with tapping icons on a screen but, given access to a keyboard device, suddenly blossom, speaking electronically non-stop.

It's a particularly satisfying result for him, since he began his professional life as an engineer building the same type of touch pad devices that he is now hoping to use more extensively to help students at PACE and elsewhere.

So how did an engineer come to run a school? Through a series of events, he became a board member for PACE, and then interim director. He was tentative at first, but found himself absorbed by the daily challenges. His tenure kept being extended. Lately he has been involved in sharing advances in autism education with other agencies and public schools. Much of that work involves changing attitudes about what people with autism can achieve.

Given his background, he's busy developing new ways to employ technology in teaching. He's currently involved in using video to track student development. And because he knows it inside and out, he's eager to see how touch-screen technology can be adapted to propel PACE's work.

``If I can leverage technology I helped develop -- I'd be thrilled,'' Ohlfs says, displaying the enthusiasm and determination that have helped him thrive in his new career. ``Nothing is more fulfilling than to be at both ends of this.''

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