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WADE: Hi, I'm Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project
at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.
Today we're going to talk about handwriting.
You know, whether we're sitting in class,
taking notes, or writing a letter to a loved one,
we all want to be able to take notes
and write things with pen and paper.
So while I might grab a notepad here,
and just start jotting down my grocery list,
or things to do on the way home,
folks who have mobility impairments
or other kinds of disabilities with their hands
may have difficulty with that.
But you know, there are a ton of things out there on the market
that can help with those kind of issues;
handwriting or mobility issues.
So some of the things that are out there
are very simple kinds of things.
For example, you might take a piece of insulation for pipe,
slit it down the side, put your ink pen in there,
and have a bigger, easier to hang onto ink pen.
That's just one of the simple Do It Yourself ways
to make handwriting easier.
There are also all kinds of things that are on the market.
Now when I was a kid in school,
we had these little ink pen builder-upper things here.
This is called a "grab on".
The nice thing about this is you can slide it over an ink pen
and have something that's not quite as big
as a piece of insulation to do that.
They make them in different sizes and shapes;
these are triangles, and different colors
and those kind of things, but they all do the same thing.
They slide over a pen and they make it bigger
and easier to hang on to so that when you start to write
it's easier to do that.
Now there's other more product designs
specifically for folks with disabilities.
This is an example of one
that you can take an ink pen,
put it on a table or a piece of paper,
and just lay your hand over this wire arch.
Then it's easier for somebody who might not
have the ability to grab an ink pen or hold on to it,
to still move the ink pen around and write notes.
Letters, notes, those kinds of things.
Another device is an ink pen that has a stand built-in.
This little guy is a standard, ball-point ink pen.
You set it down and just move this stand
and it moves the ink pen along with it.
So that's another device that can be held on to like that,
or you could slide it between your fingers,
there's a lot of creative ways that you can
use to write with that sort of a thing.
There are other products that are designed
to slide on to the hand.
This is one that slides over
and is a form-fitting kind of device,
it kind of grabs a hold of your hand
and then it holds on to an ink pen
so that you can write with this.
A lot of folks who have certain kinds of
spinal chord injuries do well
because they have the ability to move
their hands and arms, but not to grip.
Here's another example of a device that does that.
This one's designed to slip on to just your finger,
and then your ink pen slides into this little place right here.
This is a device that does the same kind of thing,
but it actually has a full arm grip on it
so that you can actually strap this to your arm
and folks that have the ability to move their hand
can slide an ink pen in here
and be able to write and move things around
without having to have the ability
to grab a hold of an ink pen to take their notes.
So, whether you're writing a love note to a friend,
or your grocery list, or taking notes in class,
there are a lot of different ways to make handwriting easier.
So that's your tech tip for this week.
I'm Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project in Indiana.