Minister launches school IT system for disabled

Education Minister, Jane Kenedy today launched a new innovative school IT system that has been especially developed for children who are non-verbal and severely physically disabled.

The CameraMouse system has been made possible with £200,000 from Executive Programme Funds. It was originally developed at Boston College, Massachusetts, and is the first system of its kind available in special schools here.

Speaking at the launch, which was held at Parkview School, Lisburn, the Minister said: “It is a great pleasure to have been invited here today, not only to see how CameraMouse works, but to see at first hand how the children are responding to it. This system opens up access to the same high tech opportunities for children in special schools that are available, and taken for granted today, in all mainstream schools.

“CameraMouse is a valuable resource, not just for education but also for communication, enabling children with severe special needs to communicate, in some cases for the first time, between themselves and with their peers.”

CameraMouse enables children to move the computer cursor via movement of their eyes or any other part of the body over which they have voluntary control. The project is being made available in 22 special schools for children with severe learning difficulty and 4 schools for children with physical disability.

Pilot schemes were run across the Education and Library Boards in 2002 to ensure that the systems were appropriate to schools’ requirements here. The pilots finished in early 2003 and the new system was installed during the 2003 summer term, with appropriate staff training.

(MB)