EnableMart Vendors Unite to Donate Assistive Technology to Orphans in Ecuador

April 26, 2010 - PRLog -- April 16, 2010 Salt Lake City - Suzanne Durrant, a university student majoring in Early childhood/Special education, recently approached EnableMart about donating to a non-profit orphanage operating in Quito, Ecuador.

Durrant volunteered at the orphanage which is home to about 10 parent-less children with very limited communication due to developmental disabilities. There she learned about the various communication devices available to help these children communicate.

Durrant approached EnableMart in February about donating some of the communication devices available on EnableMart.com because the orphanage cannot afford to provide them for the children. Several of EnableMart’s top Assistive Technology vendors: Claro, Williams Sound, and AMDi, stepped forward and offered to donate products to assist the orphanage.

UK software developer, Claro, generously offered 5 copies of their language assistance software, ClaroRead. Claro software supports reading and writing with several different functions including a robust screen reader, text manipulation for added readability, word prediction, and homophones.

A Pocketalker was donated by Williams Sound. This device is made for individuals with hearing impairment who are not ready for or cannot afford hearing aids. The Pocketalker is about the size of a deck of cards and feeds mono sound to a single earbud headset. The Pocketalker amplifies all surrounding sounds including conversations, the radio, and television.

AMDi provided a Tech/Talk 8x8 communicator. Tech/Talk is a multi-level AAC that can store up to 64 different messages on eight levels. Users can press on a button-image and Tech/Talk plays a recorded message that is coordinated to the image. Tech/Talk can also be attached to another device such as a radio or lamp to toggle on/off using buttons on the Tech/Talk.

Durrant, with the help of a Speech Language Pathologist, will develop a training program so that future volunteers will be able to learn how to use the assistive devices to help the children at the orphanage communicate.

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EnableMart is the worldwide leader in assistive technology distribution. With customers in all 50 states and over 45 foreign countries, EnableMart provides over 3,000 assistive technology and assistive living devices from over 200 manufacturers.