Introduction
The reason for this project was purely personal.  The bottom line is that I suffer from eye fatigue if I spend too much time reading or working at the computer.  Furthermore, there are no guarantees that my condition won't worsen.  Modifications need to be made in order for me to continue in my job and life.  My experiences reviewing these different types of assistive technology were rewarding.  They provided me with just a glimpse of what helps are available for people with disabilities.  The following points summarize my findings:

• You get what you pay for.  The freeware, HELPRead, was just a barebones speech synthesizer, while the pricey JAWS does everything the user might ask for and more.

• If one is in need of a simple speech synthesizer, TextAloud is the one to have.  At a very affordable price of $19.95, it does the job of converting any text to speech quite adequately.  There appears to be a commitment on the part of the software developers to keep current with this software by making enhancements and modifications to the program.  The fact that the user may listen immediately or save to .wav or MP3 files to hear later is a nice feature.

• As the prices go up, so do the bells and whistles.  The higher end software, in the form of screen readers, provides the user with all sorts of possibilities.  I enjoyed using the Home Page Reader as its split screen enabled the user to view the text at the font size of his choice while listening to it and never leaving the web page format.  It was extremely easy to set up and use yet, a tutorial was offered for first time users.  What I didn’t like was the fact that the program took over my computer, enlarging the fonts on all of the web pages.  I’m hoping once I uninstall it, all settings will return to normal.  Furthermore in Internet Explorer, the Home Page Reader’s opening screen becomes the home page by default and the history of visited URLs vanishes.  One needs to access the Favorites folder to return to some semblance of order!  The limitation with Home Page Reader is that it only works with web page reading and would not work the simple reading of text, applications software or the computer desktop.

• The last two programs visited, ZoomText and JAWS, create conflicts for each other so I had to uninstall one to use the other.  ZoomText combines screen reading technology along with screen magnification.  Again it was easy to use and I experimented with the screen magnification and my stomach became quite queasy after traveling around the screen for several trips.  While on the AI Squared website, I also learned about another one of the company’s offerings,  BigShot, which claims to be “the first software magnifier designed specifically to relieve computer eyestrain.”  Once my CTER courses are completed, I would like to spend some time trying it out.  Fortunately, there is a 30-day trial period for this software too.

• JAWS was overwhelming to me.  It is designed for the blind user and since my visual sense were still operational, I found it almost too much information to grasp.  As it is the most costly of all the assistive technology software available, one would surmise it has the most to offer.  It clearly opens up the computer and many of its uses to the blind user and I cannot imagine how exciting it would be to have that world discovered for the first time.  JAWS is in direct competition with Window-Eyes, which was not reviewed in this project.  According to my research, JAWS is one step ahead of Window-Eyes because it is able to more accurately read the data on web pages.  For instance, Window-Eyes will read the data in tables, but not the column headings, while JAWS reads both the data and the headings.

Conclusion
Where do I go from here?  Put quite simply, if I need a text-to-speech program, I will choose TextAloud because it is affordable, easy to use and does not take over my computer, which is used by other family members.  If I need screen magnification, I will consider Big Shot, even though I have not thoroughly explored the program.  For Internet use, I would seriously consider Home Page Reader.  While it may not have all the bells and whistles that the high-end programs offer, it more than filled the bill for me.

I very much appreciated this opportunity to investigate this assistive technology for the visually impaired.  It opened up a new world of possibilities and I realize no matter what direction my life takes, I have a huge amount of resources available to me.