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capri0mni[ETA 1: Changed the subject line]
So (as I may have mentioned here before) I've stopped using a mouse with my computer, and use what's called "MouseKeys" (at least, in Windows), where you can make the number pad on your keyboard work as a substitute cursor-control.
I suspect Macs probably have something similar, but I don't know what Apple has named it, or how you turn it on. But on a Windows Machine, at any rate, you turn on your MouseKeys by pressing CRTL+Shift+NumLock at the same time (and after you have it set as your default, you just toggle it on/off by clicking NumLock).
I use this because, no matter how cheap mouses are now, when they fall on the floor they are almost un-retrievable -- they're very hard to pick up with one of those reacher-grabber-things. And at even just $10 a pop, that gets expensive with every one I run over in my wheelchair, between dropping and retrieving...
Anyway -- onto the "Dimmer Switch Moment"
The thing is: MouseKeys are a lot, lot, slower than conventional mouses; they move across the screen one pixel at a time, and even at their fastest setting, it can take them several seconds to go from one corner of the screen diagonally to the other. You can speed up the acceleration, but you lose some control in the trade. Also, you have to click the different keys in combination in order to get your cursor to specific points on the screen. And every time you stop and change direction, your cursor slows down a bit before getting back up to whatever top speed you're comfortable with.
[ETA 2: I just timed it by counting "One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee...," starting the mouse in the upper left corner of my wide screen monitor to the bottom edge, then changing direction to get to the bottom right corner. I have my mouse keys set up at top speed and slow-medium acceleration. It took fifteen 'Chimpanzees' to get from one corner to another]
My realization?
Use MouseKeys and an online Flash puzzle or skill game as a point of "Sensitivity training" about why kids with "Severe" C.P. are so often labeled as "intellectually Disabled," and how unfair, inaccurate and frustrating that is simply because they have trouble responding to questions as quickly as their mobility-normative peers.
Don't even try this experiment on those timed puzzle games where the game ends when the timer runs out, 'cause you will never get out of Level One. But here are a couple of games that I actually enjoy playing, even though, because of my technology, my highest scores are far below average -- I won't give you links, 'cause the pages are full of ads. But if you put these names in a search engine of your choice, you'll get lots of hits:
"Magic Towers Solitaire" (very pretty to look at, and the sound effects are pleasing, too), which, if it were classified as and I.Q. testing game, would be a number logic / number pattern recognition test; and "Magic Words" (Again, with the pretty visuals and music), which is a scrambled-word vocabulary test. ... If you decide to do this sensitivity-test for yourself with this latter game, be sure to do it in "puzzle mode."
The fact that these games continue even after the clock runs down is analogous to the "Special Accommodations" that educators and psychologists insist they give "Special Needs Students" to be (air quotes) completely fair. But both of these games award bonus points that are time sensitive -- and that you will never get awarded without a normal-speed mouse.
Okay, yes. I am daring you to try this. See what it feels like when you know the answer ten times faster than you can tell the "game master" that you know the answer. Then imagine that the computer is a human being, who's already prejudiced against you, and is demanding proof of your intelligence before she or he lets you into a mainstreamed kindergarten class.
You may get an idea why the statistic "Between 30% and 50% of all children with cerebral palsy have some level of mental retardation." makes my blood ... simmer, and at the very least, sets off my ORLY?!! alarms.
Also, as a side note: see how removing the ability to play these games quickly changes their feel, psychologically.
...Just a thought.
So (as I may have mentioned here before) I've stopped using a mouse with my computer, and use what's called "MouseKeys" (at least, in Windows), where you can make the number pad on your keyboard work as a substitute cursor-control.
I suspect Macs probably have something similar, but I don't know what Apple has named it, or how you turn it on. But on a Windows Machine, at any rate, you turn on your MouseKeys by pressing CRTL+Shift+NumLock at the same time (and after you have it set as your default, you just toggle it on/off by clicking NumLock).
I use this because, no matter how cheap mouses are now, when they fall on the floor they are almost un-retrievable -- they're very hard to pick up with one of those reacher-grabber-things. And at even just $10 a pop, that gets expensive with every one I run over in my wheelchair, between dropping and retrieving...
Anyway -- onto the "Dimmer Switch Moment"
The thing is: MouseKeys are a lot, lot, slower than conventional mouses; they move across the screen one pixel at a time, and even at their fastest setting, it can take them several seconds to go from one corner of the screen diagonally to the other. You can speed up the acceleration, but you lose some control in the trade. Also, you have to click the different keys in combination in order to get your cursor to specific points on the screen. And every time you stop and change direction, your cursor slows down a bit before getting back up to whatever top speed you're comfortable with.
[ETA 2: I just timed it by counting "One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee...," starting the mouse in the upper left corner of my wide screen monitor to the bottom edge, then changing direction to get to the bottom right corner. I have my mouse keys set up at top speed and slow-medium acceleration. It took fifteen 'Chimpanzees' to get from one corner to another]
My realization?
Use MouseKeys and an online Flash puzzle or skill game as a point of "Sensitivity training" about why kids with "Severe" C.P. are so often labeled as "intellectually Disabled," and how unfair, inaccurate and frustrating that is simply because they have trouble responding to questions as quickly as their mobility-normative peers.
Don't even try this experiment on those timed puzzle games where the game ends when the timer runs out, 'cause you will never get out of Level One. But here are a couple of games that I actually enjoy playing, even though, because of my technology, my highest scores are far below average -- I won't give you links, 'cause the pages are full of ads. But if you put these names in a search engine of your choice, you'll get lots of hits:
"Magic Towers Solitaire" (very pretty to look at, and the sound effects are pleasing, too), which, if it were classified as and I.Q. testing game, would be a number logic / number pattern recognition test; and "Magic Words" (Again, with the pretty visuals and music), which is a scrambled-word vocabulary test. ... If you decide to do this sensitivity-test for yourself with this latter game, be sure to do it in "puzzle mode."
The fact that these games continue even after the clock runs down is analogous to the "Special Accommodations" that educators and psychologists insist they give "Special Needs Students" to be (air quotes) completely fair. But both of these games award bonus points that are time sensitive -- and that you will never get awarded without a normal-speed mouse.
Okay, yes. I am daring you to try this. See what it feels like when you know the answer ten times faster than you can tell the "game master" that you know the answer. Then imagine that the computer is a human being, who's already prejudiced against you, and is demanding proof of your intelligence before she or he lets you into a mainstreamed kindergarten class.
You may get an idea why the statistic "Between 30% and 50% of all children with cerebral palsy have some level of mental retardation." makes my blood ... simmer, and at the very least, sets off my ORLY?!! alarms.
Also, as a side note: see how removing the ability to play these games quickly changes their feel, psychologically.
...Just a thought.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 10:46 pm (UTC)"Linyca" is like that, too. And it's untimed.
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Date: 2012-02-11 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 11:28 pm (UTC)I may just need to do a "How CapriUni faffs about on the Internet" post and just list all the games n' things with which I pass my time...
no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-11 07:49 pm (UTC)I had a similar assessment when I was two, administered by the hospital (because they were convinced I must be retarded, and in need of "early intervention"). The psychologist was a hair's breadth away from labeling me severely retarded, and recommending I be institutionalized -- this was also in an era before "mainstreaming" was even a concept, I think --- the mid 1960s.
... Of course, this was because I was two, and the nurse had swooped in and whisked me away from my parents without a word of warning, and left me alone in a room to wait for the psychologist to show up. ...So when he did show up, I refused to say anything.
...Meanwhile, my mother was in the waiting room, figuring out how, when she was called back to receive the assessment results, to get us out of there with a murder conviction; she went with the military discipline approach: answer all questions with "Yes," "No," or "I don't know."
The psychologist took "profoundly retarded" off my chart, but he marked mother down as "Hostile and Manipulative" (Because obviously she was manipulating me not to answer any questions unless she was there).
I quail to think what would have happened to me if I'd had a mother who was, like so many women of the era, conditioned to accept the word of men in authority.
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Date: 2012-02-11 04:41 pm (UTC)And, heh, thank you for pointing to Magic Words. I prefer the puzzle mode for the fact that I am far more interested in finding complicated words at my own pace than beating a time limit.
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Date: 2012-02-11 08:25 pm (UTC)I also like "My Word!," another scrambled letter game; and one which can be played by either pointing at the letters with a mouse, or by typing.
I like either the "Casual" mode -- which is entirely opened-ended -- go for as long as you have stamina, or "50 words," which does have an end; that's my favorite mode, because I can evaluate how well I play each time against a fixed measure.
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Date: 2012-02-12 03:44 am (UTC)FYI, on the Mac it's also called "Mouse" Keys. [Apple Menu] -> System Prefs > System > Universal Access > Mouse & trackpad. In fact, the same programmers designed these systems for both Mac and Windows (but coded for the relevant system, of course).
My hands work pretty well, but I my eyes and brain can't tolerate the changing colors and sounds and such. When it comes to games, give me pieces of wood or rectangles of cardboard. Or charades.
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Date: 2012-02-12 03:55 am (UTC)...And it's not pretty. She still uses the R# word, but now, she only uses it as a transitive verb, rather than a label, as in: "Johnny has been retarded by his teachers, after three years in the 'cross-cat' classroom."
And she is helping his mom make sure that no "retardants" get their grubby little hands on this boy's future.
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Date: 2012-02-12 04:36 am (UTC)That's so infuriating that the 5-yr-old needs guarding against the destructive assumptions of the educators. Glad he's got it, though!
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Date: 2012-02-12 04:50 am (UTC)Truth. On both counts. As Audrey says: that boy won the Mommy lottery.