Friday, April 28, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Blind professor tries to produce software program
by Rias Mohamed Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
Charles Hallenbeck is blind. But he's been having tunnel vision during the past year.
He sees the talking computer as a major aid to help rehabilitate the blind. He is determined to take full advantage of its talking aspect by producing software programs that could use to read and communicate.
"I'm being increasingly challenged by the need to spend my efforts at solving computer-related problems for the use of the blind," said Hallenbeck, KU professor of psychology, who acquired expertise in computer science. He married a postdoctoral training fellowship in computer science.
Hallenbeck inserts the disks into the talking computer — he has one in his office and one in his home — and the computer "reads" to him its comments. He returns the disks with comments and a grade on a typewritten sheet.
In a personal way, Halenbeck exemplifies putting talking computers to maximum use: He encourages students to turn in homework assignments on floppy disks, something he has done for the past five years.
For the first time listener, the speech is unintelligible.
"It's a great convenience for me because I can read the material in speech form," he said. "It eliminates the need to rely on sighted readers, which is convenient for one thing, and for another reason, it's less accurate. Some of the contents that students submit to me are very, very difficult for someone to read who is not also an expert in the same area."
"It generally takes a little listening for someone who hasn't been accustomed to it," he said. "It has an adjustable speed. In the beginning I made talk slowly. As I got accustomed to it, I made it speak more rapidly."
Simply stated, the speech from the talking computer is heard — the equivalent of the screen on the regular computer where material is seen.
He is working halftime this semester to concentrate more on developing software for the blind, an effort he began in 1978.
"Hardware produces the actual voice," he said. "Software controls where the speech comes from, what should, when it should stop talking, etc."
It was in his sophomore year at age 15 that he was blinded in an accident, when he and his friend had playfully
Blind since 15
ambled into a quarry and set off explosives stored there. He declined to elaborate on the accident, describing it as an unpleasant experience.
"No one wanted to tell me that I was going to be blind," he said. "I had to find that out myself."
The accident forced him into a yearlong hiatus from education, during which time he learned Braille. He then completed high school in Hudson, N.Y., in 1949, finishing among the top 20 of 200 students.
Charles Hallenbeck
When he went to college in Schenectady, N.Y., he experienced "discrimination in a kind way" because his professional background was a work. As result, he was deprived of the training his peers secured.
"I was alienated," Hallenbeck said. "I was foolish enough to accept the exemption. I was a youngster and I wasn't wise with the ways of the world."
Looking back, he said he could have handled the laboratory work without difficulty.
Desire to teach
After earning his doctorate in clinical psychology in 1960, Halenbeck took a job as a psychologist in a Cleveland hospital where he worked until 1967. The hospital was connected with Cleveland's Western Campus at Case Western University where he helped student working as interns.
"I was teaching, lecturing, supervising. I was behaving a professor," he said and laughed. "I liked it. I said, 'Why am I doing this here?' I should be teaching at a university somewhere.'"
Around that time, a group of engineers from St. Louis undertook a project to help blind students become proficient in the project proposed Hallegen's interest.
After he learned computer jargon in an adult education course in computing at Washington University in St. Louis, he earned a post-doctoral training fellowship with the St. Louis group.
The group also devised printers that would print Braille. With the advent of microcomputers, Halleen and his colleagues could computers that could produce speech.
"I've always been interested in the other solutions, namely computers or computer terminals producing speech," Hallenbeck said.
By 1969, he had acquired enough expertise in computers to begin applying it to help rehabilitate the blind. A doctor in psychology doweled with his expertise and KU hired him as an assistant professor.
Since then he has received two
promotions, one in 1971 to associate professor and again in 1974 to professor.
Program unique
During the 1970s, when computer manufacturers took up the challenge to produce hardware for speech output, Hallenbeck assiduously worked on a computer he had bought to make more that would produce speech output.
He got his first measure of success when he produced and copyrighted a software program, Provox, in 1986. The program is one among the six screen review programs — programs that essentially allow the blind to review what is on screen in speech form — on the market. And he periodically updates its features, based on feedback from users.
The program's unique feature is that speech can be silenced when the listener doesn't want certain material read, Hallenke said, and it also
allows the listener to access specific material.
James Canaday, a blind Lawrence graduate student who uses the program, explained its advantages and that it was invaluable for blind students.
"I use it daily," he said. "I first used it a year ago, but he has improved it quite a lot. I began using the current version in September."
Dave Andrews, director of Baeh audio-reader center, is also the marketing director of Kansas Inc., a company that markets Hallenbeck's books on various subjects in many ways. Andrews said, because he had a talking computer in the early 1970s when it was uncommon, and his screen review programs were some of the earliest ones on the market. Other programs Hallenbeck used to read are The Kidnapped Reader, Watchdog and Names. His forthcoming program is Turbo Braille, which he hopes to put on the market in the summer.
Hallenbeck said his programs had been well received by a small number of users.
When three of his students were asked opinions, all shared one common view: "He has an excellent sense of humor."
"I'm not the world's smartest businessman," he said. "I haven't been aggressive at marketing it. The way it works is that if someone insists on buying it from me, I would be happy to sell it to him."
In the classes Hallenbeck teaches at the University, he uses handouts, mimeographed materials and audio supplemental substitute for minimal use of the board.
Psychology to computers
Hallenbeck gave three reasons for shifting his emphasis during the past year from psychology to computers.
*Watson Library has adopted an ordinary advantage*"for the blind because it can be accessed from
wherever there is a talking computer on campus, he said. The two talking computers for student use on campus in Fraser Hall and the Computer Center.
- Compact disks that store "enormously extensive and important databases" are becoming readily available.
- Compact discs that can play audio disk with pop or classical music can store 20,000 pages of text references. When attached to the talking computer, that is an "extremely ordinary source" for a "bionic scientist"
■ Because the computer field is becoming more image-based, the blind can be handicapped on that side and a solution has to be found.
Hallenbeck is working to find that solution, primarily to make a contribution in the field. If he finds the solution, it could be a breakthrough.
"It's more the interest," he said, "and the need that's there for the work to be done."