Electronic device may give the disabled new powers

Terry Webster

Monday, Oct. 23, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

Student Heather Bertolozzi races a toy fire-red rescue car with bright flashing lights and blaring sirens.

"Turn it off," her mother says. "OK, now turn it on."

What might be a typical play session between mother and daughter was actually a demonstration of the power of technology. A new device is allowing the 19-year-old to play with a toy for the first time.

Bertolozzi, who has cerebral palsy, repeatedly stops and starts the car on command without using her hands or feet, turning the car on and off with an electronic device attached to her forehead.

Bertolozzi is a student at John F. Miller School, a special education school that is home to a staff that works with some of the most severely disabled students in the Clark County School District.

Talking, playing with toys or hugging their parents are all things these children don't take for granted. Many can't speak or control their muscles enough to raise their arms.

Those obstacles aren't stopping speech pathologist Dorothy Yeager. She's using a new high-tech device that might provide the students with a new means to communicate and learn. Ultimately, it may be able to test the students' intelligence levels.

"It's our job to learn what they understand, how they understand, and to provide them with the opportunity to do it," Yeager said.

According to the manufacturer, the device, called Mind Controlled Tool Operating System, is a switch activated by eye or muscle movement transferred through a receiver attached to the forehead. The manufacturer claims the switch also can measure thought processes.

The switch is used to activate a sound or a light to signal yes or no answers to questions, as well as to operate electrical devices like light switches, remote controls, computers and motorized toys.

"In Heather's case, she can understand when you tell her to reach for something," her mother, Belinda Bertolozzi, said. "But it may take her five minutes to do it, because she has to concentrate so hard. This lets her do things without using her muscles."

At Miller School, the use of the switch is still "in the experimental stages," Yeager said.

But the results, so far, are impressive, she said.

For example, a student who teachers say has never made a sound began loudly vocalizing after he realized he was operating the toy car.

"The children are able to do something for themselves, instead of having someone else do it for them," Yeager said.

Seventeen students at the school have successfully used the switch, and it is being tested on more. Yeager estimates that at least 60 of the school's 119 students are good candidates to use the switch.

Teacher Lisa Smith said it will help give the students what they deserve: the chance to learn and develop.

"This is an educational setting," she said. "It's not glorified baby-sitting, as some people think. We are helping to teach the students daily living skills and as a result are helping the parents to help their children."

And while there are other switches that allow the children to operate things, many require a degree of muscle movement that is tiring for them, she said.

The switch was introduced to the school by Carl Brahe, 48, a psychotherapist from Bailey, Colo. He became a distributor for the switches after using one while caring for a friend with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Before dying from the disease in 1999, Brahe's friend, Denver real estate developer John Andrews, was able to communicate by using the switch.

"He was completely aware, but locked in a body that didn't allow him to communicate," Brahe said.

A system attached to the switch changed that.

"It was amazing," Brahe said. "We were able to ask him yes and no questions. For a yes, he would make it beep. For a no, he would keep it quiet."

After learning about the John F. Miller School students through a trade show, Brahe donated a switch to the school. He visited the school last spring for a trial run.

"As this technology continues to develop, I believe these people will force us to take a long look at what we think of as consciousness and intelligence," he said. "When I saw what these children could do, all I could do was sit on the floor and cry. They are incredible, yet mostly ignored and forgotten."