ATFAQ019 – Holiday Shopping – Special Episode | Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads

WADE WINGLER: Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions, and we have answers.

But for this episode, we are doing something a little bit different. Our other show, assistive technology update, has for five years done an annual holiday shopping episode, and we had some material that were interesting and our guest on that holiday show were none other than Mark Stewart, Belva Smith, and Brian Norton of ATFAQ. This time we are going to break from our regular format and we’re going to have our regular ATFAQ crew along with Nikol Prieto, our outreach coordinator, talk about holiday ideas for people with disabilities. We are doing something different, something interesting, something seasonal and festive, and next time we’ll be back to our regular format so will join you back then for questions and answers. But this time must do something special and learn about some cool assistive technology for the holiday season.

I’ll go around the room. Brian Norton, hey, how are you?

BRIAN NORTON: Doing well. How are you?

WADE WINGLER: Good. Thanks for being here. Brian is the director of assistive technology. Nikol Prieto?

NIKOL PRIETO: Hi there, how are you? Happy holidays!

WADE WINGLER: Thank you. Welcome back. Nikol, this is a fifth time you and I have done the show together. I am so glad that you’re here and you don’t seem to have your Grinch on today.

NIKOL PRIETO: It’s after Halloween. I’m A-OK starting in November to start celebrating the holidays.

WADE WINGLER: There we go. Of course we record this before it airs. We have done it right before Halloween before. Not this time.

Mark Stewart is one of our senior assistive technology specialists on our mobility and cognition team. Mark, welcome back.

MARK STEWART: Hey, everybody. Thanks. Happy holidays.

WADE WINGLER: Belva Smith is on our vision team in the clinical program dressed again very festively for the holidays. Belva, thanks for being here.

BELVA SMITH: Thanks, Wade. Happy holidays, everybody.

WADE WINGLER: Just like last week, we’re going to jump back into our format where we kind of go around the horn and talk about different kinds of assistive technology gift ideas for folks with disabilities all about is technology and share some of our personal holiday traditions and ideas and likes and dislikes and those kinds of things. A little bit of music here and then we’ll jump back into some of these assistive technology holiday shopping ideas.

***

WADE WINGLER: The holidays aren’t always only about kids and people and those kinds of things. Dogs like Christmas too, right, Nikol? You’ve got some dog stuff to talk about.

NIKOL PRIETO: I sure do. For people out there who have guide dogs, don’t leave them out. They usually become part of the family. Guide dogs are great for people with visual impairments and maybe even someone with other disabilities. So there are some gifts for those dogs. There is a guide dog pet gift Couch Pet Bed with Easy Roll Away Flap. It’s really nice, rolls over your couch. That way you don’t get your couch dirty and they can be up there with you enjoying the holidays.

Also from MaxiAids, they have a Non-skid Dog Bowl and Tray. Nice to keep the environment safe, especially if you are visually impaired, keep your area dry, make sure there is no doubt in sitting around and keep everything tidy and in one spot so you’re not tripping over that.

The other thing I came up with was a Dog Tag in Braille. I thought that would be really cute to add that on. You can even tie your package and have the braille be the tag for that.

WADE WINGLER: I’m going to jump in here. Most of my gifts throughout the whole thing are going to have to do with kids, because I’ve got little kids in my house and so I have gone on to the Toys “R” Us accessible giftgiving guide and found some pretty cool stuff.

Two of the things I want to talk about today are from Leapfrog. My kids love the Leapfrog toys that are out there. I like them because they are kind of high-tech and they do some pretty cool stuff. The first one I want to talk about is Leapfrog My Pal Scout. He’s kind of the green, more masculine version. There’s also Violet who is the more purple, more feminine version of that. My Pal Scout is a stuffed animal that’s actually pretty darn cool. It’s a stuffed animal that syncs with books and has some things on his paws that allow you to have it read a book out loud. You can push the hands on the scout dog and it will make different sounds, play songs, and it’s a very interactive sort of thing with kids. It costs about $19, and I’m going to pop links in the show notes to all of these things we can find more places to buy these.

The other thing from Leapfrog I think is interesting and sort of a classic is a thing called the LeapReader Reading and Writing system. It costs about three dollars. Really it’s a way to have books read out loud to kids who need a little bit of support like that. Basically you buy the system and it comes with one book, but then you can get another 100 books or so. The way it works is you open up the book and it has a special pin that you can hold over the words and the letters of the words and have it read out loud. It also includes some way to let you practice writing as well so that you can get support while you’re reading, support while you’re writing. And it has some really cool characters. For example, if you’re into Pixar, Monsters Inc., for example, there some books and stuff related to that. Some of the things are Leap and the Lost Dinosaur. Leap is this cool frog character from leapfrog. There’s also another book called Get Ready for Kindergarten. Again there is over 100 different books are available for the system and you can check those as well.

Brian, I know you have a couple of things on your list there. Can you tell me what you’ve got.

BRIAN NORTON: When I was looking for different gift ideas, I looked all over the place for different types of gifts for different types of disabilities. The first one I want to highlight is a portable suitcase wheelchair ramp. It’s a signature advance series by EZ-Access. It’s about $160. What’s great about it is it’s for persons who need assistance getting in and out of vehicles, maybe up on raised landings or in and over stairs, maybe folks in wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, those kinds of things. It’s a great way to take a ramp with you. So you may have one at your home built into a particular landing or set of stairs in your home, but when you’re out and about, sometimes you run into those types of challenges out in the community and what a great way to be able to bring something with you to be able to get it in and out of those places. They come in different lengths. You can get them to fit through six-foot. You can pick. Again, the cost will vary depending on the size or length of ramp that you end up getting, but just really is a great way to be able to access different places when you’re out and about.

WADE WINGLER: That’s pretty cool. I haven’t seen that kind of thing before. What else is on your list?

BRIAN NORTON: Another item that I thought was pretty interesting is these MagnaReady stress-free shirts. These are Oxford shirts. They actually are infused with magnets and allows for easier buttoning and clothing options for folks. Instead of being stressed out by trying to get that button through the slot on your shirt, you just move the shirt over and it will actually magnetically close itself for you. They are really super nice shirts. They look really nice. They’re made with high-quality materials, at least it looks like 100 percent cotton, machine washable. What a great way to be able to get clothing for folks who may have arthritis, maybe Parkinson’s or some other mobility, dexterity, fine motor control issues in their hands to be able get dressed in the morning. Maybe with these MagnaReady shirts.

WADE WINGLER: Did you say the cost on that?

BRIAN NORTON: They are about $65, around that cost.

BELVA SMITH: Is that just adults or the can you get those for kids too?

BRIAN NORTON: On their website, it looks like it’s just for adults, but I didn’t dig too far into it. They may be available for kids as well. I have to look.

MARK STEWART: That’s really cool. Buttoning has been a classic problem for the ages.

NIKOL PRIETO: Now I need a shoelaces for my eight-year-old son who can’t tie his shoes.

MARK STEWART: Do you think he would be okay with a pair of geriatric sneakers?

NIKOL PRIETO: He’s going to have to be to be or learn.

WADE WINGLER: Or some of those curly cue laces that are a little bit easier to type.

BRIAN NORTON: Now they’ve got something on my list is the Nike FlyEase Shoes.

NIKOL PRIETO: Those are cool.

BRIAN NORTON: For folks with disabilities.

WADE WINGLER: Mark, this is your first time on the show, but I know you’ve got some pretty cool stuff to talk about there. What’s on your list?

MARK STEWART: I’m going to throw a curveball and talk about something that’s not on the list that I gave to you guys. Nikol got me fired up talking about dogs. We all know how much I love dogs and this is a real holiday feel as well. Nikol mentioned guide dogs. How about therapy dogs or just dogs overall? Why not a dog as the gift? Nikol took care of the getting technology for the dogs, and I may be stretching the rules here little bit to talk about the actual animal. But again with the holiday theme, I’ve been amazed being out in the field seeing what some of these dogs do for folks. I guess the first one that comes to mind is a dog who was just doing a fantastic job as a PTSD therapy dog for a veteran with PTSD. I was just amazed at how that all worked together and how he affected his life so positively. I think we’ve all heard about doc that just do amazing things like detect cancer and all kinds of things like that. While they are still trying to figure it out, don’t we all agree it’s legitimate? It seems to work. What an amazing way positive influence that those dogs have on our folks.

WADE WINGLER: That’s a great point. Service animals get use in all kinds of ways for all kinds of things. I think they probably come with all kinds of price tags associated and all kinds of time frames related to that as well. This might be a great time to either start thinking about that process or moving the process along for somebody who might need a service animal.

MARK STEWART: Or look into volunteering. I think they need volunteers to help train these dogs, maybe house them temporarily.

WADE WINGLER: Good. Mark, we will go back to something that is on your list now.

MARK STEWART: Let’s go with the Logitech MX Master Wireless mouse. Versions of this mouse I’ve been using for a couple of years now. Picture somebody who may not have a more capable mouse. It would be a really nice stocking-stuffer or more. A couple of things. One, it has something that they call black field laser technology. It’s early three lasers that triangulate and it can work through glass and everything. The main thing that it does is it’s just crazy accurate. That’s obviously convenient, but for some folks that might have some physical challenges, it just allows the hand to relax more and the process becomes that much easier and everything cognitively and physically, things melt away because it’s just so precise. People just start to use it and love it. The other thing is it has this thing called hyper- fast scrolling. You have a mode you can go into where if you are in a large document or a large webpage, you can just spin the wheel and it will fly through pages and you can slow it down. That’s really precise. Form factor is pretty good, but again it’s the accuracy that I like a lot. If you’re thinking about getting somebody some operated tools for their workstation, that might be really good one.

WADE WINGLER: What with the price range on that kind of thing?

MARK STEWART: It’s pushing $100. Amazon has it for about $85.

WADE WINGLER: Belva, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet so far as we’ve done the show. Tell us some of the things that you’ve got on your list.

BELVA SMITH: This is something I wouldn’t mind getting myself. I think that’s why I put it as my first thing on my list. I’m a big QVC watcher when it comes to Christmas time because they have some great gift ideas. A couple of weeks ago, they were showing the Vtech doorbell. It’s your standard telephone with an answering machine. You can program 50 names with phone numbers and it will allow a caller to record up to 15 minutes, which I’m saying if you’ve got to leave me a 15 minute message, we probably should have a conversation.

The cool thing about it is wirelessly, you can just attach it outside. When the person pushes the doorbell, your phone actually shows the video of the person standing at the door, and you can have a two-way conversation. My guests are supposed to be vision related. I may or may not be able to see exactly the person’s face at the door, but I can certainly have a conversation with them without having to go open the door. They can also — you can also record pictures of the person at the door. If you’re not home, and somebody rings the doorbell, then when you get home you’ll be able to look back and see, Johnny was here, or UPS was here, but they didn’t leave the package or whatever.

You can connect it one of two ways. You can connect it wirelessly. It will make – if you do the hardwire, it will allow both the doorbell and the Vtech doorbell to ring simultaneously. That could be helpful if you’ve got some hearing loss to maybe have both of them going off at the same time. Again, you can get a two-phone set, three-phone set, four-phone set. The cost varies depending upon how many phones you want in your home. The two-phone set, I think, starts at around $110 which isn’t bad for an answering machine and a doorbell.

WADE WINGLER: Excellent. The next thing I want to do is we’re going to come back after this little break with some more products, but we are going to spend some time talking about holiday plans.

***

WADE WINGLER: So I love music. I listen to music all the time. Music is kind of one of those things that helps me improve or mellow out my mood whenever I need it. But for me, Christmas music is really something that I really, really enjoy it, and I may or may not be guilty of listening to it in July. Nikol has been my office neighbor in the past and knows that, yes, Christmas music will come streaming out of my office at any given time of the year. But I thought it might be fun to hear about your favorite — or least favorite — Christmas songs as we go around the room here. For me, my favorite Christmas song of all time is the “Christmas Song”, or “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”, the classic one. Not the new ones, but the original is one that really kind of gets me going. How about you, Brian? Favorite or least favorite Christmas song? Wait a minute. My least favorite: “Christmas Shoes”. I cannot stand the Christmas Shoes song. It makes me cry.

BELVA SMITH: I don’t know that.

BRIAN NORTON: Can you sing a little bit for us?

WADE WINGLER: I wouldn’t. It’s a song about a poor kid that couldn’t afford shoes.

BRIAN NORTON: I do know that song.

WADE WINGLER: It’s a really sad song. It’s a real downer.

BRIAN NORTON: My worst song that I think of is “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”

NIKOL PRIETO: That was on my list.

BRIAN NORTON: Although it’s really fun to sing and to play around with. I mean, if you listen to the words, I mean grandma got drunk on eggnog, she didn’t take her medication, then she left and got run over by a reindeer. That’s really sad. It’s like all the children books out there from years past where you just kind of went through the rhyme, but if you really read the words to the rhyme, how horrible are those.

WADE WINGLER: Like Humpty Dumpty’s back.

BRIAN NORTON: I would say that my worst Christmas song.

WADE WINGLER: I hate that one. That’s one I will fast-forward whenever it comes on. I know the very beginning of it, so I can hit fast-forward on that so fast. I hate that song.

NIKOL PRIETO: Agreed. I have it on my list. As far as best songs for me, I am somewhat of a Scrooge. I enjoy the holidays; I get it. I’m just a little overwhelmed with it coming out so early and so commercialized and going on so long. They start to drain on me, but I do love the classics and I like the classic ones. I like Bing Crosby to Sing; I like Ella Fitzgerald to sing. I just want the classics. I had “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, but also some of the pop renditions of songs or new songs people have come up with, New Kids On The Block. If anyone remembers “Funky Funky Christmas”? Horrible.

BRIAN NORTON: That’s my favorite band ever.

NIKOL PRIETO: But then I do like some the newer bands have done. U2 did a song, it’s “Christmas (Baby, come home).” I like that one. You do like to see newer bands and more modern people come out with Christmas songs, but some of them go horribly wrong like “Funky Funky Christmas.”

WADE WINGLER: I like some of the new vocal stuff like Pentatonix. What’s the other group here from Indiana that does a lot of it? Brian, you know some the guys.

BRIAN NORTON: Yeah, what is the name of their song?

WADE WINGLER: Straight No Chaser. I like some of their stuff as well.

All right, Mark.

MARK STEWART: I had “Funky Funky Christmas.” That was my worst as well. Wow.

BRIAN NORTON: Can you sing is a little bit of that song? I don’t think I’ve heard of “Funky Funky Christmas.”

NIKOL PRIETO: Isn’t the title enough to know?

WADE WINGLER: What’s the other one? “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” – that’s another pretty horrible one.

MARK STEWART: You could go to chipmunks, but I like it.

WADE WINGLER: I like them to.

MARK STEWART: White Christmas. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

WADE WINGLER: You like it?

MARK STEWART: Yeah, that’s my favorite.

WADE WINGLER: That’s a good one. Did you guys know that the movie it came from originally wasn’t White Christmas? It came from Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. So there was a show about a hotel that was only open on the holidays many years ago, and White Christmas came out of that. It was so popular that then they made White Christmas which was based off this one popular song from the movie Holiday Inn. Very classic holiday movie. It’s worth checking out.

Belva?

BELVA SMITH: I’ve seen this question and I said gosh, what was that song? I had to Google it, but I found it. I love John Denver, but the worst Christmas song ever: “Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas.”

WADE WINGLER: I’ve not heard that one.

BELVA SMITH: It’s just awful.

WADE WINGLER: Is that John Denver thinking that?

BELVA SMITH: Yeah. My favorite would be – I always call it city sidewalks. “Silver Bells.” I love that song.

WADE WINGLER: That’s a good one. Excellent.

***

WADE WINGLER: Nikol, you found some pretty cool stuff that’s designed to be a good gift for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Tell me about these things.

NIKOL PRIETO: Absolutely. I know one of the concerns I hear all the time with people who have hearing loss or are deaf, their main concern is if they had a fire in their house. There is a really neat fire alarm that has a vibrating pad on it so it will shake you to wake you up to let you know that the fire alarm has gone off. It has the receiver with the vibrating disc you put under your pillow, and it wires right into your existing fire alarm system. When that’s activated, you’ll fear that vibrating pad shake. It works from 100 feet away. You can find it at MaxiAids. It’s about $236.

Also just thinking about people who have hearing issues, hard of hearing or deaf, you think about holidays; the most important thing about the holidays is communicating with your loved ones. Maybe it’s the time to buy yourself a gift to give them a gift of communication and learn sign language. There’s tons of sign language books and DVDs out there. Maxi aids is also a good place to find those. You can find those as little as $20.

Also I love personalized gifts or any kind of thoughtful sentimental gifts. One thing I love to receive each year is a very special ornament. I found some really neat ornaments that have the imprinted hand sign of I love you. It’s the sign language sign for I love you. It’s printed on them. They are star-shaped and really cute. The come in a pack of six that say I love you and are $9.99.

WADE WINGLER: That’s cool. Those are pretty nice, thoughtful gifts.

Mark, I know we’ve made a lot of assumptions that people are going to be off and with their family and not working during the holidays, but some folks might need to think about workstation stuff for the holidays. I know you have something that’s right up that alley.

MARK STEWART: Yeah, if you have somebody who spends a lot of time on the computer, whether it be for work or just for entertainment purposes, and Dave got one designated area, I think they would love to upgrade to an HD large screen monitor. I really love monitors by Asus. They tend to have an antiglare screen on them. We are talking Christmas; get them a 27 inch external monitor, wide angle, HD monitor. If they really deserve it, and external monitor arm as well. They will be tickled if they have a workstation like that.

WADE WINGLER: For sure.

MARK STEWART: There is a real cost-effective monitor arm at thehumansolution.com. They have an uplift, heavy-duty monitor arm.

WADE WINGLER: Belva, we’ve kind of hinted around that Christmas is partly about the memories. I know some of the things you’re looking at next on your list are definitely memory makers.

BELVA SMITH: Yeah. I love recordable books. I’ve made one for all three of my grandkids now. In fact, last year, both of the grandkids got a Christmas one as a second recordable book. They love to be able to read through those books and here “Mami” talking to them.

The next thing I found that is under $20 is a talking Christmas ornament. You can actually record a special message and have it on the tree. You don’t have to push a button. When you walk up to it, it’s activated and will speak whatever your message is. Again, both of those are under $20, easy for stocking stuffers or cheap memory makers.

WADE WINGLER: I’m going to talk about toys. These are things that I have in my house. It’s sort of fun how much of the things I’m talking about as assistive technology today are things that my kids, who are typically developing kids, use.

The first one I want to talk about us something called kinetic sand. Kinetic sand is the stuff that looks like brown play sand, but it’s sticky and it holds together. As opposed to sand that you would normally run your hand through and it would fall down, this stuff you can grab and squeeze and it’s almost like Play-Doh the way it sticks together. You can make sand castles out of it that really hold their shape and stick. You can also take and roll it up to a ball and make a snowman out of it as well. It’s non-toxic and it’s pretty easy to clean up compared to some of the other icky stuff that my kids like to play with and throw around the house. We’ve been pretty impressed with kinetic sand. It’s nice because you can squeeze it, you can get some real hands-on experience, but it doesn’t stick out your hand which is really important for kids who have that tactile defensiveness where that “ick” factor really is a big deal for them. That kinetic sand is cool. You can get that from Toys “R” Us or you can find it on Amazon as well for about $15 or $16 for a nice big bag of it.

NIKOL PRIETO: You can get that in other colors as well. I really love it. It’s very neat. You said brown sand, it comes in a pretty pink and a pretty purple.

WADE WINGLER: We just have the brown stuff in our house.

NIKOL PRIETO: It comes in all colors. It’s very cool stuff.

BELVA SMITH: Does it stick to your carpet?

NIKOL PRIETO: I haven’t had it. I’ve only played around with it in a store. It doesn’t seem like — it’s going to be a lot better than Play-Doh or anything else that you’re going to work with.

WADE WINGLER: We only have it downstairs. We don’t have carpet downstairs, so we haven’t had that experience. It seems to be a lot better than Play-Doh for sure, or Slime. We have gooey slime in our house that gets stuck on everything.

The other thing I want to talk about is the Little Tikes Trampoline. When I was a kid or a teenager, it was all the rage to have one of those small jogging trampolines in your house. Richard Simmons, running suits, and everyone had these things. We weren’t allowed to play on them when we were kids – well, we were, and then we were told later we were supposed to because kids get hurt on those trampolines. It was very easy for a kid to jump on it and then land somewhere else or twist their ankle or whatever. My kids have this trampoline that really looks like one of those trampolines that may be six inches off the ground, but it has a bar that goes in front of it. From either side of the trampoline, off to one side, these bars come up and make an arch in front of you so when you are jumping on the trampoline, you can hold on. The bar doesn’t get in your way. But what it does is it stabilizes you so that you don’t fall over and you don’t trip and you don’t twist your ankle. I think about that especially for kids who have some mobility challenges or balance or dexterity issues, this trampoline is really cool because you can jump up and down and can get some exercise. You can be very active in the winter but it allows you to hold onto the handle without falling and getting hurt. My little girl Nelly is either playing with kinetic sand or jumping on the trampoline it seems like every single day. They just love that thing.

NIKOL PRIETO: The one Madeleine had played music as she jumped on it.

WADE WINGLER: Know.

NIKOL PRIETO: faster she jumped, the faster the music would play.

WADE WINGLER: Nelly sings and she might sink “Frozen” songs while she jumps on it, but it doesn’t play a song. That’s interesting.

MARK STEWART: Soon she’ll be using kinetic sand while she’s jumping on it.

WADE WINGLER: It’ll be all over the house. We should do a segment next year on the messes of Christmas decorations.

NIKOL PRIETO: Christmas disasters.

WADE WINGLER: Some assembly required part of Christmas.

***

WADE WINGLER: This show is all about gifts and gift ideas. We’ve all probably either given or received some gifts. Belva, tell me a little bit about the most ridiculous or unusual or maybe even precious gift that you ever got for Christmas.

BELVA SMITH: It’s none of the above. I will tell you a Christmas that I will not forget was when I was seven. It was just me and my mom, and she — to this day I don’t know what my gift was. She had bought me a gift and had it delivered to our home while she worked and I was at school. It was stolen. I had a Christmas where I actually had no gifts. That’s a horrible story, right? But then it happened to me a second time.

WADE WINGLER: What?

BRIAN NORTON: Wow.

MARK STEWART: Christmas curse?

BELVA SMITH: My oldest son was 16 and had bought me one of those mixers, the KitchenAid. He had bought me a really expensive KitchenAid mixer for Christmas and he was so excited. He had left it in his girlfriend’s car, which is now my daughter-in-law, so that I wouldn’t see it. But they wrapped it. Well, is not smart to leave a wrapped package in the back seat of your car, so it got stolen. I was like, okay, how does this happen to the same person twice?

WADE WINGLER: Wow.

BELVA SMITH: So that’s my unusual, is that someone else took my gift twice.

WADE WINGLER: Wow. In the modern age, when you wrap up toilet paper and give it as a gift, that thief would have been tricked.

BELVA SMITH: Exactly.

WADE WINGLER: Mark, so what do you have in terms of a favorite Christmas gifts or unusual Christmas gift?

MARK STEWART: This is a good one. Try to top this one. I was 16 and I thought that, because I was 16 now, on Christmas I would get a moped. We just moved from a different town so I deserved it for that reason too, and we were kind of out beyond the suburbs so more oral than a 16-year-old kid who came from more city-like ‘burbs would want. It’s got to be a moped to get into town to hang out with my friends. I got a goat.

WADE WINGLER: A goat?!

MARK STEWART: We had Christmas down in the basement, I had to close my eyes, it was a big dramatic thing. Next I know a goat was licking me.

MARK STEWART: Giltred.

BELVA SMITH: I bet she was precious.

NIKOL PRIETO: Did you end up falling in love with her?

MARK STEWART: Yeah.

WADE WINGLER: How long did you have the goat? It wasn’t just Christmas day, right?

MARK STEWART: 10 years plus.

BELVA SMITH: Oh wow.

WADE WINGLER: I didn’t know you had a pet goat. That’s almost like a Smothers Brothers routine.

MARK STEWART: Did I say I fell in love with it? It’s a holiday show. It was great. I named it moped. I like animals and everything so it was okay. I was totally thinking moped and didn’t have the heart to let them know that I was expecting a moped.

WADE WINGLER: The year I thought I was getting a car for Christmas, I got a waterbed and I never wanted a waterbed. I get that.

WADE WINGLER: Nikol, tell me about some interesting gifts that you’ve given or gotten in the past.

NIKOL PRIETO: It’s funny when you guys talk about these stories because it makes your mind race all over. I was thinking about one of the sweetest gifts that got turned into a tradition was my mom, when I had my second child, sending us matching pajamas and saying tell the kids Santa sent this early and wants you to wear them on Christmas Eve. We created that tradition and take a picture every year in front of the tree in those pajamas. My kids are getting to the age where they don’t like taking pictures with me, but still will say we are in our matching pajamas and have to do it. I’m guaranteed one picture a year with them smiling in our matching pajamas. That’s just a really sweet gift that keeps on giving.

The worst was dating a guy and went to his family’s for Christmas. His mom gave me a ceramic hen. I still don’t know the meaning. I feel like anyone who knows me knows I’m pretty much more of a city kind of girl and I probably wouldn’t decorate with ceramic hens. To this day I don’t know. We laugh so hard about that, my girlfriend and I, that when one of us got married, I gave that to them as a bachelorette gift and we continue to that. Every person that gets married, the hen gets passed on.

BELVA SMITH: That’s so funny.

WADE WINGLER: That’s great.

BRIAN NORTON: For me, I have a hard time trying to think of ridiculous one that I’ve gotten in the past. Probably the best gift we ever got was my oldest daughter was born on December 19, so she was kind of our whole entire Christmas. We didn’t do anything for the next couple of weeks but wake up in the middle of the night, do feedings, other kinds of things. But it was probably one of the most memorable Christmases that I ever had, was our first daughter. That was very fun.

WADE WINGLER: Also the gift that keeps on giving.

BRIAN NORTON: True. It was also the year that Ohio State won the national championship. Just between Christmas and the new year, the national championship, it was a glorious year.

WADE WINGLER: It all goes back to football for Brian.

BRIAN NORTON: It does.

WADE WINGLER: That’s funny. I guess as I think back about the most ridiculous gift I ever got; it wasn’t negative ridiculous: it was very positive ridiculous. My dad was self-employed, so when I was growing up in the 70s, there were some years where Christmas was very lean. There were some years where we didn’t have, as we were remodeling rooms in the house, there weren’t walls. I remember years where my Christmas stockings were hung on these wooden studs on nails because for two years there just weren’t walls in the house and we were working on that stuff.

One Christmas my dad was obviously, in retrospect, having a really good year with his business, and I asked for everything on the back page of the JCPenney toy catalog. For me when I was little here in the Midwest, JCPenney in the middle of November would put out this huge toy catalog. The back cover was always the most extravagant spread of toys. This was the year that it was Fisher-Price toys, the little schoolbus and the little farm that that when you opened the door the barn mooed. All these Fisher-Price little people kind of toys. I said I want all of that on the back of the cover. That morning on Christmas I came downstairs and it was all there, every single thing, and my mom who was kind of an artist organized it so that it looked like the back of the catalog. She had everything positioned just so and a picture of the catalog stuck on the wall next to it. Everything. It was a pretty memorable, very greedy, commercial. Nothing sentimental going on there. Now that my folks are gone I think very fondly back on how cool that was as a kid.

MARK STEWART: Mom and dad, don’t get me wrong: thank you for the goat. I love the goat.

***

WADE WINGLER: I don’t think I can not talk about Lego when I’m talking about Christmas gifts or holiday gifts for kids. In fact, I have been told that the plural of the word Lego is Lego. You don’t say Legos unless you are a rookie. If you have one Lego, it’s a Lego. If you have two Legos, you’ve got two Lego. So I’ve been told that you have to get that right. My four-year-old corrects me. Lego, dad. In my house, we have a thing called the Lego Duplo Creative Ice Cream set. These are the duplos, the bigger Lego blocks that are a little easier to hold onto, are better for little hands. Basically it’s little mounds of ice cream that look like dips of ice cream. You stack one on top of the other on top the other and it has cones so that you can build as good cones. They are different colors and look like little Lego ice cream cones. The cool thing about it is it comes with an app that will run on your smartphone and it’s a game. The app teaches you how to build ice cream cones with dips of ice cream in certain patterns. Maybe you do cone and strawberry and chocolate and vanilla and chocolate. This app will kind of keep track of you building these ice cream cones in the real world with these Lego Duplo things and mimicking that on the app. When my kids aren’t playing with the other toys we talked about here, they’re playing with these Lego Duplo Creative Ice Cream. These are all coming from the Toys “R” Us accessible holiday gift catalog, about $18 for that set.

Brian, coming up is something that, for a while, was all the rage and everybody had to have one. It’s kind of still very popular.

BRIAN NORTON: As a very popular Christmas gift, why not get an iPad or maybe even an iPod. iPads are really popular. They come in lots of different models now. You can get iPad Mini, the regular iPad Air which is the bigger size, and now coming up very soon — it looks like on the website they talk about it coming out in November. The iPad Pro is a step up in screen size.

WADE WINGLER: By the time the show is up it might even be out. This may not be news by then.

BRIAN NORTON: Why not an iPad to go with an iTunes gift card. As there are lots of things you can do with that, you can stream movies, you can do lots of productivity apps for folks, reminders, other kinds of activities that folks can do on an iPad.

WADE WINGLER: Mark, you have something that goes along with that.

MARK STEWART: If somebody already has one of those devices, somebody who is really good, how about a Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus 2 or a similar device, a battery-operated or Bluetooth or higher tech stylus so that you can really do some hire and drawing or even some writing functionality. It really helps versus the old school $10 stylus.

WADE WINGLER: Nikol, you are already jumping ahead thinking about springtime trying to get past the holiday stuff. I think you said you had some gardening things to talk about.

NIKOL PRIETO: I do. If you are thinking about some of your gardeners who have always loved to garden and they might be getting older or have some mobility disabilities, they might find it frustrating to get out there not be able to garden anymore. I found some really cool things for your gardener. One of them is an Easi Grip Garden Tools Trowel. It’s $11.95. You can find it at WrightStuff.biz. They’ve got all kinds of Easi Grip. There’s also a Gripeeze DIY Support Glove, just a heavy-duty gardening work glove that has a strap for gripping, kind of minimizes the pressure and tension from your hand using the strapping system. I love my theme gifts, so you can keep going with that, package it all together, maybe package in a planning pot or something like that. Paint something personalized on that. You can add Easi Grip tools. One of them is the Easi Grip Long Reach Garden Tool. It’s a really extralong tool. It’s really lightweight. It has a steel hoe with a soft grip handle. It’s recommended for light digging or cultivating the soil, but for someone who can’t get out there and do that anymore, that might be really nice. That one is $34.85. All this stuff can be found on WrightStuff.biz.

WADE WINGLER: Mark, after the holiday season, we are going to be thinking about fitness and health. I know you have something that falls into that category.

MARK STEWART: The FitBit at FitBit.com. They have different lines and you can go there and look through the different specifications and pick one that’s in the right price category. It’s a really well received watch-type device that records your heartbeat and mileage in all kinds of things like that with regards to fitness. Again, the question of does it work well? Yeah, this is really well received and seems to work well.

NIKOL PRIETO: What’s the price on that?

MARK STEWART: It varies. I want to say around $70 up to $250.

BRIAN NORTON: They come in different styles, right?

MARK STEWART: Yeah.

WADE WINGLER: Different bells, different whistles.

MARK STEWART: Exactly.

BRIAN NORTON: I guess after that holiday ham, probably good to purchase something like that.

MARK STEWART: I already got mine for my birthday. I wonder why.

BRIAN NORTON: Thanks, honey.

WADE WINGLER: That’s funny. Some of the gifts we talked about our kind of pricey and high tech, but I also know that there are some solutions or gift ideas that are more low-tech and might fit in a stocking. Nikol, I know you and Belva both have some things that fit into that category.

NIKOL PRIETO: Just thinking of neat things you might be able to personalize. Possibly thinking about getting a large print calendar for those with low vision. You can get them with blank spaces so you can add personalize photos or you can send in your pictures and have them printed on there. It’s three dollars and really the cost would be your time. I think that would make a really special gift and stocking stuffer. Another item to consider for stocking or something that is reasonably priced if you want to get a little gift for someone, a lot of people call them grabbers, preachers, but those range in all kinds of prices. It’s to help somebody pick up something or grab something that they are not able to. They also have some that are rust-proof, so in the shower that would be a great handy tool picking up that soap, picking up your shampoo bottle, whatever you need. They range from $15-$30. You can find them on MaxiAids.

BELVA SMITH: We don’t want to forget to stuff the stockings. That was always one of my fun things to do. A few things that I found that might be for the person that’s low vision or visually impaired would be the 20/2010. They are made by paper mate. They are like a magic marker but they are thin so you can actually do some decent handwriting with them. Writing guides are always a good idea for writing, if anyone still does this, writing personal checks, addressing envelopes, and then signature cards and stuff like that. Those are always easy to find and very cheap, anywhere from three dollars to $10. Also found a cute LadyBug Pendant. It’s like a talking watch but it’s just a necklace that you can wear. I think it was under $20 and was at EnableMart.com.

***

WADE WINGLER: Mark, it’s not always about getting work done. Sometimes it’s about more fun stuff. I know you have some cool remote things on your list there. What have you got?

MARK STEWART: Sometimes it’s about stress reduction and all those sort of things. A remote control car and a quad copter. Why not? It’s Christmas, right?

WADE WINGLER: Yeah. Guy toys.

MARK STEWART: There’s the Maisto R/C Rock Crawler Extreme Radio Control Vehicle. I’ve seen this in action. It’s got three motors that just keep moving. Picture it just always flying its way and having a blast with it rather than it getting stuck against something.

And then there’s the quad copter concept. The remote control helicopter, but they can be really frustrating and really hard to learn. Now they’ve got a mount that has three rotors and are much more user-friendly so you can pick them up and they are even working while you are learning. There’s one that’s out that’s touted to be the smallest ever, and it’s like three centimeters by three centimeters, and it’s the Axis Aerius miniature quad copter. It’s can almost fit on the tip of your fingertip and it’s easy to control. I can just picture someone having a lot of fun flying around in the house and bumping into people’s heads and all kinds of fun stuff that Christmas.

WADE WINGLER: How much is that little helicopter again? That sounds cool.

MARK STEWART: I believe it’s under $200. I lost my note here where it said that.

BRIAN NORTON: It’s $35.

WADE WINGLER: What?

MARK STEWART: It is. It’s under $200.

BELVA SMITH: Way under.

NIKOL PRIETO: That can qualify as a really nice stocking stuffer.

WADE WINGLER: I’m looking at the website right now. It is $35. It’s more than a quarter.

MARK STEWART: Doesn’t that look fun?

WADE WINGLER: I want a whole pocket full of them.

BRIAN NORTON: I’m going to fly it into someone’s eye or something like that.

MARK STEWART: You see how well I did not talking about how it can help with that dexterity training is up like that? Just have some fun and get a quad copter for Christmas.

WADE WINGLER: Sometimes we have cookouts or pitch-ins or those kinds of things around here. Belva, you always bring some pretty good homemade stuff. I know that your next set up has to do with that. What’s cooking?

BELVA SMITH: I wanted to remind everyone about the OveGlove. It’s been around for several years now. I’m actually a user of the OveGlove. I got it for a friend about four or five years ago who happens to be visually impaired, and she fell in love with that thing because no more worries about bumping into the side of the oven when you reach in to grab your pan. I noticed as I was preparing for the show that if you look on Amazon, you can actually get a two pack for $38, which is in bad, because I think if you — you can find them at Walgreens, all the drugstores. But I think they are almost $20 for an individual one, so you see the couple bucks if you buy a two pack. And who needs just one hand to pull the PIN out? Really you need both hands protected. Two pack is always a good idea.

WADE WINGLER: I’m going to talk about interesting thing. I’m covering all toys this year, and this one I brought in from home because my daughter who is three now has one of these and it’s called a Digi Birds. We just got this at the local department store. They’re pretty much everywhere. It’s a little bird about the size of a finch or something. It kind of looks like a finch. It’s got a switch on its belly that says solo or choir or off. I’m going to turn this bird onto solo mode here.

[Bird tweeting]

This little bird is kind of cool because you can hold him in your hand or put him on your finger, and on his belly is a little hole or series of holes that are sensitive to breath. The idea is you can blow on this little bird’s belly and he will chirp. You also have a whistle. If you blow a whistle, he’ll sing a song. This whistle is a little loud so careful.

[Whistle] [Sing-Song birdsong]

MARK STEWART: Cool.

NIKOL PRIETO: That’s really cute.

BELVA SMITH: That’s so cool.

NIKOL PRIETO: And the colors are so bright. That’s sweet.

WADE WINGLER: It’s little head turned side-by-side and he chirps his beak and stuff so it looks like he’s going. And then if you put them in choir mode, that is when you have multiples of these birds. They are about $8 to $10 apiece, and you can buy four or five of them and put them together and they will interact with each other and sing with each other and those kinds of things. But the thing I thought was kind of cool about an assistive technology solution is some kids are going to have difficulty being around a bird or physically handing a bird. This is a pretty sturdy toy that you can get your hands on. He’s more easily handled. Also for kids were working on breath control or practicing whistles and speech therapy scenarios, you have to either whistle into his belly or blow into his belly in a controlled way or blow the whistle for two seconds before it is playing songs. It’s a really cool thing. My daughter doesn’t know I snuck him out of the house today to bring him into record. I haven’t gotten any text that there’s been a Digi Birds melt down at my house. It’s a pretty cool thing. He was listed in the Toys “R” Us accessible gift catalog and we got this one at one of the big box stores here around town.

NIKOL PRIETO: That’s really cute.

***

WADE WINGLER: Brian, I know that your kids are probably to the age where they don’t wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning on Christmas morning. They might need an alarm clock or some help with that time – that may not be accurate anymore. You’re kind of giving me “the eye”. I know one of the things we will talk about is a clock. Let’s hear it. Do your kids get up or does it take an alarm on Christmas morning?

BRIAN NORTON: They will get up on their own. They are pretty interested in what’s down underneath the tree. Despite our locking our door, turning our lights out, and trying to be as quiet as we can be, they kind of banged on the door and come find us on Christmas. One of the things I would love to recommend for folks is that my Magnasonic Projection Clock. There’s lots of different clots that are like this. Essentially what it does is you have a traditional clock and will show the time, traditionally in the red letters and the red numbers and things like that on the front, but it will actually protect it onto your ceiling so you can see it. I would say for folks with mobility issues, you can’t sit up or turn and look and see what the clock has, it actually shines it up on the ceiling. For me, I just turned 41 this year. I’m going to be turning 42 in February. I can’t see the clock anymore from across my bedroom, so also for folks with vision impairments, what this will allow me to do is just sit in bed and see a very big projection of what time it is up on my ceiling. I’m really looking forward to that. I actually bought that as a Christmas gift for myself this year. Hopefully it will be here in a few days and I can start enjoying that.

Another thing I want to talk about is the Verilux HappyLight Liberty 5K Energy Light. It’s going to run you about $40, but it’s really cool. It’s about light therapy. For folks who may struggle during the winter time with moods or balance issues, I think a lot of times just how dark it is in the winter and the cold weather and things like that, a lot of folks may be experiencing the winter blues.

MARK STEWART: What is it, Brian, seasonal affect?

WADE WINGLER: Seasonal Affective Disorder.

BRIAN NORTON: this is a just a really inexpensive – about $40 – you can buy it from Walgreens or other drugstores. It will allow you to experience light therapy. See you just kind of stay in front of it for a period of time and it will — scientifically proven to help you feel better, less tired and sad throughout the winter months.

WADE WINGLER: Excellent. Nikol, I know you have a ton of things on your list there. What’s one of the more interesting things that you’ve got?

NIKOL PRIETO: I think about holidays and how busy everybody gets and just thinking about who doesn’t need reminders? One of the things on my list is Reminder Rosie Talking Alarm Clock with personalized voice reminders. This would be great for people with any kind of cognitive issues and also is great with people who are visually impaired because you can operate it almost entirely by voice. The nice thing about this reminder clock is it has the alarm clock and you can add all those personal reminders. It could be a reminder to get up and take your medication, or it could be for a caregiver to leave a message for what type of medication they need to take and what does such, any kind of reminder, get up and take a shower, you have a doctor appointment at 1 o’clock. It’s just a great tool. It works from 100 feet away. You get a nice audible sound from that. It could be a great assisted living device for a loved one, a senior, someone with a cognitive impairment. It also works as an alarm clock with a big LED display as well. It runs about $99.95 and you will find that on MaxiAids.

***

WADE WINGLER: So Brian, I know that you’ve got some things that have to do with sporty stuff and some music. Tells about what’s on your list.

BRIAN NORTON: One of the things that I find totally fascinating and interesting is Nike’s FlyEase Shoes. These are special shoes that they’ve designed with disabilities and minds, for folks who have difficulty getting on and off their shoes. Dave got a wraparound zipper instead of your traditional shoelaces for being able to tie those. They allow for really allowing a person to get the shoes easily on and off. They run a little over $100. They are are $130, I think. You can buy them through Nike. They are little expensive for my shoe tastes, but for Christmas, somebody else is buying them so why not.

WADE WINGLER: Santa can afford it.

BRIAN NORTON: Santa can afford it. Yeah, they are really nice shoes that look nice. They are real athletic looking so they look like they’re basketball shoes. They have that wraparound zipper and they lock down. They stay on the foot. It’s really an easy on and off for folks who have traditionally difficult times getting on and off their shoes. The other thing would be wireless headphones. I listen to music when I’m out doing yardwork, cleaning up leaves, or mowing, anything like that. I do a lot of listening to music and podcast and other kinds of things.

I get sick and tired of wires. Wires get all over the place when I’m trying to empty the bag in my lawnmower or other kinds of things or just do anything outside with any kind of movement or whatever. Wires get in my way. There are lots of different wireless headset out there. If I had the money, I would buy Bose wireless headphones.

BELVA SMITH: They’re really not that good.

BRIAN NORTON: But I’ve gone to the store and tried them.

BELVA SMITH: I don’t think they are much better than the other ones. Skullcandy is just as good, I think.

NIKOL PRIETO: I’ve had good luck with Sony as well.

BRIAN NORTON: Okay. They come in all different cost categories. You can get them as cheap as about $80 all the way up to $300, $400, $500 depending on if you want those really expensive those pair of wireless headsets. Very good technology, good audio, really crisp music but also noise canceling so it cuts out all that background noise that may be going on outside of your headphones. I would say wireless headphones would be a really fun gift to receive. If you’re listening, my wife, kids —

MARK STEWART: Not Bose earbuds, big, over-the-ear, with mega bass.

BRIAN NORTON: That’s right.

WADE WINGLER: Nikol, there’s nothing like crawling up with a hot cup of tea or cocoa when it comes to the holidays. I know that your gifts are related to that. What’s on your list?

NIKOL PRIETO: They sure are. With someone with a vision impairment, I have a theme idea. You could get an electric kettle. This allows someone that you love to safely heat up water to have some hot cocoa or some tea. It detaches from the heating base so that when you pour it it’s cordless, so that’s really nice. Then you can rest it anywhere such as on a table without doing damage. It’s really reasonable, runs about $24.95.

If you want to make that a theme gift, you compare that with a liquid level indicator. This hangs on a cup and it beeps when the liquid nears the top of it to prevent you from doing any overflowing. Then if you want to personalize that, I found some really neat personalized braille mugs. You can have them personalized with anything and they will have braille on there. They have all kinds of neat personalized things. It’s at the BrailleBookstore.com. It has wristbands and braille greeting cards and all kinds of neat personalized things.

WADE WINGLER: Belva, I love it when I can spend time at home during the holiday making it cozy. I know that a couple of the things that are on your list definitely make the holiday cozy.

BELVA SMITH: I was just sitting here thinking hot, hot, hot.

So the Kuerig K10 Mini Plus Brewing System. It’s only $79. Out of the box, you can make yourself a hot cup of coffee, hot cup of cocoa, or a hot cup of tea in just a few seconds. What I really like about it, Nikol, to go along with what you are talking about, you preprogram the size of cup that you’re going to use. You basically can just push the brew button and you don’t have to worry about overflow your cup because it’s going to stop when it reaches that level. You can also preprogram how hot it’s actually going to be, so if you like your coffee extra hot or maybe not as hot. I really like it. I have the fancier model, I guess, going on to two years with it and I’ve had absolutely no trouble with it. I did purchase one for my daughter-in-law last year for Christmas, and she did have some trouble with hers, but she was able to contact their tech support and found YouTube videos. They actually directed her to a website where they have videos for how to program it, how to fix it, and she was able to get it fixed just watching the videos. I love it, $79, definitely well worth it.

And then I also wanted to mention the VIP Talking Thermostat. There are a lot of the thermostats that folks that are visually impaired can use now that will talk to them. The VIP, I like it because it’s a little less expensive than some of the other ones and it will tell you the current date and time so if you don’t already have a talking clock or a talking thermostat, you can walk up to it and find out what the temperature outside is, what the temperature inside is, and the date and time. It’s really user-friendly when it comes to programming it and getting it set up to use. It’s $169.

WADE WINGLER: A couple of things I want to talk about our classic games that I think probably everybody in this room either played when they were little or at least saw kids play at some point in their life. There’s nothing really adaptive about these, at least until I thought about them a little more. The first one is one of my favorites from my childhood, Hungry Hungry Hippos. I love that game. If you haven’t seen Hungry Hungry Hippos before, it’s a board game with four hippos facing one another, and you pour marbles on the board, and then you hit these hippos. There is a lever on their back that looks like a big tail. Their mouths fly forward and try to grab marbles. They grab the marbles, dragged them back, and go into your trough. The people who capture the most marbles win. I love that game because it was obnoxious and was really funny.

BELVA SMITH: Loud.

WADE WINGLER: Really loud. I could always beat my sister at it. I can hit the hippo faster than she could. I got to thinking about kids you might have things like cerebral palsy or trouble with their hands. Playing Hungry Hungry Hippos is a super field leveling game because all you have to do is be a kid, be excited, and be able to wack this button on the back of the hippo, and you are competing along with everyone else. You can get that from Toys “R” Us. A lot of my stuff is coming from the Toys “R” Us accessible gift guide. It’s $13 and is an absolute classic.

The other one I wanted to talk about was a game that I played when I was a kid: Simon, the electronic memory game. It’s a disc that sits in your lap or on the table. It’s got four colors, and each colored button has a different tone. It gets you to repeat patterns. It builds the pattern, the pattern gets longer and you have to repeat it. It’s something that I think is fun and easy to play but then it also gets harder with your skill level. It’s one of the original adaptive games in that it sort of scales with your skill level and let’s you play with it. You can get them from Toys “R” Us for $22. It’s a classic game. I love when I see games that I played when I was a kid that I can play with my kids too, bridging that generational sort of thing. A couple of classic games.

BELVA SMITH: Menard’s actually has Simon for $19.99 right now.

WADE WINGLER: We’re going to have to hurry up and get over there.

BRIAN NORTON: That’s so cool bringing the Hungry Hungry Hippos with a modern high-tech application for folks. That’s awesome.

***

WADE WINGLER: I’m so glad that you guys were able to take out some time these last two weeks, and get with us, talk about families, talk about holiday traditions and all these great ideas. I’d like to wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a happy holidays. Thanks for being here.

BRIAN NORTON: Merry Christmas, Wade. Have a great holiday.

NIKOL PRIETO: Thank you so much. Have a happy holiday and a happy new year to everyone.

MARK STEWART: That was fun. Merry Christmas and happy holidays everybody.

BRIAN NORTON: Thanks, Wade; thanks, Nikol, for having us with you. It was a lot of fun. Happy holidays.

WADE WINGLER: Information provided on Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted by Brian Norton; gets editorial support from mark steward and Belva Smith; is produced by me, Wade Wingler; and receives support from Easter Seals Crossroads and the INDATA project. ATFAQ is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more of our shows at www.accessibilitychannel.com.

ATFAQ019 – Holiday Shopping – Special Episode

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