A Degree of Some Difficulty : With Aid of Talking Laptop Computer, a Blind Student Expects to Graduate From UCLA

It is a marriage born of ingenuity: A portable computer that is able to talk and a student who is unable to see.

With the help of a lightweight laptop that reads his lecture notes aloud, 32-year-old Robert Antunez is graduating in June with a bachelor’s degree from UCLA after 15 years of going to college, a semester here, a quarter there. What’s next? Antunez hopes to start law school in the fall.

“I’d be lost without my laptop,” the political science major said. “I type into it, and when I’m ready to find out what I’ve typed, I press a button and it talks to me.”

The device, which Antunez borrowed at no charge from the UCLA Disabilities and Computing Program, is one example of the growing number of ways machinery can compensate for human limitations.

Antunez is one of more than 100 UCLA students, faculty and staff who have turned to the program for help in coping with physical and mental disabilities of many kinds, ranging from extensive paralysis to visual impairment to learning disabilities, coordinator Danny Hilton-Chalfen said.

As more public schools include disabled students in mainstream classes, the number of disabled students entering universities rises, Hilton-Chalfen said. The number of deaf students at UCLA today is almost five times the number in 1987, according to the university’s Office For Students With Disabilities.

Antunez, born with weakened retinas as a result of the German measles his mother suffered during pregnancy, lost his vision altogether at age 13 when the retinas detached and the last healthy nerve cells in his retinas suddenly died.

“Within 30 seconds I was blind,” he recalled.

Through his 20s, Antunez was a professional musician, playing Latin jazz and salsa music on his electronic keyboard, dropping in and out of community college.

In 1990, he enrolled at UCLA full time, and in his first quarter he tried recording his lectures as he had done at community college. But transcribing the tapes into Braille was painstakingly slow.

“Relistening to classes is like taking 24 units (double the normal course load), Antunez said. “For me, Braille is exclusively for taking down a phone number or an address.”

In his second quarter, he borrowed the computer. The $1,000 Toshiba T1000SE is a typical laptop with a vital addition: a $650 speech synthesizer hidden inside its case. Teamed with a computer program, the machine reads the letters on its screen and translates them into sounds that form words.

For the first time in his life, Antunez was taking his own lecture notes and writing all his own papers.

“I can totally rely on the technology and myself,” Antunez said.

UCLA programs to help the disabled date from the late 1940s, when they were started to assist disabled veterans of World War II.

For years, however, blind students were dependent solely on university employees to read materials to them and to take their lecture notes. It was not until 1984 that UCLA also began offering students such as Antunez the personal computers that have freed them from reliance on sighted people to get their work done.

“It makes Robert equal to other students,” said Guido Grimaldi, the program’s assistant coordinator, who taught Antunez how to use the computer.

With an annual budget of $115,000, the Disabilities and Computing Program offers everything from Antunez’s laptop to computers that take dictation and others that read books aloud. They are designed to help not only the blind but also paralyzed students and those with learning disabilities. Other machinery includes a closed-circuit television camera that enlarges printed material for the visually impaired and devices that spell out electronic texts on a Braille key pad or print the texts in Braille.

“No matter what disability you have, we will give you a compensatory tool that will let you do your work,” Grimaldi said.

Antunez maintains a 3.5 grade-point average, and his academic success echoes that of the many disabled students who are helped by computers, Hilton-Chalfen said.

Antunez has sought out blind students already enrolled in UCLA’s Law School for their advice on succeeding in the program. He says he is determined to get off the disability assistance that he currently receives and to support his four children and Lilia, his wife of 12 years who also is visually impaired.

Lilia Antunez was born with limited vision because her mother was struck by lightning while she was pregnant. Her mother fully recovered, but Lilia Antunez is legally blind. Because neither of the Antunezes’ conditions are hereditary, their children are all able to see. Robert is teaching them Braille.

A bilingual Mexican-American, Antunez said he is considering working in immigration or entertainment law or as an advocate for the disabled.

“I’ve become accustomed to doing things on my own,” he said. “It means for me independence, productivity and, hopefully, future success.”

From his home in Pico Rivera, Antunez catches rides to campus with other students and maneuvers the UCLA campus with his red-tipped cane. In addition to his talking computer, Antunez has a watch--a gift from his sister--that announces the time in the voice of a little girl.

Relying on chips and circuits can have its drawbacks, especially during final exams, Antunez pointed out.

“Once I spilled a glass of water into the computer. My final was lost. I was so distraught I couldn’t believe what I had done.”

For more information about the UCLA Disabilities and Computing Program, call (310) 206-7133 or TDD (310) 206-5155, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.