rogram for public schools. The special programs department then began to seek ways to use the computers in the classroom.
The next year, the Legislature appropriated $9 million a year for five years to increase instruction in technology--primarily computers--in public schools. So far, 249 schools in Orange County have received more than $1 million in the first two years of the bill. Thirteen of the special schools were among them, and they received a total of $148,000.
Richard said he expected that the two remaining schools will receive funds in 1986.
For the most part, the computer hardware at the special schools is similar to the equipment found in regular schools--Apple IIc computers, color monitors and software for preschool and primary grades. But the equipment is adapted for the schools' programs with special switches and voice synthesizers and with software specially designed for the handicapped.
"Students can control (the computer) by using adaptive equipment," Richard said. "Most of them can't use the keyboard, so we modify the computer."
Computers are good aids, Richard said, because they can repeat a lesson and keep a student's attention. "A lot of kids need the extra patience of a computer, and they need one-to-one with it and to work 20 to 30 minutes with it."
The Wallace Special Center's system, which enables severely handicapped children to turn on a television set or a radio with a push of the switch, was specially adapted for the students by Jim Hagerman, a computer design and software engineer who volunteered his time to the county education department. He modified a similar, voice-activated system for the physically disabled so that it would work for the handicapped and nonverbal students who could not speak to a computer.
Most of the students at Wallace have severe handicaps, including varying degrees of mental retardation, and most are unable to talk, said Karen McMillian, the principal of Wallace.
"The computer will open the doors to make their life more functional and give them more access to things that they were not able to participate in before," she said.
McMillian and Titus felt that the computer would also help them measure the true capability of their students. Conventional intelligence tests, they said, do not gauge the intelligence of their students accurately because of their handicaps.
The technology also can be used to improve communications skills. One program, called "Chatterbox," drills a deaf student on how to say words correctly. The computer becomes a surrogate therapist, monitoring the speech of the student and reproducing the sounds on the screen and from a voice synthesizer.
More Difficult Lesson
The student repeats words such as "cat," "dig" and "fox" until he says them correctly with consistency. The computer then moves to a more difficult lesson.