Neil Squire Society
   HOME
*





Neil Squire Society
Neil Squire Society is a Canadian national not-for-profit organization that helps Canadians with disabilities through advocacy, computer-based, assistive technology, research and development, and various employment programs. There are four locations across Canada. History The Neil Squire Society began as a result of Bill Cameron's efforts with his relative Neil Squire. When Neil was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident in 1980, Bill created a “sip-and-puff” machine to allow Neil to communicate using Morse code. Soon thereafter, Bill and a small group of volunteers began teaching other rehabilitation patients to use computers to enhance their independence. This marked the creation of the Neil Squire Society's first program, Computer Comfort. After Neil's death in 1984, the group decided to name its new organization in his honour. The group was originally incorporated as the Neil Squire Rehabilitation Society, then the Neil Squire Foundation. The group went thro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Burnaby
Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard Inlet with its Indian Arm to the north, Port Moody and Coquitlam to the east, New Westminster and Surrey across the Fraser River to the southeast, and Richmond on the Lulu Island to the southwest. Burnaby was incorporated in 1892 and achieved its city status in 1992. A member municipality of Metro Vancouver, it is British Columbia's third-largest city by population (after Vancouver and Surrey), and is the seat of Metro Vancouver's regional district government. 25% of Burnaby's land is designated as parks and open spaces, one of the highest in North America. The main campuses of Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology are located in Burnaby. It is home to high-tech companies such as Ballard Power (fuel ce ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bill Cameron (Founder, Neil Squire Society)
Bill Cameron, (October 11, 1924 – March 13, 1993) was a Canadian inventor, engineer and founder of the Neil Squire Society. He designed many devices to help people with disabilities including a Sip-and-puff communication system, and a robot arm called M.O.M (Manipulative Obedient Machine). In his life, Cameron was awarded many honors for his work with persons with disabilities. Born October 11, 1924 in California, Cameron moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada where he spent his childhood. When World War II broke out, he immediately signed up at CFB Petawawa. Unfortunately, once there he developed a sinus condition and it was decided that it would be too cold for him in Europe. He was given a medical discharge. Having dual citizenship, Cameron then joined the U.S. Marine Corps to fight in the Pacific. He served overseas during the war as well as in post-war Japan. Upon his return to Canada, Cameron enrolled in the engineering program at the University of Saskatchewan but engin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vancouver Sun
The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published six days a week from Monday to Saturday, the ''Sun'' is the largest newspaper in western Canada by circulation. The newspaper was first published on 12 February 1912. The newspaper expanded in the early 20th century by acquiring other papers, such as the ''Daily News-Advertiser'' and ''The Evening World''. In 1963, the Cromie family sold the majority of its holdings in the ''Sun'' to FP Publications, who later sold the newspaper to Southam Inc. in 1980. The newspaper was taken over by Hollinger Inc. in 1992, and was later sold again to CanWest in 2000. In 2010, the newspaper became part of the Postmedia Network as a result of the collapse of CanWest. History The ''Vancouver Sun'' published its first edition on 12 February 1912. The n ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Disabilities
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory, or a combination of multiple factors. Disabilities can be present from birth or can be acquired during a person's lifetime. Historically, disabilities have only been recognized based on a narrow set of criteria—however, disabilities are not binary and can be present in unique characteristics depending on the individual. A disability may be readily visible, or invisible in nature. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines disability as: Disabilities have been perceived differently throughout history, through a variety of different theoretical lenses. There are two main models that attempt to explain disability in our society: the medical model and the social model. The medical model serves as ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ergonomic
Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learning are to reduce human error, increase productivity, and enhance safety, system availability, and comfort with a specific focus on the interaction between the human and the engineered system. The field is a combination of numerous disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, engineering, biomechanics, industrial design, physiology, anthropometry, interaction design, visual design, user experience, and user interface design. Human factors research employs methods and approaches from these and other knowledge disciplines to study human behavior and generate data relevant to the four primary goals above. In studying and sharing learning on the design of equipment, devices, and processes that fit the human body and its cognitive abilities, the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Morse Code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the inventors of the telegraph. International Morse code encodes the 26  basic Latin letters through , one accented Latin letter (), the Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals ( prosigns). There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters. Each Morse code symbol is formed by a sequence of ''dits'' and ''dahs''. The ''dit'' duration is the basic unit of time measurement in Morse code transmission. The duration of a ''dah'' is three times the duration of a ''dit''. Each ''dit'' or ''dah'' within an encoded character is followed by a period of signal absence, called a ''space'', equal to the ''dit'' duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space of duration equal to three ''dits'', ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sip-and-puff
Sip-and-puff or sip 'n' puff (SNP) is assistive technology used to send signals to a device using air pressure by "sipping" (inhaling) or "puffing" (exhaling) on a straw, tube or "wand." It is primarily used by people who do not have the use of their hands. It is commonly used to control a motorized wheelchair by quadriplegics with very high injury to their spinal cord or people with ALS.{{cite web, url=http://atwiki.assistivetech.net/index.php/Alternative_wheelchair_control , title=Alternative wheelchair control - ATWiki , publisher=Atwiki.assistivetech.net , date= , accessdate=2011-11-04 Calibration and setup Devices that use SNP technology require specific amounts of air pressure to be "sipped" or "puffed" by the user. These amounts of pressure are typically denoted as a hard sip/hard puff or soft sip/soft puff, however other terminologies might exist. Note that the words "hard" and "soft" are relative to the user and depend on their breathing abilities. Typically, air pre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Neil Squire
Neil Squire was an accounting student at the University of Victoria and a basketball player. After a car accident left him a high level tetraplegic, his efforts to learn a new form of communication became the inspiration for the creation of the Neil Squire Society. Throughout his childhood he had always been very involved in school, music and sports, and by the time he reached high school, he had won several awards for scholastics, service, band and sports. When he graduated, he was an accomplished basketball player, having been very successful at the provincial level. In December 1980 Squire, who had begun studying accounting at the University of Victoria, hit a patch of black ice only a short distance from his home. His car hit a tree and he sustained a C1/brainstem injury. This accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, unable to speak and reliant on a respirator. After many months of rehabilitation at the Shaughnessy Hospital Spinal Cord Unit, Squire began working with ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Assistive Technology
Assistive technology (AT) is a term for assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly. Disabled people often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with assistance. ADLs are self-care activities that include toileting, mobility (ambulation), eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, and personal device care. Assistive technology can ameliorate the effects of disabilities that limit the ability to perform ADLs. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. For example, wheelchairs provide independent mobility for those who cannot walk, while assistive eating devices can enable people who cannot feed themselves to do so. Due to assistive technology, disabled pe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains, and borders the province of Alberta to the east and the Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north. With an estimated population of 5.3million as of 2022, it is Canada's third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria and its largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver is the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada; the 2021 census recorded 2.6million people in Metro Vancouver. The first known human inhabitants of the area settled in British Columbia at least 10,000 years ago. Such groups include the Coast Salish, Tsilhqotʼin, and Haida peoples, among many others. One of the earliest British settlements in the area was Fort Victoria, established ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Not-for-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrast with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit for its owners. A nonprofit is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. An array of organizations are nonprofit, including some political organizations, schools, business associations, churches, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an entity may incorporate as a nonprofit entity without securing tax-exempt status. Key aspects of nonprofits are accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to eve ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]