Introduction: In the US, hundreds of thousands of individuals with visual disabilities work in occupations that typically entail editing text. Editing technologies for blind or visually impaired ...people have been analyzed by researchers for usability, accessibility, and feasibility. However, a tutorial is needed to provide blind or visually impaired workers with information on how to use these technologies. Key concepts: Technologies that blind or visually impaired individuals can use for editing text present challenges. Such challenges include the lack of usability in word processors' text-editing features, navigational and sense-making issues with screen readers, limited text displayed by refreshable braille displays, and extensive commands needed to operate braille notetakers. Key lessons: The study's blind coauthor (who prefers this terminology) draws on her academic and professional experience to provide procedural information for blind or visually impaired practitioners and students who need to open email attachments, navigate files, select text, navigate the Review tab of Microsoft Word, add comments, and use Nav Quick Keys. Implications for practice: This tutorial indicates that word processors, screen readers, refreshable braille displays, and braille notetakers provide ways for blind or visually impaired practitioners and students to edit text. The tutorial also provides insight into one blind editor's editing process and provides instructions for duplicating this process. This information can increase the awareness of sighted practitioners and teachers who seek to make workplaces more accessible for blind or visually impaired colleagues.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a group of theoretically inspired computer structures for analyzing and modeling clearly going on texts at one or extra degrees of linguistic evaluation to ...acquire human-like language processing for quite a few activities and applications. Hearing and visually impaired people are unable to see entirely or have very low vision, as well as being unable to hear completely or having a hard time hearing. It is difficult to get information since both hearing and vision, which are crucial organs for receiving information, are harmed. Hearing and visually impaired people are considered to have a substantial information deficit, as opposed to people who just have one handicap, such as blindness or deafness. Visually and hearing-impaired people who are unable to communicate with the outside world may experience emotional loneliness, which can lead to stress and, in extreme cases, serious mental illness. As a result, overcoming information handicap is a critical issue for visually and hearing-impaired people who want to live active, independent lives in society. The major objective of this study is to recognize Arabic speech in real time and convert it to Arabic text using Convolutional Neural Network-based algorithms before saving it to an SD card. The Arabic text is then translated into Arabic Braille characters, which are then used to control the Braille pattern via a Braille display with a solenoid drive. The Braille lettering triggered on the finger was deciphered by visually and hearing challenged participants who were proficient in Braille reading. The CNN, in combination with the ReLU model learning parameters, is fine-tuned for optimization, resulting in a model training accuracy of 90%. The tuned parameters model's testing results show that adding the ReLU activation function to the CNN model improves recognition accuracy by 84 % when speaking Arabic digits.
This paper presents two methodologies for delivering multimedia content to visually impaired people with the use of a haptic device and braille display. Based on our previous research, the research ...using Kinect v2 and haptic device with 2D+ (RGB frame with depth) data has the limitations of slower operational speed while reconstructing object details. Thus, this study focuses on the development of 2D multiarray braille display using an electronic book translator application because of its accuracy and high speed. This approach provides mobility and uses 2D multiarray braille display to represent media content contour more efficiently. In conclusion, this study achieves the representation of considerably massive text content compared to previous 1D braille displays. Besides, it also represents illustrations and figures to braille displays through quantization and binarization.
Long before the onset of formal reading instruction, young children develop language skills and print knowledge that form the foundation for later learning of reading and writing (Storch & ...Whitehurst, 2002). These skills can be grouped under the term emergent literacy. Deprived of vision, blind or profoundly visually impaired children have little exposure to written communication in their daily lives. It can therefore be assumed that these children are likely to have difficulty in developing print awareness, that is, the knowledge about print and how it works. However, research on print awareness in visually impaired children is scarce. This exploratory study proposes an assessment of oral language skills linked to written language skills development (i.e., phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory, and verbal working memory), letter knowledge, and print awareness. A print awareness assessment tool adapted to future Braille readers was developed. Seven blind or profoundly visually impaired children (future Braille readers) and 20 sighted children were tested using the developed assessment. The comparison between blind/profoundly visually impaired and sighted children shows no appearance of disturbance in the development of the oral language skills predictive of written skills in blind or profoundly visually impaired children. In contrast, the results reveal more specificities in the development of print awareness in these children. The data from the present study support the need for early intervention in this area for this population. CONSCIENCE DE L'ECRIT
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3D printing has been introduced as a novel approach for the design of personalized dosage forms and support patient groups with special needs that require additional assistance for ...enhanced medication adherence. In this study liquid crystal display (LCD) is introduced for the development of sustained release bupropion.HCl printed tablets. The optimization of printing hydrogel inks was combined with the display of Braille patterns on the tablet surface for blind or visually impaired patients. Due to the high printing accuracy, the Braille patterns could be verified by blind patients and provide the required information. Further characterization revealed the presence of BUP in amorphous state within the photopolymerized resins. The selection of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-diacrylate (PEGDA) of different molecular weights and the presence of surfactants or solubilizers disrupted the resin photopolymerization, thus controlling the BUP dissolution rates. A small batch scale-up study demonstrated the capacity of LCD to print rapidly a notable number of tablets within 24 min.
Okuma hatalarının belirlenmesi, hedefe yönelik okuma öğretimi yapılabilmek ve olumsuz okuma deneyimlerinin önüne geçilebilmek için önemli bilgiler sunmaktadır. Bu araştırmada görme yetersizliği olan ...öğrencilerin okuma hataları, okuma hatalarının sınıf seviyelerine göre durumu, kullandıkları stratejiler ve braille alfabesinden kaynaklanan hataların neler olduğunun belirlenmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Araştırmada betimsel model kullanılmıştır. Araştırmaya görme engelliler okullarının 2., 3. ve 4. sınıfına devam eden görme yetersizliği olan 15 öğrenci katılmıştır. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak; Formal Olmayan Okuma Envanterinde yer alan öyküler, hata analizi formu ve öğrenci bilgi formu kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın sonucunda, görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilerin fazla sayıda ve farklı hata türlerinde okuma hataları yaptığı, sınıf seviyesi yükseldikçe daha fazla hata yaptıkları, ortografik okuma stratejilerinin yanı sıra çoğunlukla alfabetik okuma stratejilerini kullandıkları, kısaltma sisteminden kaynaklı ve harf değişimi hataları yaptıkları görülmüştür.
At present, the commonly used braille in mainland China is essentially a “syllabic braille” (or pinyin braille), which shows many deficiencies in promoting braille informatization and literacy for ...people with visual impairments. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for Hanzi Braille to solve the above problems. Based on Mainland Chinese Braille (also called Current Chinese Braille), Hanzi Braille is customized by using the existing braille and adding signs in front of it. These signs, which are associated with radicals of Chinese characters, help distinguishing homophones and expressing the meaning of a Chinese character. Derived from the existing braille, Hanzi Braille breaks through the limitations of traditional braille. To some extent, it can help people with visual impairments integrate into the society of sighted people better and improve the efficiency of conversion between Chinese character and braille in the computer.
•The neural basis of letter-speech sound (LS) integration is similar in the blind and sighted.•In both groups the integration takes place in the superior temporal cortex.•The direction of the ...congruency effect is different between the groups.•LS discrimination efficiency and congruency effect correlated with age and reading skills only in the sighted.
Learning letter and speech sound (LS) associations is a major step in reading acquisition common for all alphabetic scripts, including Braille used by blind readers. The left superior temporal cortex (STC) plays an important role in audiovisual LS integration in sighted people, but it is still unknown what neural mechanisms are responsible for audiotactile LS integration in blind individuals. Here, we investigated the similarities and differences between LS integration in blind Braille (N = 42, age range: 9–60 y.o.) and sighted print (N = 47, age range: 9–60 y.o.) readers who acquired reading using different sensory modalities. In both groups, the STC responded to both isolated letters and isolated speech sounds, showed enhanced activation when they were presented together, and distinguished between congruent and incongruent letter and speech sound pairs. However, the direction of the congruency effect was different between the groups. Sighted subjects showed higher activity for incongruent LS pairs in the bilateral STC, similarly to previously studied typical readers of transparent orthographies. In the blind, congruent pairs resulted in an increased response in the right STC. These differences may be related to more sequential processing of Braille as compared to print reading. At the same time, behavioral efficiency in LS discrimination decisions and the congruency effect were found to be related to age and reading skill only in sighted participants, suggesting potential differences in the developmental trajectories of LS integration between blind and sighted readers.
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