Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness

This overview traces reading methods for blind and visually impaired persons from paper braille, recordings, and radio reading services to computerized telephone services to personal computers that provide access to on-line services, books on disk, CD-ROM, and scanning systems. It concludes with a review of trends, such as graphical user interfaces, fax machines, and touchscreens, that may have a negative effect on reading via computers.

The graphical user interface is a powerful new interface for mainstream computer users and a source of serious concern for those who cannot see. Fortunately, it will eventually be made as accessible to blind people as character-based forerunners. The systems that evolve will provide blind computer users with new capabilities not possible with character-based computers and access systems. However, the effects of previous inaccessibility, the current limited accessibility, and lingering doubts about the solvability of some of the access problems have slowed efforts to capitalize on the advantages and opportunities of these new systems. This article identifies potential new problems posed by graphic computing environments and describes some programs and strategies that are being developed to provide access to these environments.

Television is an important means of obtaining information and sharing in the culture of this society. Because it is primarily a visual medium, blind and visually impaired people have not had full access to it. In 1990, after five years of research and development, a national service became available over the Public Broadcasting Service that makes television accessible to blind and visually impaired viewers. Developed by WGBH-TV in Boston, Descriptive Video Service^sm provides narrated descriptions of the key visual elements of television programs without interfering with their audio or dialogue.

Computer-based optical character recognition (OCR) systems allow blind persons access to a wide variety of printed material. This article describes these systems and how they work and discusses the features that should be considered before one purchases them.

Although fax communications pose a problem of accessibility for blind and visually impaired office workers, with centralized readers’ services they could be used to address the wider reading needs of blind and visually impaired people. With this technology, blind persons with fax machines could send unknown print to readers at a centralized readers’ service, who would read facsimiles of the documents over voice phones. This article discusses the specifications for appropriate equipment and protocols and presents the preliminary results of a study of such a system.

This article discusses the available technology in Sweden and its applications for visually impaired and deaf-blind people, including systems for stop announcements on buses and trams, queuing systems in shops and banks, and private and information transfer center text-telephones, as well as methods used to make daily newspapers available to visually impaired people and a fourth information channel for deaf-blind people. The involvement of disabled persons in the use of data bases and home terminals is also discussed. Ideas for subtitles for movies, real-time translation of interviews and speeches, and picture communication are also presented.

A self-contained voice-indexing system using digital recording techniques was developed in 1981 to provide high-quality voice indexing in a studio environment. One goal was to design a simple operating procedure that would not require a technician. A major revision has resulted in a prototype second-generation digital voice indexer. The original design concepts are described, as well as improvements in the new prototype.

This article reviews the Talking Book technology, as well as potential new technology. The trend of audio technology toward digitization continues and will likely someday be practical for use by Talking Book programs. However, in terms of flexibility, ease of use, and economy, compact disc and other digital technologies are not now suitable, and the present technology is still the most viable for the program.

Many new products and services coming into general use or in the research stage may have considerable benefits for blind and visually impaired people. However, these newer technologies are not yet computer accessible to blind and visually impaired people. This article describes some of these products and services and discusses their potential use by blind and visually impaired people and the work that needs to be done to make them accessible.

Adaptive computer training is a basic component of literacy for visually impaired people—not just a requirement for job placement. This article discusses models for training in adaptive computer technology, both individualized training for specific jobs and group training for general education. Case histories of students illustrate the benefits derived from training in class settings, including increased competence, self-esteem, and awareness of career options.

Skills in the use of microcomputers and related access technology should become basic competencies required of qualified pre- and in-service teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired. This article presents a framework for incorporating microcomputer technology in teacher preparation programs, including objectives for teacher trainees and in-service teachers and approaches to achieving the objectives. It also provides a list of essential equipment needed in teacher preparation programs and stresses the importance of teacher educators’ positive attitudes toward technology.

Videotapes can be used for simulations of vision loss and demonstrations of adaptive techniques. The study reported here explored two methods of presenting a videotaped lesson on the care of residents with low vision to staff at long-term care facilities, both of which were equally effective.

This article reports on the responses of 120 teachers and habilitative specialists of multiply handicapped blind and deaf-blind children in Massachusetts to a survey on their use of assistive technology. The respondents reported problems in all areas covered by the survey: knowledge of electronic mobility aids and communication devices; the availability, maintenance, and funding of devices; and adequate information about devices. They especially mentioned the need for resources to assess and match students to appropriate devices and to generate more training for themselves.

This article reports on a statewide survey of the use of technological assistive devices and the unmet needs of 790 blind and visually impaired persons in Arkansas. The survey was conducted in preparation for establishing the Arkansas Technology Access Program under P.L. 100–407. The areas surveyed were life functioning, spending practices and credit options for purchasing devices, funding support systems, travel practices, need for further information, and satisfaction with services and devices.

Night-blind individuals often have restricted visual fields or other visual impairments that limit their ability to travel at night. The study reported here compared two night-vision devices: one wide-angle light and one with a high-intensity beam. It concluded that no one night light is best for all individuals and that depending on the cause of the night blindness, a smaller angle, high-intensity light may be more useful than a wider angle one.

This article reports on a study that examined whether blind persons could learn the spatial layout of landmarks in a new large-scale space more accurately utilizing a microcomputer simulation of the environment versus a tactile graphic aid of a similar environment. The four congenitally blind subjects each explored a simulation of a 5 x 5-block residential neighborhood daily for 27 days, learning the spatial layout of the 9 landmarks in each simulation. Although they learned the spatial locations of the landmarks faster using the tactile graphic aid, the accuracy of their spatial knowledge was equal for both conditions.

Audible traffic signals (ATS) can be of considerable value to visually impaired pedestrians. This article describes these devices and their use in this and other countries and presents areas of concern regarding their widespread installation, including the types of intersections at which ATS should be installed, the locations of poles and buttons for activating the systems, and the specific type of device to be used. Because there is a dearth of applied research on ATS, it is recommended that 1) unusually complex intersections not be the sites for ATS installation; 2) particular attention should be paid to the locations of poles and buttons, and 3) the type of device to be installed at a new site should be consistent with those at sites in the same area.

An Amiga 500 microcomputer with a talking word processor was installed in a special education unit at an elementary school for use by a visually impaired pupil during two school terms. This article reviews the background literature and explores the challenges and limitations posed by the introduction of new technology.

This article reports the results of a study that explored the use of a computer-generated tachistoscopelike display of electronic braille to increase the reading speeds of three blind university students. The results did not indicate conclusively that such a program is effective. The subjects’ braille reading speed continued to be slow, which indicates the need for further research in the use of technology to improve braille reading skills.

The potential use of closed-circuit television with a young severely visually impaired girl was assessed to explore the development of visual skills related especially to the development of concepts. The subject underwent 63 training sessions over a six-month period. At the end of training, she could recognize lines, forms, shapes, letters, numbers, and words and could read short sentences. Informal brief replication efforts with four other subjects showed similar results.

This article reports on a study of the pedagogical relevance of a computerized sound-based interactive tool as support for educating blind children. It details the concepts and materials that were developed and tested in classrooms and points out that a sound-based approach can be used for teaching in such different domains as sound awareness, logic, language, and technology.

To investigate whether screen color is an important variable in the prescription of CCTV systems, the author measured the visual performance of CCTV users on white, green, and amber screens. When the screen luminance and contrast were equated for each CCTV, the users’ reading performance was unaffected by the screen color. Although some individuals expressed a clear subjective preference or dislike for one color or another, there was no obvious link between the cause of low vision and preference for or aversion to that color.

In 1988, the Carroll Center for the Blind, with the generosity of TeleSensory, VTEK, and Computer Aids Corporation, initiated a new service that allows Massachusetts schools to borrow adaptive computer devices for their blind students. The Ed-Tech Loan Program enables them to “try before they buy.” For $50 per month, with a three-month maximum, each school can borrow braille printers, large-print processors, talking software, or speech or braille laptops. After that period, the school may purchase the equipment sometimes at a discount.