Konstantinos Papadopoulos

Adaptive behavior of children and adolescents with visual impairments

The present study explored the total adaptive behavior of children and adolescents with visual impairments, as well as their adaptive behavior in each of the domains of Communication, Daily Living Skills, and Socialization. Moreover, the predictors of the performance and developmental delay in adaptive behavior were investigated. Instrumentation included an informal questionnaire and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Survey Form). Forty-six children and adolescents with visual impairments participated. The results reveal the effect of age on total adaptive behavior and on each of the domains of Communication, Daily Living Skills, and Socialization; the older individuals with visual impairments present better performance but also a higher rate of delay in comparison with younger individuals. Moreover, the ability of independent movement is a predictor of performance and developmental delay on the Daily Living Skills and Socialization. The more independent the mobility of individuals with visual impairments is the better the performance and the lower the level of developmental delay. Moreover, the educational level of parents is a predictor of performance and developmental delay on the Communication and Socialization. The higher the educational level of parents the better the performance and the lower the developmental delay.

The Impact of Residual Vision in Spatial Skills of Individuals With Visual Impairments

Loss of vision is believed to have a great impact on the acquisition of spatial knowledge. The aims of the present study are to examine the performance of individuals with visual impairments on spatial tasks and the impact of residual vision on processing these tasks. In all, 28 individuals with visual impairments—blindness or low vision—participated in this study. The results reveal that participants with visual impairments were competent to perform spatial tasks, and their performance is related to the existence of residual vision.

Spatial Coding of Individuals With Visual Impairments

The aim of this study is to examine the ability of children and adolescents with visual impairments to code and represent near space. Moreover, it examines the impact of the strategies they use and individual differences in their performance. A total of 30 individuals with visual impairments up to the age of 18 were given eight different object patterns in different arrays and were asked to code and represent each of them. The results revealed better performances by those who use an allocentric approach during spatial coding and those with residual vision. In fact, allocentric strategies were more prevalent in coding near space than egocentric ones. Moreover, the ability of participants to move independently was positively correlated with their ability to use the most effective haptic strategies. These findings suggest that children and adolescents with visual impairments are capable of using allocentric reference and providing a different perspective to the currently dominant one.

The impact of vision in spatial coding

The aim of this study is to examine the performance in coding and representing of near-space in relation to vision status (blindness vs. normal vision) and sensory modality (touch vs. vision). Forty-eight children and teenagers participated. Sixteen of the participants were totally blind or had only light perception, 16 were blindfolded sighted individuals, and 16 were non-blindfolded sighted individuals. Participants were given eight different object patterns in different arrays and were asked to code and represent each of them. The results suggest that vision influences performance in spatial coding and spatial representation of near space. However, there was no statistically significant difference between participants with blindness who used the most effective haptic strategy and blindfolded sighted participants. Thus, the significance of haptic strategies is highlighted.

Accessibility assistance for visually-impaired people in digital texts

The use and applications of new technologies in the education of the visually impaired have made substantial strides forward in recent years. New technology allows the visually impaired to enjoy better access to information, to read for themselves and, by extension, to improve their learning literacy. Nevertheless, despite the advances made in assistant technology, a number of problems have arisen in relation to the limited experience of both users and teachers in handling that technology. Teachers also need to take into account the diversity of characteristics of impaired vision in the visually-impaired population, taking steps to make the educational material available with effective colour contrast and in legible text. The aforesaid problems are even more severe for teachers in the regular classroom. This article describes the effective colour contrast and legible text required by visually-impaired students and presents a new tool, not intended merely to provide another form of computer access for the partially sighted, but to offer a means of education in the regular classroom.

Are there relationships among different spatial skills of individuals with blindness

The aim of this study was to detect the possible relationships between various spatial skills of individuals with blindness. Twenty-eight individuals with blindness participated in five experiments that examined the body knowledge, laterality, directionality, perspective-taking, spatial coding of the near space and spatial knowledge of the far space. According to the results a positive correlation between body knowledge and directionality has emerged. Moreover, body knowledge and spatial coding of near space are found to be predictors of perspective-taking, while directionality and perspective-taking are found to be predictors of spatial coding of near space, and directionality and perspective-taking predictors of spatial knowledge of far space. This finding suggest that future studies should seriously take into account the possibility that the development of a certain skill could in fact be the result of the development of another skill/s. Moreover, the findings support the notion that a delay in the development of a spatial skill may not necessarily be a result of the visual impairment itself but of the incomplete development of another spatial skill.

Adaptive Behavior of Primary School Students with Visual Impairments: The Impact of Educational Settings.

This study explored the adaptive behavior of primary school students with visual impairments, as well as the impact of educational setting on their adaptive behavior. Instrumentation included an informal questionnaire and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Participants were 36 primary school students with visual impairments. The educational setting had an effect on Daily Living Skills and Socialization. Students with visual impairments visiting special schools present worse adaptive behavior (higher developmental delay) compared to students visiting mainstream schools. Moreover, the educational level of parents influences the developmental delay on the Communication and Socialization. The higher the educational level of parents the lower the developmental delay.

Differences Among Sighted Individuals and Individuals with Visual Impairments in Word Intelligibility Presented via Synthetic and Natural Speech

This study investigated word intelligibility among sighted individuals and individuals with visual impairments for both natural and synthetic speech. Both groups of participants performed significantly better when identifying words presented via natural speech. The results also demonstrated that individuals with visual impairments were more successful than their sighted peers in understanding words presented via synthetic speech, with experience being the most critical factor in identifying words for the participants with visual impairments. Finally, the findings show the correlation between intelligibility and key factors such as age and the overall use of text-to-speech systems.

Tactile maps provide location-based services for individuals with visual impairments

People with visual impairments are unable to collect the external visual stimuli from the environment or to use conventional maps. Hence, the importance of tactile maps as informational and orientation means is undoubted. The blind user perceives the information graphed on the tactile map by feeling the elements of the map with the fingertips. There has been considerable research into the design of these maps over recent decades, providing answers to most of the questions which have arisen concerning their intelligibility–the use of symbols, for example, and the implementation of uniform standards to make the maps generally accessible. For the production of tactile maps a number of methods have been developed worldwide. The introduction of new technologies has contributed to the design and production of tactile maps, following procedures appropriate to the special needs of tactile mapping, with automatic cartography. During the procedure of implementing a tactile map with the use of a personal computer, a basic stage is the construction of a digital map. In this article, the design of tactile maps of Thessaloniki (the second largest city in Greece) is discussed, with special emphasis on a number of relevant issues influencing the whole process.

A University Indoors Audio-Tactile Mobility Aid for Individuals with Blindness

This article presents the development of an Audio-Tactile aid in order to facilitate and enhance the spatial knowledge as well as the independent and safe movement of individuals with blindness in the University of Macedonia indoors. Moreover the developed aid provides information that helps blind individuals to obtain a cognitive image of the university indoors, plan routes they wish to track and easily identify specific locations and services. The implementation procedure of the Audio-Tactile navigation system included the following steps: 1) development of digital maps that include specific spatial information for people with blindness, 2) production of tactile maps 3) research on the readability of the tactile maps by blind individuals and development of revised tactile maps, 4) development of Audio-Tactile maps and their connection with touchpad devices, and 5) a study to derive the most appropriate locations where 10 touchpads will be installed in the university indoors.