L Evett

Text formats and web design for visually impaired and dyslexic readers-Clear Text for All

The Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) has produced a Clear Print booklet, which contains recommendations for the production of Clear Print for the blind and partially sighted. The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) has produced a Dyslexia Style Guide, which covers similar issues. Both focus on producing text, which is clear and therefore more easily read, and there is significant overlap between the two. By comparing the two, a set of specifications for the production of text has been generated. Using the specifications should produce clear text for both dyslexic and visually impaired readers. It should improve readability for all. The text specifications plus additional recommendations from the BDA are considered with respect to an existing set of web site design guidelines for dyslexic readers to produce an enhanced set of guidelines compatible with both. These guidelines are recommended to be followed as standard, both for their benefits to visually impaired and dyslexic readers, promoting accessibility for these groups, and for their potential to improve accessibility for all.

Designing location-based learning experiences for people with intellectual disabilities and additional sensory impairments

The research reported here is part of a larger project which seeks to combine serious games (or games-based learning) with location-based services to help people with intellectual disabilities and additional sensory impairments to develop work based skills. Specifically this paper reports on where these approaches are combined to scaffold the learning of new routes and ultimately independent travel to new work and educational opportunities. A phased development methodology is applied in a user sensitive manner, to ensure that user feedback drives the ongoing development process. Methods to structure this include group feedback on conceptual storyboards, expert review of prototypes using usability heuristics relating to the main system goals, and finally co-discovery methods with student pairs exploring all three modes of the system in real world contexts. Aspects of developmental and cognitive psychological theories are also reviewed and it is suggested that combining games-based learning approaches with location-based services is an appropriate combination of technologies for an application specifically designed to scaffold route learning for this target audience.

An interface to virtual environments for people who are blind using Wii technology ‐ mental models and navigation

Accessible games, both for serious and for entertainment purposes, would allow inclusion and participation for those with disabilities. Research into the development of accessible games, and accessible virtual environments, is discussed. Research into accessible Virtual Environments has demonstrated great potential for allowing people who are blind to explore new spaces, reduce their reliance on guides and aid development of more efficient spatial maps and strategies. Importantly, Lahav and Mioduser (2005, 2008) have demonstrated that, when exploring virtual spaces, people who are blind use more and different strategies than when exploring real physical spaces, and develop relatively accurate spatial representations of them. The present paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a system in which a virtual environment may be explored by people who are blind using Nintendo Wii devices, with auditory and haptic feedback. The nature of the various types of feedback is considered, with the aim of creating an intuitive and usable system. Using Wii technology has many advantages: it is mainstream, readily available and cheap. The potential of the system for exploration and navigation is demonstrated. Results strongly support the possibilities of the system for facilitating and supporting the construction of cognitive maps and spatial strategies. Intelligent support is discussed. Systems such as the present one will facilitate the development of accessible games, and thus enable Universal Design and accessible interactive technology to become more accepted and widespread.

Text Segmentation Using Reiteration and Collocation

A method is presented for segmenting text into subtopic areas. The proportion of related pairwise words is calculated between adjacent windows of text to determine their lexical similarity. The lexical cohesion relations of reiteration and collocation are used to identify related words. These relations are automatically located using a combination of three linguistic features: word repetition, collocation and relation weights. This method is shown to successfully detect known subject changes in text and corresponds well to the segmentations placed by test subjects.

Can participating in games based learning improve mathematic skills in students with intellectual disabilities

This study assesses whether participating in games based learning can improve mathematical skills in students with intellectual disabilities (ID), a functional skill that promotes greater inclusion in society, health and well being. Sixteen key stage 2 to 5 students with ID participated in the study. A matched pairs design was used, with 8 students playing the intervention game teaching manipulation of fractions, and 8 students playing a battery of control games. The students played the games over five, twenty minute, weekly sessions with two baseline non-standardized measures of mathematical skills taken both before and after intervention. Participants in the intervention group significantly improved their understanding of fractions, whilst those in the control group showed no significant improvement. The majority demonstrated an increase in both the difficulty of the games played and their in-game scores, showing that participating in games based learning can improve mathematical skills in students with ID.

Multiple word segmentation with interactive look-up for cursive script recognition

Cursive script recognition is commonly based on finding letters within a word and recognizing them separately. The segmentation process is ambiguous and difficult. A method which combines word segmentation and letter recognition with lexical look-up in order to cope with segmentation ambiguity is presented. Words are first segmented into small elements which are then put together using a database of their possible combinations to produce alternative segmentations. Letter recognition is performed on each letter candidate and lexical look-up is applied, interactively, to prune illegal word recognition results. Lexical look-up is used to postulate word endings for partially recognized words. This provides the means of catering for words with sloppy endings, some misspellings and recovering from some recognition errors. An online cursive script recognition system, based on the above method, is described and evaluated.<<ETX>>

Designing Serious Games for People with Disabilities: Game, Set and Match to the Wii™

Serious games are effective and engaging learning resources for people with disabilities, and guidelines exist to make games accessible to people with disabilities. During research into designing accessible interfaces and games, it was noted that people who are blind often report enjoying playing Wii Sports. These games are pick-up-and-play games for casual and non-gamers. They have simplified rules and a natural and intuitive feel. Games designed specifically for players with particular disabilities are often not of interest to other players and take a lot of development time. Because of their niche market, these games are not widely available, developed, or maintained. In contrast, games like Wii Sports are cheap and available, and represent an exciting opportunity as inclusive games. Two blind players were introduced to the games and found Wii Tennis the most accessible. The blind players learned to play the game quickly and easily, found it enjoyable and engaging, and could play competitively against each other, as well as a sighted opponent. Small accessibility enhancements of the existing game could enhance the game for other players. In this paper, implications for the design of accessible, inclusive games are discussed. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1864-0.ch010

Emerging issues and current trends in assistive technology use 2007-2010: practising, assisting and enabling learning for all

Abstract Following an earlier review in 2007, a further review of the academic literature relating to the uses of assistive technology (AT) by children and young people was completed, covering the period 2007–2011. As in the earlier review, a tripartite taxonomy: technology uses to train or practise, technology uses to assist learning and technology uses to enable learning, was used in order to structure the findings. The key markers for research in this field and during these three years were user involvement, AT on mobile mainstream devices, the visibility of AT, technology for interaction and collaboration, new and developing interfaces and inclusive design principles. The paper concludes by locating these developments within the broader framework of the Digital Divide. Implications for Rehabilitation The rapid move to mainstream mobile devices is challenging to providers of assistive learning technologies, to those who commission and advise on these technologies and to those who fund in this area. Recent research around assistive learning technologies is moving away from being solely oriented around product evaluation and towards a user-centred approach. Current and developing interfaces, such as brain control and eye gaze, offer potential for assistive learning technology support for those to whom no such devices were valid in the past. There is a need for longitudinal research related to the uses of assistive learning technologies.

The use of context in cursive script recognition

The performance of cursive script-recognition systems can be improved by applying higher-level knowledge in the form of contextual information. However, the acquisition of such information for a realistically sized vocabulary is highly problematic, since hand coding is feasible for only a small lexicon. This paper describes a number of techniques for extracting contextual information from text corpora, and outlines methods by which such information can be used to improve the performance of cursive script-recognition systems. The effectiveness of these methods is demonstrated in a number of experiments, and the results are discussed.

Segmenting documents using multiple lexical features

A method is presented for segmenting documents into conceptually related areas. Determining the equivalence of text is often based on the number of word repetitions. This approach is unsuitable for detecting short segments because terms tend not to be repeated across just a few sentences. We investigate the contribution of two other lexical features to find related words: collocation and relation weights (which identify semantic relations). An experiment was conducted on a set of test data with known topic changes; the performances of the three features were independently compared. A combination of all features was the most reliable indicator of a topic change. In another experiment, CNN news summaries were segmented into their individual news stories. Precision and recall rates of around 90% are reported for news story boundary detection.