I thought the best place to look for a definition for visual impairment and blindness would be the World Health Organization. There are four levels of visual function as defined by the International Classification of Diseases.
Normal vision
Moderate Visual Impairment
Severe Visual Impairment
Blindness
Moderate and severe visual impairment are combined into a category called low vision. This catagory also includes blindness.
Blindness is defined as a lack or dsficiency in visual perception.
Total blindness is described as a lack of form and visual light perception.
Legal blindness is defined as a visual acuity of 20/200 or less with the better eye with the best possible visual correction. That means that a visually impaired person would have to stand 20 feet from an object that a person with normal vision could see from 200 feet away.
The majority of people with visual impairments are 65 years of age or older. With our aging population more of the world's population will be at risk of some type of visual impairment. This is a portion of the population that is thought to be less adaptable to their new reality than others. They might not be as readily accepting of any form of assistive technology. It is also estimated that 19 million children under the age of 15 are visually impaired. 1.4 million of these cases being irreversible. The WHO estimates that 12 million cases of visual impairment are due to refractive eooeors that are esaily corrected.
The technologies that are most beneficial depend on the degree of ones visual impairment. In Canada we are lucky to have the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), that can be accessed for assistance, products, and services if you have a visual impairment of any degree. The CNIB catalogue offers a variety of devices to help with daily living and extracurricular tasks.
It is those that live with visual impairments/blindness that tend to discover what is missing on the market and develop what they need. Over time some very common, low/medium/high tech, options have been discovered to help those with visual impairments with every day tasks. Some examples are as follows:
1. Sewing thread of different thicknesses (thick string vs. thin, one line on the tag for light clothes, two for medium, and three for dark navy or black, etc.) onto the tags of shirts and pants to denote colours so the person can match the colour of their top to their bottom. Safety pins placed vertically or horizontally to denote tops or bottom with stripes, or even safety pins with beads to match tops and bottoms that go together. Here is a video with more ideas on how to match clothes:
2. Now that you are dressed for the day, and are matching, it is time to make your way to the kitchen. A low tech device that can be very useful here is tactile label. Tactile dots are raised dots, usually clear, that you adhere to surfaces to indicate places you want to remember or places that are frequently used. For example putting a tactile dot at the 350 degree mark on the stove so you know how far to turn the dial, or on a button on the microwave that is used most often- for example the "one minute" button The placement of these is personal to the individual and as many or as few as they like can be placed on surfaces. The tactile dots typically come in packages of 36 for just under $5. *I am sure there are similar products at the Dollar Store that could be substituted.
3. The kitchen can also be a place to utilise more high tech devices such as talking labels. Having a cupboard full of your favourite canned goods can be difficult to sort through if you are using touch alone, or have very little vision. Talking labels are small dots that can be placed on any item, not just canned goods, with the person's voice is recording a word/message (for up to 20 seconds on most devices) identifying what the object is. With the use of a label reader, the label is read allowed so the person knows what the item is. The most commonly used seems to be the PenFriend. Seen here it is priced at $149.95 CAD. It comes with 127 labels and approximately 70 hours of recording time. Click on the picture to be taken to a web page explaining it in greater detail.
When researching the PenFriend I came across another, far less expensive option, an app for Android phones called Talking Tags. This works in a similar was as a label reader only it is conveniently located on your phone so there is no need to be dragging around another device. You need to purchase Near Field Communication (NFC) tags, which cost approximately $80 for 100, but the app is free. Everyone who has rated the app has given it five stars and there are many comments about how much money it has saved them.
4. When at school/work there are devices that are not only useful, but essential to assist in getting through the day successfully. Again depending on the severity of the impairment, a variety of assistive devices can/will be needed to be utilised. Some common devices are:
Watches that talk the time: these are reasonably priced ($50-$90), fairly stylish watches that others would never know talked- until you push the button.
Visual Aides/Magnifiers: There are a variety of magnifiers and the one that is most useful to you depends on your vision impairment and the desired. There are sheet magnifiers that go over a computer screens and pages in a book to significantly enhance the images/text, bookmark magnifiers, magnifying glasses, the traditional magnifying glass, and illuminators for those who need more light.
Writing Aides: Besides apps that provide speech to text, there are also writing aides that can assist those who are blind/visually impaired. The majority of people know about Braille-the writing system of raised reading bumps that represent letters, you can buy dark lined paper of various spaces for $5.50/ 100 pieces (or make your own on white paper and photocopy it), letter/signature writing guides (which we could all use when trying to write on white paper!), as well as keyboards with high contrasting colours to make the letters more visible.
5. When performing any monetary transactions, there is high tech assistive technology devices that would grant the user independence. The YouTube video below provides a demonstration of how to use the app LookTel Money Reader. All you have to do is point your iPhone camera at the bill and it will read it. The camera will pick up any portion of the bill and recognize the amount. This app recognizes several currencies (Canadian, American, Australian, etc.) This app allows people who are blind or have visual impairments to easily identify bills.
Reflections on Procedures
for Learning Environments Without the Use of Sight
Reginald G. Golledge
This
article dealt specifically with how individuals who are visually
impaired deal with the geospatial domain. Geography has
traditionally represented its data in mostly visual representations.
It is difficult to consider doing geography without the use of the
sense of sight. Usually when one thinks of geography, they think of
maps, tables, images, videos, photographs, sketches, etc. It is
difficult for the visually impaired to have a good spatial sense of
these modes of representation. There are alternative modes of
representation that can make accessing the topic of geography
accessible for the visually impaired. These alternate forms include:
Wall
and table mounted relief maps.
Tactile
maps and models.
Auditory
maps.
Descriptions
using spatial language.
Tactile-audio
information systems.
Sonic
environments.
Haptic
and Vibrotactile maps (computer interface environment)
Tactile
Maps
Instead
of using flat maps, 3-D maps and models allow the individual to touch
and explore shape, location, proximity, distance, direction, and
other essential spatial properties of the real world. For those who
are visually impaired, the sense of touch can become very important
for knowledge acquisition.
One
of the coolest things I read about in this article was the
microcapsule paper. All you have to do is photocopy a particular
setting on a piece of microcapsule paper and then expose it to heat.
Once you apply the paper to heat the image will enlarge up to 2
millimetres above the surrounding area. Then the individual would
have a tactile map that is on an ordinary piece of paper. This could
allow the person access to a college campus, park, etc. The paper
only costs a $1 a sheet. How cool would that be!
Auditory
Maps
The
author of this article talks about the best auditory map out there
for the visually impaired, the Personal Guidance System (PGS). This
system tracks the individual by GPS. The GPS continually updates the
location in real space every second and updates location
simultaneously in a digital base map carried by the traveler in a
wearable computer. As the traveler moves through a setting such as a
college campus, buildings and other features identify themselves in a
virtual auditory world so that a mental map of the environment in
which travel takes place can be compiled (Golledge, 2005, p.6).
Spatial
Language
Spatial
language is useful for providing general and relative spatial
information to visually impaired people, but it requires expert
training to get the type of precision required to build a
realistically proportional representation of a real world environment
(Golledge, 2005, p.7).
Tactile-Audio
Information Systems
The
Haptic map is the electronic equivalent of a tactile map. This type
of map requires the use of virtual walls and a tactile or
vibrotactile interface, usually a joystick or mouse, that will allow
a user to “feel” an on-screen flat representation (Golledge,
2005, p.9)
Assistive Technology
Approaches for Large-Scale Assessment:
Perceptions of Teachers of
Students with Visual Impairments
Christopher Johnstone,
Martha Thurlow, Jason Altman, Joe Timmons, and Kentaro Kato
The
authors of this article conducted research surrounding the use of
assistive technology by visually impaired students and teachers. The
study tries to examine why an achievement gap remains between
students with visual impairments and their peers who do not have
visual impairments. The authors cite the results of a recent large
scale assessment study that indicated that students with visual
impairments are achieving at a lower rate than the general
population. The authors suggest two reasons for this discrepancy.
One being that the students may not be getting an opportunity to
learn, the other explanation is that the assessments themselves may
not be appropriate for the needs of the visually impaired.
This
study examined how assistive technologies are used in schools for
instructional purposes and for assessment purposes. The authors of
this study specifically wanted to research how assistive technology
was used for language arts instruction and assessment for visually
impaired students in grades 7-10. As this is a study that was
completed in the United States, there was some discrepancy as far as
allowable accommodations. Some states allowed different
accommodations on their large scale assessments compared to other
states. The authors stated that speech technology would allow for
greater standardization of accommodations.
Results
from this study indicate that what might be considered
“accommodations” on a large scale assessment are commonplace in
the visually impaired classroom. It is the use of AT during the
large scale assessments that are causing problems for some
bureaucrats. I don't feel that the discrepancy between the visually
impaired large scale assessment results and those of their non-
visually impaired peers results are due to lack of opportunity. It
has to do with the individual states not allowing the same
accommodations that are allowed in the classroom to be allowed on the
large scale assessments. The authors remind us that the use of AT
during a state assessment would depend on the specific state's
accommodations policy. Which just blows my mind. It reminds me of
the comic that shows five different animals, one of which is an
elephant, and the individual behind the desk says, “For your final
exam, all of you are to climb that tree.” Sounds like there are a
lot of states out there that need to get on board.
