This project area addresses the need for technology to assist the learning process for blind, visually impaired and deaf-blind children. Dr Deborah Gilden has developed several new educational devices and systems during the past five-year period, some of which are now commercially available.
One device of this type, the Flexi-Formboard (a flexible, modular formboard with electronic sensors providing auditory and tactile feedback to the child), was transferred to commercial production by Adaptive Communication Technologies Inc.
Subsequently, work progressed in collaboration with Toys for Special Children, a manufacturing company in New York, to develop a more sophisticated educational tool, the "Formboard With A Brain." Thanks to a microprocessor chip, the new Formboard With A Brain enables the parent, teacher or therapist to program sequences of inserting and removing any number of the shapes, or groups of shapes. The child's task is to duplicate this sequence. The child receives a brief reinforcement for every correct insertion and removal within the sequence, followed by a long and more interesting reward upon completion of the entire sequence. The basic short reinforcement is a brief musical phrase; the long reward at the end is any of several songs. Two other reinforcer options are available: (1) vibration of the actual Formboard for use by deaf and deaf-blind persons, and (2) activation of an interfaced battery-powered toy.
Toys for Special Children is manufacturing and selling the Formboard With A Brain. The low $125 price tag on this device exemplifies our RERC goals of successful technology transfer and affordability.
The Auditory Arcade is a stand-alone, modular "busy box" developed at Smith-Kettlewell for blind children. It contains a 6502 microprocessor chip and a synthetic speech chip, and was the first computerized "talking" educational device with manipulable materials ever developed. It presents the user with different types of problems depending on which "Playing Panel" is in place. The Arcade can be used by both blind and sighted children, and presents tasks involving the manipulation of materials, texture matching, and auditory memory span. Prototypes have received very positive feedback from users, parents and teachers.
During the present reporting period renewed explorations of the commercial potential of this type of device were made, in the light of new lower cost technology being available. Companies such as Toys for Special Children have shown considerable interest, and the device has been handed over to the new RERC on Technology Transfer -- http://cosmos.ot.buffalo.edu -- to handle the commercialization process.
We initiated efforts to develop talking keyboards for blind children and special computer graphics for children with low vision. As a prototype for this investigation, we chose to adapt K is for Kiss Goodnight, a children's alphabet story by Jill Sardegna. It nicely lends itself to form the basis of an interactive computer game for young blind or sighted children. We have used Sound Blaster on a PC clone to digitize the text in toto, as well as in individual phrases. Pressing any letter results in the computer's reciting the associated phrase; pressing the space bar initiates recitation of the entire story. We have designed the prototype game software for demonstration to special education professionals.
Future plans for this project include incorporation of feedback from education professionals, and making the software available for use in selected classrooms and/or organizations and programs for blind children. If colleague and consumer response is positive, we will explore with the author and her agent the possibilities for distribution, and the incorporation of graphics designed especially for children with low vision.
In collaboration with Dr. Peter Loubal of Plus Associates International, we have initiated the development of a "Dynamic Single-Tactor Talking Tactile Globe," to help open the world of geography and other spherical-based subject areas to blind persons. Several design approaches have been explored, and further development is proceeding.
Refreshable braille displays of a line or a partial line of computer text provide blind braille readers with valuable computer access. These displays, however, provide much less information than the visual displays used by sighted people, and have other drawbacks as well. Their major limitations include great expense; the need for the user to relocate the hands in order to alternate between reading and writing; and difficulties in use by persons with decreased fingertip sensitivity -- the result of peripheral neuropathy associated with diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. In collaboration with TiNi Alloys Inc., San Leandro, California, we explored a new approach to refreshable braille display design which addresses these issues.
Instead of fabricating a line of braille, this new system will attempt to provide all the information of a full screen of text -- including format -- with the use of only one 8-dot cell (i.e., a single character). This will greatly reduce the cost of the device.
In the TiNi Alloy design, the 8 dots of the braille cell will be teased apart, and each dot relocated to the center of the corresponding key of an 8-key braille keyboard. This "tactile feedback keyboard" will enable the user to both read and write braille without moving the hands to a new location. In addition, locating single dots under individual fingers will allow for greater dot pressure against the skin than can be presented by subgroups of the 8 dots vibrating simultaneously under a single fingertip -- a key benefit to persons with reduced fingertip sensitivity.
The problem of how to indicate page format is addressed by mounting the tactile keyboard on a movable base which allows the operator to scan left and right as well as up and down. This approach would allow the user to move his/her hands around a "virtual page" in a manner analogous to reading an actual page of hard-copy braille text.
This system gives us a tool to investigate some questions regarding basic tactile perception as it relates to reading braille. The information generated will be valuable in future designs of refreshable braille displays, and includes data on relative detectability of vibratory and pulsed displays, optimal duration of the stimuli for each letter, and tactile masking effects between fingers.