This is a case-study of a blind college student, Sonia, at the College of Languages and Translation (COLT). She has an iPhone, iPad and laptop as well as a Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype accounts. She uses MS Office and the university's Academic Portal. The iPhone VoiceOver App and the Braille Sense Notetaker enable her to surf the…

The TeX/LaTeX typesetting system is the most wide-spread system for creating documents in Mathematics and Science. However, no reliable tool exists to this day for automatically transcribing documents from the above formats into Braille/Nemeth code. Thus, visually impaired students of related fields do not have access to the bulk of study material…

In this article, the authors contend that the effectiveness in studying foreign languages by students who are blind can be greatly increased with the use of a properly configured screen reader, Job Access With Speech (JAWS), and a braille display. They assert foreign language instruction should not be limited to auditory input from an instructor…

Instructors of postsecondary classes in statistics rely heavily on visuals in their teaching, both within the classroom and in resources like textbooks, handouts, and software, but this information is often inaccessible to students who are blind or visually impaired (BVI). The unique challenges involved in adapting both pedagogy and course…

In this article the authors present the transient thermal analysis for a developed thermal linear actuator based on wax paraffin used to drive the cells of a Braille device. A numerical investigation of transient heat transfer phenomenon during paraffin melting and solidification in an encapsulated recipient has been carried out using the ANSYS…

Blind students are bound to make up a very small part of the population most university lecturers will encounter during their careers. Research to date shows that good communication between staff and student improves the chances of a successful outcome for both parties. The research does show, however, that the exercise seems to be one of…

At Wake Forest University, a student who is blind enrolled in a second course in statistics. The course covered simple and multiple regression, model diagnostics, model selection, data visualization, and elementary logistic regression. These topics required that the student both interpret and produce three sets of materials: mathematical writing,…

Introduction: The provision of specially formatted materials is a complex and increasingly difficult task, given the extensive and burgeoning range of texts and resources available for classroom use. The need to extend the provision of accessible formats to include digital resources (in addition to braille, audio, and large print) led to a study…

Diagram describing texts are integral part of science and engineering subjects including geometry, physics, engineering drawing, etc. In order to understand such text, one, at first, tries to draw or perceive the underlying diagram. For perception of the blind students such diagrams need to be drawn in some non-visual accessible form like tactile…

This synthesis examined the research literature from 1965 to 2009 on the assistive technology that is used by individuals with visual impairments. The authors located and reviewed 256 articles for evidence-based research on assistive technology that had a positive impact on educational performance. Of the 256 studies, only 2 provided promising…

Over 5 months, the authors evaluated the efficacy of electronic assistive technology (the BrailleNote mPower BT-32 notetaker and Tiger Cub Jr. embosser) and associated software components in creating curriculum materials for a middle school Braille-reading student. The authors collected data at the beginning and end of the study from parents,…

This study provides an overview of the various products available for library patrons with blindness or visual impairments. To provide some insight into the status of library services for patrons with blindness, a sample of American universities that are recognized for their programs for students with visual impairments was surveyed to discern…

Three braille translation programs, which translate computerized text files into new files of ASCII representative grade 2 braille, are evaluated, including "Braille-Talk,""PC Braille," and "The Duxbury Translator." For each program, such items as documentation, ease of operation, formatting, embedded commands,…

The Computerized Braille Tutor is an interactive software tutorial that sighted persons can use to learn the literary braille code. The software presents 15 lessons that address different aspects of the literary braille code and include braille-translation exercises, proofreading exercises, and graded self-evaluation proficiency tests. (Author)

This article describes a software tutorial that can be used by people who are blind to learn the Nemeth Code of Braille mathematics notation. The program was designed for use with the Braille Lite, a note taker that has speech and a refreshable Braille display. The tutorial has 18 lessons. (CR)