Abstract:

Technology and assistive devices allow students who are visually impaired to have access to electronic and printed material. Educational technology or assistive technology offers many advantages to students with visual impairment. Digital Talking Books (DTBs) are part of assistive technology and are the evolution of analog cassettes. The DAISY Consortium (DAISY denotes the Digital Accessible Information SYstem) has put much effort in developing worldwide standards for DTBs as well as for devices that support them. DTBs can be played in portable CD players, store in DVDs (in MP3 formats) and in turn render them through special software. The chief advantage of DTBs in comparison to analog cassettes is that the first ones offer the user the ability to move between the book chapters, contents, paragraphs, sentences, words, or even move between letters as well as between other visual document elements such as bookmarks, groups (footnotes, numbered and bulleted lists), specific phrases, and layers (chapters, sections, subsections etc.)].

The main research aim of the present pilot study focuses on issues of auditory access and effective listening when users with blindness receive information through different media. In specific, the study put emphasis on the effectiveness of DAISY digital talking books. Participants were invited to listen to matched scripts using DAISY technology and screen readers respectively.

The research design consisted of three phases:
(a) the training phase,
(b) treatments through DAISY technology, and
(c) treatments through screen readers.

The results showed that the participants dedicated more time in listening scripts and answering comprehension questions when using DAISY technology rather than when using screen readers. The discussion considered the practical implications of the findings such as issues regarding education as well as the development of suitable design of digital talking books or scripts. Although the study was pilot, it seems that active listening is reinforced by specialized technology such as DAISY which ultimately enables individuals with blindness to have effective access to the content and to visual characteristics of documents through their audio representations in order to understand and interpret information. It is vital to conduct similar studies increasing the size of the sample in order to shape a more integrated protocol of active listening and correlate its elements to levels of understanding.

Keywords:

Severe visual impairments, Digital Talking Books, DAISY, screen reader.