Supporting learning for individuals with visual impairment

This paper presents an embodied perspective on the development of multimodal and perceptual replacement technologies for Individuals with Blindness or Severe Visual Impairment (IBSVI). The premise is that much of the difficulties encountered by IBSVI comes from the fact that our cultural world and means of information exchange and design are inextricably associated with the capabilities of embodied humans endowed with spatial vision. We present a pair of projects associated with supporting mathematics instruction and learning to IBSVI. The first relates to the particulars of embodied human discourse where gesture allows dynamic fusion of spoken and visual instruction content. We developed a system that addresses this challenge using computer vision and haptic technology. In the second project, we address the problems encountered by IBSVI in accessing information through reading. Our e-Reader system allows IBSVI to engage in active reading at their own pace and control.