Blind Community Research Articles

Exploring travel‐related perspectives and experiences of physical disability communities

AbstractDespite the growing demand for accessible tourism, there remains a lack of research on the travel perspectives and experiences of people with disabilities. Social media platforms, such as Reddit, provide unique opportunities to understand the perspectives and experiences of people with disabilities. This study aimed to investigate travel‐related perspectives and experiences of physical disability communities, including wheelchair, deaf, and blind communities, to provide implications for travel service providers and policymakers to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of travel services. Using structural topic modeling and network analysis, 12 prominent topics related to travel perspectives and experiences among physical disability communities were identified to map their relationships. Our study highlights the significance of understanding the unique perspectives, experiences, and needs of individuals with disabilities in the hospitality and tourism industry. It provides implications for improving the accessibility and inclusivity of travel services.

Comparison, othering, and surveillance: Foucauldian discourse analysis of peer support in visual impairment rehabilitation services in South Africa.

Peer support has been identified as an important aspect of rehabilitation for visually impaired adults. However, there is a limited exploration in rehabilitation studies literature of the identity-related impact of these interventions, both at an individual and collective level. Through attending to the discourses on blindness, well-being, and social inclusion that circulate in organization cultures, this article considers the role that peer support plays in forming "blind communities" with particular characteristics, and what these communities might model about life with blindness, both to newly blind persons and to society. Foucauldian discourse analysis was conducted on semi-structured interviews with 18 visual impairment rehabilitation service users and eight rehabilitation practitioners at four organizations providing services in the Western Cape, South Africa. Formal peer support is lacking in the sampled organizations, suggesting that relational aspects are not a priority in rehabilitation practice. The formal and informal peer support that does exist in these services is shadowed by largely negative sociocultural beliefs about blindness. Participants described a culture of comparison, othering, and surveillance within which, the article suggests, they are unable to explore and embrace authentic and positive blind identities. This has implications for both individual and collective empowerment. Greater attention must be paid to both rehabilitation practitioner training and the design and implementation of rehabilitation services to the identity-level impact of rehabilitation. This is essential to develop services that promote individual and collective empowerment and that respond to the multilayered practical, social, and psychoemotional needs of blind adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Aural Eye

Human aural experience can be equally considered along spatial and temporal continuums. We hear at all times of the day and night, and within all places and spaces: built, natural, public, private and virtual. The territory – both physical and philosophical – between music composition for interior listening and traditional sound based research within environmental acoustics is gradually being occupied by the listener-centred approach of soundscape studies. Soundscape design is emerging as an interdisciplinary field within design education, and one that not only challenges the ocular-centric nature of most design education, but one that could provide a useful mode through which to investigate the coincidences between different design disciplines. This paper draws on the author’s own practice as a sound designer in a variety of spatial sound projects in built and virtual contexts to discuss ideas of landscape, interiority, space and place as experienced through listening. This will include aspects of Canopies: chimerical acoustic environments for the Southgate soundscape system, Ecstasis: human presence in digital environments for an interactive VR system and stereoscopic projections, and The Occupation of Space: Soundsites project with the Melbourne blind community.2 The ideas and technologies underpinning these projects also form the basis of a new pedagogy of sound and listening housed in the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory’s (SIAL) Sound Studios at RMIT University. The place and role of the Sound Studio’s program in providing an aural perspective that compliments the visual methodologies of co-located design disciplines is discussed.

Smart Glass for Visually Impaired People

Abstract: This review paper aims to underscore the significance of inclusive technology in enhancing the lives of individuals with visual impairments and examine how smart wearable glasses are considered a potential solution for addressing challenges related to object detection. The blind community faces several obstacles in a world where visual information is dominant. The study examines the body of research on smart glasses and emphasizes how object recognition helps to improve spatial awareness. It highlights the revolutionary effect of these gadgets in promoting independence and enhancing accessibility for blind people by summarizing recent research. This succinct assessment seeks to add to the existing methods of inclusive technology by highlighting the exciting possibilities of smart glasses in empowering the blind population.

Exploring the Health Behaviors of Young Adults Who Are Blind in South Korea

Introduction: Compared to sighted people, not only do people who are blind have multiple comorbidities and exhibit early mortality, but they also display high-risk health behaviors. To prevent problematic health behaviors affecting health-related quality of life and well-being, understanding the shared patterns of health behaviors among individuals with visual impairments, including blindness, is essential. Methods: This qualitative study explored the hidden constructs and patterns of health behaviors among employed young adults who are blind using a multiple case study analysis. Eight participants with self-reported total blindness were recruited via convenience sampling and recruitment postings. Results: The mean age was 27.43 ± 6.32 years with a range of 20–39 years. Seven males and one female completed the one-on-one telephone interviews. The study discovered eight patterns of health behaviors of young adults who are blind: (a) leading a sedentary lifestyle with physical inactivity, (b) eating irregularly and not cooking, (c) avoiding uncertainty and illness, (d) facing disability stigma in health care services, (e) seeking online information related to medical care, (f) sharing health-related information within the blind community, (g) receiving unreadable formats of health-related information, and (h) aiming for independence and autonomy in self-care. The following categorized health behavior constructs were extracted: perceived health problems, experiential attitude toward health care systems, health beliefs, perceived facilitators, and barriers. Discussion: The findings indicate that young adults who are blind prefer independent health-related activities. The identified problematic health behaviors were correlated to inaccessible healthcare resources. Implications for Practitioners: More accessible health resources enhancing the independence of young adults who are blind are needed to promote their health behaviors. For instance, more accessible fitness facilities and personalized exercise programs in workplaces and communities can motivate the physical activity of young adults who are blind.

An Exploration of the Impact of Audiobooks on the Blind Community

An Exploration of the Impact of Audiobooks on the Blind Community

An IoT-based vision alert for blind using interdisciplinary approaches

IoT-based Vision Alerts for the Blind is an innovative paper that utilizes wearable glasses equipped with cameras and IoT devices to empower the visually impaired. This study uses an interdisciplinary approach and investigates how multidisciplinary research and IoT technology can be used to create vision support systems for the blind. These glasses employ advanced sensors to recognize obstacles and provide real-time navigation assistance, significantly enhancing safety and independence. With an intuitive user interface designed for accessibility, this technology promises to revolutionize the lives of blind individuals by reducing dependence, increasing autonomy, and providing a heightened sense of security while navigating their surroundings. Vision Assistance for the Blind represents a significant step forward in assistive technology, promising to improve mobility and overall quality of life for the blind community.

Raspberry Pi Based Reader for Blind

The Braille machines are expensive and as a result, are not accessible to many. In particular, there is a need for a portable text reader that is affordable and readily available to the blind community. The designed system is a portable, low-cost, reading device made for blind people. The designed system also overcomes the limitation of a conventional Braille machine by making it affordable for the common masses. This paper proposes a smart reader for visually challenged people using raspberry pi. This paper addresses the integration of a complete Text Read-out system designed for the visually challenged. The designed system consists of a webcam interfaced with raspberry pi which accepts a page of printed text. This system uses OCR technology to convert images into text and reads out the text by using Text-to-Speech conversion. This system supports audio output via Speakers as well as headphones. The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) package is installed in raspberry pi which scans it into a digital document which is then subjected to skew correction, and segmentation, before feature extraction to perform classification. Once classified, the text is read out by a text-to-speech conversion unit (TTS engine) installed in raspberry pi. The output is fed to an audio amplifier before it is read out.

Object Detection with Voice Guidance to Assist Visually Impaired Using Yolov7

Abstract: Object recognition technology has revolutionized various domains such as autonomous vehicles, industrial facilities, and many more. However, the visually impaired individuals, who are most in need of this technology, have not been able to utilize it effectively. Therefore, this paper presents a deep learning-based object detection system that is specifically designed for the blind community. The system incorporates the YOLOV7 (You Only Look Once) algorithm for object recognition and uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology to provide a voice-guidance technique that conveys information about the objects around them. The main objective of the proposed system is to empower visually challenged individuals to independently identify objects in a particular space without relying on external assistance. The system's efficiency and performance are thoroughly scrutinized through experiments to validate its accuracy and effectiveness. The proposed system employs technical terms such as deep learning, object recognition, YOLOV7 algorithm, and also image classification techniques for feature identification and extraction of the video frames and categorize them into the respective classes. It uses COCO dataset, which consist of around 123,287 hand-labeled images classified into 80 categories, has been utilized to train the proposed system. In conclusion, the suggested system for object detection uses cutting-edge deep learning techniques along with voice guidance methods to assist individuals who are visually impaired in identifying objects independently. The performance of the system is evaluated through experiments, demonstrating its effectiveness and potential for real-world applications

Using Object Detection Technology to Identify Defects in Clothing for Blind People.

Blind people often encounter challenges in managing their clothing, specifically in identifying defects such as stains or holes. With the progress of the computer vision field, it is crucial to minimize these limitations as much as possible to assist blind people with selecting appropriate clothing. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to use object detection technology to categorize and detect stains on garments. The defect detection system proposed in this study relies on the You Only Look Once (YOLO) architecture, which is a single-stage object detector that is well-suited for automated inspection tasks. The authors collected a dataset of clothing with defects and used it to train and evaluate the proposed system. The methodology used for the optimization of the defect detection system was based on three main components: (i) increasing the dataset with new defects, illumination conditions, and backgrounds, (ii) introducing data augmentation, and (iii) introducing defect classification. The authors compared and evaluated three different YOLOv5 models. The results of this study demonstrate that the proposed approach is effective and suitable for different challenging defect detection conditions, showing high average precision (AP) values, and paving the way for a mobile application to be accessible for the blind community.

Experiences of Legally Blind Individuals at Different Stages of the Employment Cycle as These Relate to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act

The most recent data on the labor force participation rate of individuals who identify as being blind or having vision loss in the United States indicate it is approximately 44%. In 2014, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs promulgated regulations pertaining to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to address the continued lack of employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. These reforms had the potential to expand individuals with disabilities’ employment horizons as it was estimated that the number of employees who work directly under a federal contract number in the millions. Five years later, it is unclear how federal contractors are implementing these alterations to recruit and retain legally blind individuals. Using quantitative analysis of responses from 140 current/former legally blind employees and job applicants, this research measured the current employment outcomes of the legally blind community in relation to the Section 503 regulations update. Gaps in employment for legally blind individuals existed, especially in regards to the job classifications in which they found the most success and whether the position held was disability-oriented. These results will inform HR professionals, policymakers, and blind advocates on how to proceed in developing effective disability-conscious workplace laws and policies.

Review of Andrew Leland’s The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

Review of Andrew Leland’s The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

The social construction of genomics and genetic analysis in ocular diseases in Ibadan, South-western Nigeria.

Genomics, an emerging field to improve public health practice, has potential benefits to understanding ocular diseases. This study explored the social construction of genomics in ocular diseases in the blind community in Ibadan, Nigeria, through two focus group discussions and twelve in-depth interview sessions conducted among people living with ocular disorders. The data were thematic and content-analysed. Although the participants had limited knowledge about ocular diseases, genomics, and their nexus, they maintained a positive attitude toward its potential benefits. This informed their willingness to participate in genomics testing for ocular diseases. The participants preferred saliva-based sample collection over blood-based, and expressed concern for the procedure and accrued benefits of genomics studies. Thus, public sensitisation about ocular diseases and client-centred genomics testing procedures should be engendered.

Problem Solving for Learning Disabilities in Malaysian Muslim Blind Community

Issues which are consist in learning disability context for the blind comprises several aspects such as; teachers did not teach the Quran by using the Quran in braille, have not mastered in Quran Braille code, have not basic learning on the Quran and alphabetical character. This article attempts to find out the issues and challenges of learning disabilities experienced by Muslim Blind Community in Malaysia. The study also aims to solve problems on learning disabilities among Muslim blind community in Malaysia by using braille approach. This study undertakes an analysis of people with learning disabilities based on issues and challenges as the main sources of reference by adopting the document analysis method. Therefore, this study used a qualitative method with a protocol of observation and analysis of several sources to get data and information. The outcome of this article suggests that the Malaysia government needs to make improvements in order to enhance the quality of education for people with learning disabilities and create a special education program for them. This paper clarifies that the methods and point solutions to the problems faced by this kind of people is considered as a new issue and supposed to be handled by government and private sector

SoundSight: a mobile sensory substitution device that sonifies colour, distance, and temperature

Depth, colour, and thermal images contain practical and actionable information for the blind. Conveying this information through alternative modalities such as audition creates new interaction possibilities for users as well as opportunities to study neuroplasticity. The ‘SoundSight’ App (www.SoundSight.co.uk) is a smartphone platform that allows 3D position, colour, and thermal information to directly control thousands of high-quality sounds in real-time to create completely unique and responsive soundscapes for the user. Users can select the specific sensor input and style of auditory output, which can be based on anything—tones, rainfall, speech, instruments, or even full musical tracks. Appropriate default settings for image-sonification are given by designers, but users still have a fine degree of control over the timing and selection of these sounds. Through utilising smartphone technology with a novel approach to sonification, the SoundSight App provides a cheap, widely accessible, scalable, and flexible sensory tool. In this paper we discuss common problems encountered with assistive sensory tools reaching long-term adoption, how our device seeks to address these problems, its theoretical background, its technical implementation, and finally we showcase both initial user experiences and a range of use case scenarios for scientists, artists, and the blind community.

Developing accessible technologies for a changing world: understanding how people with vision impairment use smartphones

Over a six week period, 845 people with low vision or blindness responded to our survey regarding how they used their smartphone, contributing to the first ever large-scale research project on the importance of smartphones in the Australian blind community. The results were significant − 79% of people with vision impairment use smartphones. They are part of their everyday lives and used for a broad range of purposes. Furthermore, the broad adoption of this device is a recent phenomenon – there has been a 365% increase in smartphone use in less than five years. While the rapid uptake of the smartphone by the vision impaired community demonstrates one level of ‘access’ is being achieved, we also identified ongoing issues impacting users. Our research demonstrates that people with disability must be included in the development process in order to ensure technological advancements are empowering and inclusive, especially in challenging times.

Analysis and Validation of Cross-Modal Generative Adversarial Network for Sensory Substitution.

Visual-auditory sensory substitution has demonstrated great potential to help visually impaired and blind groups to recognize objects and to perform basic navigational tasks. However, the high latency between visual information acquisition and auditory transduction may contribute to the lack of the successful adoption of such aid technologies in the blind community; thus far, substitution methods have remained only laboratory-scale research or pilot demonstrations. This high latency for data conversion leads to challenges in perceiving fast-moving objects or rapid environmental changes. To reduce this latency, prior analysis of auditory sensitivity is necessary. However, existing auditory sensitivity analyses are subjective because they were conducted using human behavioral analysis. Therefore, in this study, we propose a cross-modal generative adversarial network-based evaluation method to find an optimal auditory sensitivity to reduce transmission latency in visual-auditory sensory substitution, which is related to the perception of visual information. We further conducted a human-based assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model-based analysis in human behavioral experiments. We conducted experiments with three participant groups, including sighted users (SU), congenitally blind (CB) and late-blind (LB) individuals. Experimental results from the proposed model showed that the temporal length of the auditory signal for sensory substitution could be reduced by 50%. This result indicates the possibility of improving the performance of the conventional vOICe method by up to two times. We confirmed that our experimental results are consistent with human assessment through behavioral experiments. Analyzing auditory sensitivity with deep learning models has the potential to improve the efficiency of sensory substitution.

Sign Language and Common Gesture Using CNN

The Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Community and the general public have a true communication difficulty. The advancements made during the automated signing recognition try to break down the communication barrier. Our commitment considers a recognition method based on the Microsoft Kinect, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and GPU acceleration. CNNs are prepared to automate the procedure of feature construction rather than developing intricate handcrafted features.We have a high level of accuracy in recognizing gestures and sign language. We also created more modules to make communication easier for persons with diverse abilities.This Project Mainlyto help the deaf, dumb and blind community by using this project approach this community can be able to communicate like a normal human being for this have used different modules for that.

Development of SelfSpeaking Body Weight Scale for Visually Impaired People in Tanzania

Speaking weight scale is an important low vision health aid that measures and announces the measured weight. It is valuable in numerous applications such as Bathroom scale, Kitchen scale, and more. Different talking scales have been developed for the blind community. Many talking scales have language options for English, German, French, or Spanish. However, only limited work exists for Self speaking visually impaired community in EAC given the fact that no talking scale can announce weight in Self which is the common language in EAC. Therefore, this project aims to develop a Self-speaking weighing machine to assist visually impaired people in Tanzania. The developed device is divided into two major parts. On the front end of the design, sensors are used to capture weight parameters. The captured values are mapped onto a sequence of voice patterns. The back-end consists of transferring a sequence of voice patterns to a loudspeaker whereby the voice patterns are stored on an SD card. Finally, the developed device has been evaluated on several objects with known weights. The results show that the developed device accurately measures weight, displays weight, and announces it in the Self language. However, blind people still need assistance from sighted persons to be directed to the scale’s platform. The developed device has great potential as a low vision health aid for Self speakers. Moreover, the features of this device can be further improved by integrating iBeacon technology to increase the autonomy of blind people to use the scale and navigate to the device’s location safely.

HERO WITH ZEROES?: Tensions of Using an Anti-Discrimination Framework and an Impact Case Approach for Disability Rights Advocacy in China

In 2014, a blind massage therapist named Li Jinsheng took the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Braille, the first to do so in China. To everyone's surprise, he turned in blank answer sheets for two of the four subjects, which generated strong criticisms from the general public and blind communities. This article examines the conditions, process, and aftermaths of this event to consider what it means to use an anti-discrimination framework and an impact case approach for disability rights advocacy. Data comes from observation of media representations and discussions, interviews with key actors and stakeholders, and a focus group with blind college students.Our analysis of Li's case shows that in China, anti-discrimination actions often take the form of using individual cases to attack single, identifiable policy barriers, and they are typically carried out by people who are not directly impacted by the state's paternalistic biobureaucracy or the vulnerabilities it generates. As such, these cases might not sufficiently represent the desires and struggles of most people with disabilities, and the individualistic approach might further alienate the disabled communities. While effective in dismantling the particular policy barrier, such anti-discrimination actions may fall short of addressing more systemic, structural issues. This article ends with reflections on the tensions in using anti-discrimination impact cases in China and beyond, and on how to work on deeper struggles and build broader alliances in disability rights advocacy.