The Haptic Deictic System—HDS: Bringing Blind Students to Mainstream Classrooms

  • Authors:
  • Francisco Oliveira;Francis Quek;Heidi Cowan;Bing Fang

  • Affiliations:
  • Ceará State University, Brazil;Virgina Tech, Blacksburg;Wright State University, Dayton;Virgina Tech, Blacksburg

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Haptics
  • Year:
  • 2012
  • Enabling the blind to see gestures

    ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) - Special issue on the theory and practice of embodied interaction in HCI and interaction design

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Abstract

Mathematics instruction and discourse typically involve two modes of communication: speech and graphical presentation. For the communication to remain situated, dynamic synchrony must be maintained between the speech and dynamic focus in the graphics. In sighted people, vision is used for two purposes: access to graphical material and awareness of embodied behavior. This embodiment awareness keeps communication situated with visual material and speech. Our goal is to assist students who are blind or visually impaired (SBVI) in the access to such instruction/communication. We employ the typical approach of sensory replacement for the missing visual sense. Haptic fingertip reading can replace visual material. We want to make the SBVI aware of the deictic gestures performed by the teacher over the graphic in conjunction with speech. We employ a haptic glove interface to facilitate this embodiment awareness. We address issues from the conception through the design and implementation to the effective and successful use of our Haptic Deictic System (HDS) in inclusive classrooms.