The world has witnessed many advances in technology which have provided dignity, safety, independence and comfort to people, in particular those who are physically or mentally challenged. Unfortunately, only a few have access to these, owing to financial or other reasons.

Problems of the visually impaired have received more attention from researchers than any other category of the disabled. Since the invention of Braille in 1829, research has helped in changing its design from complex to simple. Most visually challenged students have moved from attending segregated residential or non-residential schools to being integrated into public school programmes. As a result, the use of Braille has gone down.

New inventions such as voice recorders and computers with synthetic speech are responsible for overshadowing the use of Braille, but they help students with their many different subjects of interest. A number of softwares have been introduced to meet the challenge of low or no-vision people. Screen readers are now popular among them, as these help the visually challenged to read newspapers and most forms of written material.

Reader-friendly

Blind and visually impaired persons today can perform internet operations — such as reading web pages — demanded by engineering and information technology jobs. But the blinking pop-up advertisements have become a real problem which needs to be rectified.

A new portable device of audio-reading combining a digital camera with a PDA (a reader software which uses optical character recognition to process images) hand-held computer allows visually challenged users to transform any printed text such as time tables, menu cards, receipts or labels into computer-generated speech.

Another new technology, named Navigation and Expert Interaction Logic, now allows the visually impaired to work on the same level with people in the BPO industry. It offers them a talking companion which is of great help to those trained in marketing to work as tele-marketing executives. The simple technology transforms coded data into voice format through a landline telephone instrument. The caller first listens to the information and then makes a call to the customer.

Teaching tools

As technology advances, the knowledge of Braille seems to lose its importance. A new problem is emerging globally alongside these developments. A section of people has started debating whether listening to a document will be the same as reading it. Can one become literate without knowing the alphabet? Listening cannot be the way to literacy. This is a serious matter as more and more children with visual impairment and other sorts of disability that prevent them from learning to read are being introduced to these new technologies.

Literacy is the ability to use language — in other words, reading and writing — for written communication and social interaction. Therefore, if this conventional definition is not updated and modified now, many of those who have used unconventional methods of learning will not be considered literate though they may have degrees and diplomas. The conflict between the literacy and acquisition of knowledge has to be settled before this becomes a legal problem.

In India, only half of the visually impaired population is literate in official records. If modern technology is the main resource for teaching young visually challenged persons, then in the next census there will arise a technical problem in deciding whether these students are literate. What is of most importance is that technologies be made available to all to satisfy the slogan “education for all”.