Computer technology serving visually impaired students

The name TEREZA has been used for more than a decade as a name of The Centre for Facilitation of University Education for visually impaired students at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague. This centre was established thanks to the support of the international project TEMPUS in 1992.

The Centre TEREZA is not restricted to servicing visually impaired students at Czech Technical University in Prague. Thanks to a wide spectrum of particular activities and with the help of state-of-the-art computer technology it offers its services to university students in the whole Czech Republic and also to other educational institutions. Regular clients are also other visually impaired people that have either already completed their education or just consider a suitable university course.

The Centre TEREZA is not large, but it is a modern and among visually impaired students well-known facility where they find support in their studies - and that not only of the technical nature! The goal of the staff is a liberal approach to the clients that does not prescribe the exact extent and the manner of use of offered services. That is perhaps another source of our reputation over time as a centre that encourages students to explore individual ways of making special computer technology useful.

Progressive approach to integration of handicapped people into the general society and especially into university education claims that handicapped people can do practically everything that others do, but they need help doing it (that is, after all, the meaning of the currently common term "people with special needs"). Help can mean longer time for completing a test as well as a barrier-free access to a building. In TEREZA help means especially modern compensatory aids developed for the visually impaired in a PC.

Many researches and their interpretations show that we receive between 80 to 90 % of all our information through sight. Consequently, the blind student finds himself evidently at a disadvantage concerning access to specialist literature which is key to a successful university study. Books are translated into braille dots text only rarely, because their production is costly and the resulting book's bulk is considerable.

The procedure with printed texts without mathematical symbols is relatively straightforward. The text is with the help of scanner converted into its digital form, and then it is corrected and possibly converted into the final form.

If the student has remnants of sight left, he or she can use the so-called camera magnifier which enables those visually impaired reading who find the usual optical aids not helpful, even though they can still see a bit. The text is scanned by a special camera and displayed on a high-quality LCD in the required magnification.

From the technical point of view the most advanced compensatory tool working only in connection with the computer is tactile output, called more commonly "BrailleLine" by the blind. It is a device that converts the individual signs from the screen into their relief counterparts in braille.

Even though the blind user employs for processing say an email or a text those applications that almost all of us use daily, still their specific manner of use makes the sighted person ineligible even as an adviser.

It is possible, after specialist training, to get used to the idea that the classical mouse cannot be used, that one has to memorize a number of shortcut keys and penetrate at least minimally the complex workings of the screen-reader, a programme that reads aloud the information from the computer which the common user sees on the screen.

The progressive trend in the field of special technologies for the blind is the integration of voice output and braille line. A part of the information can be read aloud and another part displayed by the braille line. The blind user employs both senses while working - hearing and touch which thus complement each other.

The world of technology for the blind is not limited to computers. In TEREZA you can find among other gadgets the so-called fuser, a small table appliance for making tactile pictures, sketches and graphs. Even the best textual or verbal description often cannot replace the possibility to form an idea of an object by touching it with one's hands.

Today the blind can thanks to technology search the Internet, phone directories, use specifically designed applications and communicate through web sites with the bank or shop. Every "trifle" of this kind helps in the end increase the self-confidence and certainty of everyone who has either never seen or lost sight later. And often it is this self-confidence which is without exaggeration decisive in managing the tasks of university education and everyday life.