Maze Day 2005 for Visually Impaired Children

At a special event of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Computer Science Department, visually impaired children tried audio-based computer games developed by UNC students.

A blind child made his way through a simple maze Wednesday at UNC and smiled brightly when he reached the end.
 
The sound of wolves howling and elephants roaring could be heard coming from the maze, but the young boy wanted to try it again.
 
For the children, it was a fun day to try computer games designed just for them, and for the UNC students, it was a chance to receive feedback about the computer programs they had developed.
 
There are few software programs for the blind and some of them are cumbersome and difficult to use. But through a UNC computer science course called Enabling Technology, UNC students are developing programs for blind people from age two and up. For the very young children, the programs help them learn directions and sounds. For older people, the programs can help them complete graduate research papers.
 
UNC graduate student Peter Perente demonstrated a screen-reading and writing program he is developing that will make browsing the Internet and working on computers much easier than with JAWS, the program that most blind people use. “It will be more like the way people talk,” Perente said.

Source: Durham Herald Sun