Technology to Improve Learning for Children with a Visual Impairment

Haptics and multimodal-human-computer interaction leaders around the world use common software architecture to develop interfaces and applications that children with a visual impairment can use to handle data and to work and communicate with others.

The IST program gives financial support to the creation of the multimodal software architecture and participants in the MICOLE project have begun to test interfaces and application prototypes. With the use of haptic technology, the visual applications can take advantage of the sense of touch. By means of multimodal processing, the system accommodates users’ different levels of disability using touch and hearing. Project coordinator Roope Raisamo of the University of Tampere in Finland says, “The system adapts to the users.”

Primarily aimed at children with a visual impairment, it also facilitates collaboration between sighted and visually impaired children. Among the interfaces and application prototypes that have been developed are an electronic browser, rhythm reproduction, Post-It notes with a haptic bar code, virtual maracas (percussion instruments), a tactile maze game, memory games, a haptic version of Pong and explorative learning of the internal layers of the earth. The MICOLE project is a three-year initiative and will continue until August 2007.

Source: IST Results