Low Vision Technology Fair

Today I attended the "Low Vision Technology Fair" at the Beltrone Living Center in Albany, NY. The event, presented by the Northeastern Association of the Blind at Abany (NABA), consisted of program presentations, vendor displays, and vision-related group displays. I was there for about two hours and learned a great deal about assistive technology (AT) for the blind and visually impaired.

I participated in a presentation titled "Independent Mobility & Travel with Vision Loss" given by Harriet Seeley of NABA. Seeley's job is to train those with low or no vision to orient themselves to their environment and travel safely. She displayed a number of devices which could be used in this endeavor, all of them low tech. Canes with red and white markings that indicated visual impairment, both collapsible and those which could also be used for support, were demonstrated. Ice grippers, bright reflective vests, sun/glare glasses, telescopes, sports goggles were also shown. All these devices could be obtained from NABA, free-of-charge to legally blind individuals, and their use would be supported by specialists at the organization. Seeley finished be demonstrating a sighted guide technique whereby a person with sight guides a person with low or no vision. It seems the best mobility aid isn't a device but a friend.

I made my rounds of the exhibitions after the mobility presentation. Only one vendor was displaying handheld magnifiers and low tech optical devices. Five companies represented - ABISee, Eschenbach, Freedom Scientific, Humanware, Magnisight - displayed their electronic magnification devices. Not a surprise, since this was a "tech fair". The companies had hand-held, table, and computer-attachable devices. These had built in cameras which fed the image of text to a display. Some of the larger devices could snap an image of the text, send it to an OCR engine, and then create text-to-speech output. A few of these units could use the cameras to zoom in on distant images, like the blackboard in a classroom. The smaller devices ran about $500 while the larger ones seem to be in the $3000 to $4000 range. When asked Bill Kilroy, the Freedom Science representative, said that high tech readers were becoming more popular than low tech magnifiers.

Ai Squared exhibited their screen reader, ZoomText, at the fair; Freedom Scientific provided a demo disk for their screen reader, JAWS. This technology reads everything on a computer screen as the user navigates using keyboard commands. Ai Squared can be used in conjunction with a special keyboard that has shortcuts to popular commands. My conversation with Bill Kilroy included his thoughts on using JAWS. I said that I had tried screen readers but had trouble following them when I could easily see what was going on the screen. He said that a user had to understand how files are organized and computers operate in general to be able to use one with a screen reader. Then it was all a matter of training.

WMHT's Radio Information Service (RISE) was represented at the fair. Volunteers read newspapers, national magazines, and books of interest over the air. Qualified people with print disabilities can borrow a special radio that picks up the signal. While not considered a new technology, radio has a place as an assistive technology. The telephone too, can be assistive technology. The United Way Northeast Region 2-1-1 connects people with information over the phone.

I learned a great deal at the Low Vision Technology Fair. Thanks NABA!