RE: Screen readers and how to develop them: A historical perspective
- From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:18:28 -0500
But see comparing sighted peoples reading with Braille is not correct. I
read even when I am not reading Braille. I understand sentences and
punctuation and spelling even if I use none of them in my emails. I am
literate if I got site today I could read the skill is all there. All
Braille is is a method to read. So I wish people would stop comparing a
sighted persons not being able to read to a blind persons not being able to
read with Braille. If I go character by character I could still read and
that would all be me doing it. Where as a sited person could not do that
even if he heard letter by letter if they didn't know how to read.
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:10 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Screen readers and how to develop them: A historical
perspective
Interesting discussion here.
I have experienced much like Jammal, that people who go blind later in
life, after the critical formative years of language development, have
it somewhat harder. It reminds me of an article published by one of
the big blindness trainning centers that describes a case study of
braille readers. The conclusion had been that in order to achieve
full proficiency with reading, one needs to devote a fairly
significant amount of time daily (upwards of hundreds of pages per
week). The average reader gets up to 60 to 70 words per minute and
then plateau's at which point the law of diminishing returns takes
hold. In other words, one needs to read orders of magnitude more to
achieve increases in speed and accuracy. I know that I've not put in
the thousands of pages per week in order to achieve such an increase
and I'll bet that most of us don't have the time or discipline of a an
academic course to put us over the top or the self discipline to do it
ourselves.
As someone who lost his sighted as first year of high school, I've
definitely been on both sides of the speech vs braille paradigm. I
used braille extensively in high school and found it incredibly useful
for taking notes and really digesting material while still being able
to formulate independent threads of thought. After some time, I would
also review the notes in speech form (gaining the advantage of speed);
I had taken the strengths of both approaches in other words. However,
in college, I took lots of higher math (real/complex analysis, number
theory, etc.) and lots of computer science. I never did use braille
for any of those subjects. I opted instead to do it much like I think
Ken has and become really efficient with the way in which I can parse
text using the keyboard, a set of text unit movement commands, and a
TTS engine. It's definitely not the way a lot of people go, but it
works for some of us.
Having both skillsets is nice though and definitely makes me a fair
better speller than most blind folks I know. All in all, braille is
one of those things that will always be touchy since there are those
who don't know it and don't really need it whereas most sighted people
at least have a base level of proficiency with reading the printed
word. That's why, I do think students who are blind should be held to
the same standards of their sighted peers in terms of concrete metrics
(i.e. braille grade 2 / 200 wpm by grade five and x
vocabulary/spelling + y screen reader proficiency).
On 12/22/10, Jackie McBride <abletec@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Well I'm trying to get better at Braille, but I'm kind of like
> Quenten--it's slow & frustrating. Nonetheless, when I found out in 97
> that I have an inner ear disease that could take my hearing, I decided
> I'd better get my a$$ in gear & learn. What I do find that I can do
> better in braille than w/anything else is things like sing in the
> choir, do worship readings dramatically, etc. Admittedly that's a very
> limited use. & I do those things in conjunction w/a braille
> notetaker/display, so I'd be in deep doo doo too if technology went
> away. I haven't really experimented w/other methods of doing these
> things, as until recently I haven't had any technology which would
> allow it. W/the arrival of my bookport, perhaps I could experiment, so
> I'm not sayin that braille is the only way to do even these things,
> though I am curious how one would do dramatic reading.
>
> I do think there is a problem when kids grow up w/no interaction w/the
> written word, be that in print or in braille. Unfortunately, that
> happens more w/blind kids because there aren't enough qualified
> braille teachers &/or because school districts don't wanna spend the
> money for it or because folks think all low vision kids should learn
> print even when it's clearly inefficient for them. I find that many of
> these folks, when grown, have very severe self-confidence issues when
> it comes to written communication w/others. So I guess my stance
> regarding kids is that they should learn written communication in
> whatever form is most useable for them.
>
> Hopefully this is middle ground? I do think that what we're all saying
> is that these modalities are tools, & we should use them as we're
> able.
>
> On 12/22/10, Alex Midence <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Hi, Sina,
>>
>> Please see my responses below. I want to make it clear that I don't
>> decry the use of technology. I think I came across as thinking this
>> way when I responsed to Ken's message by stating that braille is
>> useful when you don't have your tech around to help out. I did not
>> mean that you should not use it, give it up, or that it needed to go
>> away.
>>
>> On 12/22/10, Sina Bahram <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> I can read grade 2 Braille at possibly 100 words per minute, on a good
>>> day.
>>> I'm also, or at least used to be, fluent in nemeth for
>>> the level of math I took, which was several semesters of calculus,
linear
>>> algebra, differential equations, etc.
>>
>> Came in handy, did it not?
>>
>>> I definitely think braille is necessary, and amazingly useful,
>>
>> My point exactly!
>>
>>> when doing
>>> things like matrices, integrals, and complex derivatives,
>>> but there are other approaches to accomplish the same things.
>>
>> Glad you said so. I use braille a lot in math and find using speech
>> only rather cumbersome for this task. Long calculations require that
>> you can write your work out and refer to it as you go through it.
>> Lowers the margin for error since you eliminate reliance on memory
>> and remove the "forget" factor. Braille and print for that matter,
>> doesn't get sleepy, doesn't get distracted and doesn't have brain
>> farts. It is the constant in the equation.
>>
>>>
>>> Now, as a comparison, I understand synthetic speech at over 1,000 words
>>> per
>>> minute.
>>
>> Awesome. Congratulations! I wish I did. I can do 400 but that's about
>> it.
>>> Forgive me for not giving up my 10X efficiency.
>>
>> Noone's asking you to. Speech is a tool, braille is a tool, both do
>> good things and both are worth having and using to the best possible
>> advantage. You should not cheat yourself out of either.
>>
>>> Take care,
>>> Sina
>>>
>> Regards,
>> Alex M
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>
>
> --
> Change the world--1 deed at a time
> Jackie McBride
> Scripting Classes: http://jawsscripting.lonsdalemedia.org
> homePage: www.abletec.serverheaven.net
> For technophobes: www.technophoeb.com
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