Archives

Taken from our local paper, the Suffolk Free Press.

After reading a Free Press story about little Joshua Bacon, who suffers problems with his eyesight, Sudbury police officers have bought the three-year-old some much-needed equipment.

And this week his mum, Jen, said she wanted to thank the police for their kindness from the bottom of her heart.

Joshua has a condition called congenital nystagmus, which affects one in 2,000 people, causing problems with their sight. He was diagnosed with the condition as a baby.

Now, thanks to the police, Joshua is the proud owner of a tilted desk, some extra large-print story books and a special desktop magnifier for reading, which was donated from the Shona Gill Fund at Sudbury Police Station.

Jen said: “They got in touch after seeing us in theFree Press and kindly bought Joshua some much-needed equipment.

“We would like to say thank you to them for the generous donations as it wouldn’t have been possible without the story.”

For the full story, see this week’s Free Press.

Published on Thu 16th December 2010 11:09 AM

I came across this article when on the RNIB website. This device could be perfect for Joshua for reading and listening to Ebooks.

Source: RNIB.co.uk

Amazon’s Kindle talking menus promise more choice for blind and partially sighted readers

Congratulations

Today (27 August) the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) congratulates Amazon for improving the new Kindle ebook reader with important features that make it more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. In particular, the addition of audible menus should significantly improve the independent use of the Kindle by everyone who struggles to read standard print.

Accessibility features

Earlier this year the iPad was released with a range of built-in accessibility features. With the Kindle also building accessibility features in as standard, it is a great step forward in making reading accessible to the many people who cannot read standard print, such as those who have sight loss, dyslexia or a disability that makes it difficult to hold a book or turn a page.

Named ‘Voice Guide’, the audible menus should allow readers who cannot read standard print to navigate the Kindle independently. RNIB and other members of the Right to Read Alliance particularly welcome this feature, which can be used to select an ebook and activate the ‘Read to Me’ facility, that in turn outputs the text of an ebook as synthetic speech.

Changing expectations

RNIB’s Principal Manager of Digital Accessibility, Robin Spinks, says: “New technology is rightly changing the expectations of blind and partially sighted consumers. By embedding accessibility features, products like Amazon’s Kindle and the iPad are recognising that all consumers, including blind and partially sighted people, have a right to read and I look forward to a time when all devices come to market with accessibility built-in as standard.”

However, while audible menus and the ‘Read Me’ facility allow people who cannot read standard print to enjoy a greater range of books on the Kindle, a significant proportion still remain closed to them. Unlike the ebooks available on Apple’s iBooks app, the ability to convert text to synthetic speech is not available as standard for all Kindle ebooks, as it is sometimes disabled by publishers.

Right to Read Alliance

Chair of the Right to Read Alliance, Anna Tylor, says: “We are delighted that many publishers have chosen to enable text to speech on their ebooks, but it is still frustrating that not all ebooks can be read on the Kindle in this way. Text to speech enabled ebooks vastly increase the range of books accessible to people with print impairments, particularly when unabridged audio editions are not available.”

RNIB and the Right to Read Alliance would like to see all ebooks enabled with text to speech, across every platform. To that end, they are delighted to be working with the Publishers Association, the Publishers Licensing Society, the Association of Authors’ Agents and the Society of Authors to explore the full range of opportunities and challenges that text to speech enabled ebooks present for each stakeholder community, and are outlining ways forward to ensure that people with print impairments can access the full range of ebooks available using text to speech.

Richard King

Richard King, is blind and uses a screen reader. He says: “With audible menus I’ll be able to use the Kindle independently. But until I’m able to read using text to speech on all Kindle books, my reading choices are still limited. It’s great that some manufacturers and publishers are making it possible for me to read more books, but I really hope that others will soon do the same, so I can have the same choice as my sighted friends.”

As Amazon’s Kindle is new to the market, RNIB has not undertaken a full accessibility audit of the product yet. When this is completed more information about its accessibility features will be available from RNIB’s website. For more information from RNIB on ebooks visit www.rnib.org.uk/ebooks

Joshua’s playgroup has recently receiving funding  for a ClearView CCTV Magnifier.

Objects placed on the movable reading table can be magnified on the crystal clear display. This is a great tool to help Joshua with reading small font, viewing tiny objects as well as having fun magnifying objects. These photos were taken at playgroup showing Joshua magnifying a leaf and his hand.

The design enables easy magnification of any object at the twist of a button. A great device to help Joshua. A big big thankyou to his Playgroup and Visual Imparement Team for sourcing this. This is a great example to show there is help available out there you.