What is Typhlotechnology and How Does it Contribute to Educational Inclusion?

Previously, we have written about how technology has been relevant in achieving educational inclusion. The properties of technology support the integration of different learning styles in the classroom, address particular needs, or optimize assessment processes. However, these standards are not always adopted, creating a barrier for people with disabilities.

Typhlotechnology has emerged to help people with blindness or visual impairments access electronic information and communication technologies to facilitate their independence and personal autonomy.

In 2008, the Royal Spanish Academy incorporated “typhlotechnology” into their dictionary. “Tiflo” comes from the Greek tiflus, which means blind. Several researchers define this technology as a set of methods, knowledge, and means to provide people with blindness and visual impairments the necessary resources to use technology. Typhlotechnology allows people access to various environments where it is possible to interact and learn.

To prevent the segregation of people with blindness or a visual impairment, two formats of typhlotechnology exist: the specific typhlotechnology that includes technological devices created for the exclusive use of people with visual disabilities and the adapted, which involves adjusting hardware and software so people with partial or complete visual impairments can use standard equipment.

The beginnings of typhlotechnology

Paola Pérez, a typhlotechnologist and programmer analyst, explains that the beginnings of typhlotechnology trace back to Wolfgang von Kempeken’s prototype of a talking machine in 1791, Fouçault’s rafigraphy in 1841 for communication between blind people and, of course, the reading and writing system Braille, created by Louis Braille in 1825.

Perez points out that talking machines transformed into speech synthesizers when electricity arrived. In 1939, the American Homer Dudley created Voder, the first step toward today’s synthesizers. In the fifties, Frank Cooper achieved speech synthesis by employing a computer.

Professor Caridad Hernández Pérez states that the interest in educating visually impaired people dates back to the eighteenth century when the first school for children and adolescents with blindness opened in France. This moment marks the first steps toward developing a specific pedagogy for blind people, and typhlopedagogy begins.

Features and examples

To provide technologies for people with disabilities, scientists and educators created and transformed tools such as speech synthesizers, screen readers, optical character readers, Braille keyboards, text and image magnifiers, and talking scanners, among other solutions.

Silvia Patricia Aquino Zúñiga, Verónica García Martínez, and Manuel Jesús Izquierdo Sandoval, professor-researchers of the Academic Division of Education and the Arts at Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, highlight the attachments that allow adapting didactic materials for teaching. Examples are:

• Talking systems are literacy support devices that convert text into speech and vice versa. The software reads the digitalized writings aloud in several languages. The programs support reading documents, writing through dictation, surfing the internet, reading emails, and interacting on social networks. These screen readers include JAWS (Job Access With Speech), NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access), and Orca.
• Audio recording systems incorporate digital devices that record sound, creating transferable and downloadable files.
• Computer peripheral systems, such as some keyboards, have special commands that the person must learn. For example, Rivo is an assistive product that uses a keyboard to operate smartphones. Other systems, such as printers, pass the text to relief writing.
• Optical systems are helpful for those with low vision, that is, people with a reduced visual field but manage to see partially. These features are integrated into display amplifiers and contrast settings (such as Relumino) to improve the visibility of different texts and images. The magnifiers highlight the area with a digital magnifying glass, just as SuperNova Magnifier 12.

Pilar Zamora López and Cristina Marín Perabá, authors of “Typhlotechnologies for the student with visual impairments,” describe typhlotechnological resources used as support by visually impaired people to achieve personal inclusion and improve their lifestyles. They classify these tools into five groups:

1. Audio description: People with blindness or reduced vision can watch a narrated film describing what happens in the video. The application AudescMobile is currently available for devices with the Android operating system.
2. Embossed and Braille material: Braille is the alphabet commonly used by visually impaired people to read or write; however, there are also methods to draw or trace images with rulers or cogwheels.
3. Typhlotecno materials for games and sports are leisure activities made or adapted for people with visual impairments, such as chess with various reliefs between the white and black squares or goalball (a paralympic sport where sound identifies the ball’s trajectory).
4. Daily life devices support personal autonomy, for example, a cane for mobility or Eone watches, functional, durable non-intrusive watches.
5. High-tech devices that assist work or reading, such as a telemagnifier to enlarge a document in a field of view or a machine that reads information written in ink.

The authors mention that mobile devices and computers now allow people with blindness or visual impairments to perform and know the same information as people with normal vision. Smartphone applications can convert sound data for voice synthesizers. In addition, these phones have preset internal functions that support audio descriptions, zoom, reading screens aloud, and voice commands, among other utilities.

Towards inclusive education

Typhlotechnology has facilitated societal advances in including people with blindness and reduced vision, closing gaps in access to information. These resources integrate into the classroom and various areas for impaired persons. Zamora López and Marín Perabá suggest that teachers should keep up to date to provide quality and equitable teaching for all students.

The authors state that technology promotes easy access to learning processes, reduces obstacles, and guarantees the evolution of inclusive approaches. Using typhlotechnologies in the school environment means introducing and adopting these elements and designing didactic and training resources for practical access to knowledge.

In addition, it is necessary to specify the differences between people with blindness and people with visual difficulties to meet students’ needs adequately. Zamora López and Marín Perabá clarify that visual impairment can occur in anyone regardless of age; for some, it has to do with their birth, others by accident or aging.

Different types of visual impairments affect various levels or degrees of vision. Low vision signifies a restriction that limits the functions of the eye; this can imply a mild deficiency in the range of blindness. Although any degree of visual difficulty influences a person’s daily life, the affectations are different. Previously, an individual with reduced vision in the educational field was considered a blind person, which closed certain opportunities.

Ely García, a Latin American representative for the company Sunu, creator of the Sunu Band radar bracelet, says in her blog that visual impairment affects the perception of images in whole or in part. People then discover the world through sensations, smells, tastes, sounds, touch, or perhaps segmented images. Typhlotechnology promotes people’s academic, labor, and social development.

In another series of blog posts, Ely Garcia shares various options to facilitate visually impaired persons’ use of social networks by enabling specific settings in the applications. For Instagram, she recommends updating preferences such as the zoom function to make texts and images larger or generate automatic descriptions.

A study on typhlotechnology and inclusion in Ecuador conducted by Carlota María Bayas Jaramillo of the César Vallejo University found significant relationships between typhlotechnology, respect for differences and trust in people’s abilities, and equity in teaching. The researchers recommended that the management staff in universities adopt programs that strengthen the use of typhlotechnology through strategies that include students. They also urged teachers to conduct workshops to exchange learning experiences with technological resources and successful practices.

Typhlotechnology provides tools to address the needs of people with blindness or visual limitations and respond to their daily challenges. Thus, visually impaired people have access to the same knowledge, information, tastes, and opportunities as everyone else. What practices would you change in your training plan? What tools would help enhance your teaching methods?

Translation by Daniel Wetta

Nohemí Vilchis EdTech Specialist in Observatory for the Institute for the Future of Education (nohemi.vilchis@tec.mx)

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