Egil Hunstad
"MY WORLD" - NEW COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR
LANGUAGE TRAINING AND CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
An Experimental Investigation
Abstract: Hunstad, E. 1991. "My World" - New Computer Software for Language Training and Concept Development. The original Norwegian edition in: Synspedagogen nr. 4/1993 og 1/1994 (translated for the web-site of Hunstad Magnimaster SMC: October 2003).
Four congenitally visually handicapped subjects in the age range 619 years were tested to assess the extent to which they could visually identify the pictures and symbols of a newly developed computer programme, MY WORLD. The subjects in the experimental group had good oral language competence and general intellectual capacity, and were not handicapped other than through impairment of vision. Their visual acuity was measured, giving 3/60; 1/60; 1/120; 1/300. The programme offered certain options for setting the monitor display to give optimal viewing conditions for the user through individual adjustment of linear magnification, light intensity, contrast, and effective magnification. The subjects' results were compared both together, with the results of a control group (N=4) of normally sighted children, and with the results obtained by the present author using simulation spectacles which produced impaired vision corresponding to the four visual acuity levels possessed by the subjects of the experimental group. The results showed that the programme MY WORLD, with certain modifications, is likely to be very useful in the language training and concept development also for the visually impaired.
INTRODUCTION
In the attempt to give the handicapped young more appropriate conditions for learning, there is an increasing tendency to take computers into use, both in
the home and the school. But it is still something of a problem to find suitable software which is capable of being modified to meet the individual needs of the handicapped. It has been especially difficult to find computer software for lan-guage and concept training, the built in facilities of which include the possibility of adjusting (optimizing) the learning conditions for children with sensory deficien-cy, whether inherited or not.
The programme MY WORLD (Utgaard 1990) is meant to be an instrument for developing language and conceptual skills for speech, reading and writing. It has been developed and tested at The National Centre of Logopedics at Bredtvet, Oslo, in collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry for Church, Education and Science (Research and Development Department), and is available both in Nor-wegian and English.
The primary target group for the programme is children who, for various reasons, call for more comprehensive and more varied language and concept training, such as those with specific language or speech difficulties, retarded language development, general learning difficulties, mental retardation, and/or motoric disability. Also children acquiring a second language are included in the primary target group.
The secondary target group includes children in the first and second class of the Primary School or those receiving special education using the wholeword method or the method based on accepting local dialects in reading training. The programme can also be adapted for pupils who receive their reading training by the vocalization method, and for preschool children for their game of make believe reading (Utgaard 1990 p. 9). Children with sensory loss, however, are not included in either of the two groups.
It is acknowledged that blind and visually impaired children constitute an especially vulnerable group when it comes to language development and con-cept learning (Cutsforth 1972, pp. 10-15, 38 and 48-70; Lowenfeld 1977, pp. 68-72; Warren 1977, pp. 155-161). It seems especially evident that congenital absence of, or reduced, visual acuity leads to socalled verbalisms. Warren (1977) defines verbalism as "the tendency of blind children to use words for which they could not have a firsthand sensory base." Verbalism is characterized by the absence of, or limited conceptual background for, objects and perceptual phenomena which, as wholes or in their details, are only available through the visual modality. Such objects and perceptual phenomena occur very frequently in the child's immediate environment, and might be e.g. details or qualities of a spider's web, soap bobles, the expression on someone's face, eyes and legs of insects, veins in leaves, stains on clothes, smoke and fire, and various kind of surface texture of toys and household objects, tracks in the snow and many kinds of movement, perspective and depth (Hunstad 1991, pp. 67). Verbalism gives a real handicap in language and concept development, which seems most evident among the completely blind. But various degrees of visual impairment (Table I) can lead to the same or similar limitations in the learning of concepts and language, at least among socially/practically blind children with visual acuity 3/60 or less.
Table 1. Brief overview of categorization of low-vision and blindness
with visual acuity as a criterion (based on the criteria of WHO).
Group: / Visual Aquity Fraction: / Decimal fraction: / Count Fingers:Low-vision / 6/18 – 6/60 / 0,3 –0,1 / --
Severe low-vision / =< 6/60 – 3/60 / =< 0,1 – 0,05 / =< 6m – 3m
Socially blind / =< 3/60 – 1/60 / =< 0,05 – 0,017 / =< 3m – 1m
Practically blind:
A...... /
=< 1/60 – 1/1200 / =<0,017–0,0008 / =<1m–ad oc.*
B...... Hand movements ad oculun (5-10 cm)*
C...... Light projection (abillity to localize light)
Totally blind / A. Light projection (can see light but not localize it)
B. Amourosis
Poor development of language ability that is due to verbalism may be compen-sated only slightly through the other senses by using models and synonyms or with traditional use or exploitation of residual vision, e.g. attention training and the use of highpowered lenses.
On the other hand, electronoptical devices CCTV (Closed Circuit Television Systems) offer unique possibilities for the optimizing of sight conditions (Pots et al. 1959; Genensky et al. 1972; Hunstad, Selnes & Krekling 1979; Hunstad and Selnes 1980; Hunstad 1985; Lund 1991).
Also computers are electronoptical devices, such that through using EDP (elec-tronic data processing) it is possible to achieve optimization of sight conditions equivalent to that with CCTV, as the works of several authors have shown (Peli et al. 1986; Hunstad 1990a; Lindstrøm 1990; Miller-Wood, Efron and Wood 1990). For the most part, these reports on CCTV and EDP emphasize also that optimized sight conditions at an early age promote language and concept devel-opment.
The similarities between CCTV and EDP hardware are many. Through individual testing, and adjustment of the parameters of linear magnification, light intensity, contrast, and effective magnification, both CCTV and EDP have given those with great visual handicap new opportunities for, among other things, word proces-sing. Electronoptics offer the advantage of often permitting optimal individual sight conditions for low levels of visual acuity when the most advanced high powered lenses no longer suffice (Hunstad 1983, p.216). In this way CCTV has allowed identification of geometrical figures and slow reading (with full text comprehension) among those with visual acuity as low as light projection (Hun-stad 1985, pp.24-26; Hunstad 1987, p.9), and those in the visual acuity range 1/60 to count fingers ad oculum have reached reading speeds of more than 70 word/min. (Hunstad 1987, p. 11). These results from CCTV, as far as we know, do not have a counterpart in the use of EDP. However, it is the case that there is a considerable body of clinical experience showing that EDP may be at least as good as CCTV in optimizing conditions for the visually handicapped.
Even though handwriting, typescript and drawings can be produced on the screen by the pupil, the primary use of CCTV is as an efficient means for intake (input) of information. The information intake occurs as the pupil uses the camera to fetch text and pictures directly from reading material, e.g. books, magazines and newspapers, to the screen. The pupil is also able to study concrete objects in the same way, providing they are of a suitable size. In itself, optimization has a limited value. It is when optimizing is used as a means for systematic information intake in order to facilitate language stimulation, both oral and written, and to ease learning among the visually handicapped that it also finds its educational justification. In this way, successful optimization points the direction towards better and more methodical procedures to be followed in the habilitation and rehabilitation of the visually handicapped. That is just the way in which attempts have been made to use CCTV during the last 810 years in language teaching for the visually handicapped. The problem, however, is that each teacher works with his own integrated visually handicapped pupil, but lacks a shared specific languagetheoretic frame of reference that might serve as a point of departure for the choice of concretizing material, methods of training, and of the progression to be aimed for in the educational work. This is the reason why it is important that the programme MY WORLD is now distributed. Even though MY WORLD's languagetheoretic frame of reference and methodological design might be questioned, it gives in any case a shareable standpoint, so that teachers engaged in their day to day work and in participating in courses, might better communicate with each other about their choice of methods and the results attained by their pupils. These are the very conditions that could help strengthen the professional consensus that has to exist in order to achieve renewal and development in language education for the visually handicapped.
MY WORLD is a pictureworld constructed of happenings and experiences to do with people, animals, nature and concrete objects fetched directly from the child's immediate surroundings. Such picture material is rarely or perhaps never visually available for those with a severe visual handicap. For this group the visual pictures have to be converted to tactile representations or else given through verbal descriptions, which inevitably involves a great loss of information. To the degree that optimization of sight conditions may offer the visually handi-capped visual information, we have here the main reason why it should be undertaken. Through optimization of the conditions for viewing analogue photo-graphs on CCTV it has been shown that the severely visually impaired (visual acuity < 1/60) are able e.g. to comprehend faces and describe facial expressions (Hunstad 1987, pp. 15-16). With a still more advanced, computerized, optimi-zation technique (controlled distortion of digital images), Peli et al. (1986) have achieved contrast effects in photographs that further increase the possibilities for better sight function among the severely visually handicapped.
In contrast with CCTV, EDP is first and foremost an efficient means for output of information. In the same way as computer wordprocessing has progressively replaced typewriting and handwriting for the fullysighted, EDP will perhaps do even more for the severely visually handicapped. But as regards the intake of in-formation (learning) for the severely visually handicapped, EDP cannot replace CCTV. The production of software for EDP will hardly ever be of a level to match the variety and uptodate nature of the material found in textbooks, the daily press, and other publications. The purpose of this present experimental testing, meanwhile, is to investigate the possibility, and potential value, of producing EDP software to be used in language and concept training for the input of information, also for the visually handicapped.
The programme MY WORLD contains 164 concepts linked to 12 "head cate-gories". The concepts are linked to various objects. Some of the concepts are re-presented by different objects, and some objects represent several concepts. Digitized speech is used and the combination of picture, text and speech is a central feature. The programme consists of three sets of pictures which are alike in structure: 1. Landscape; 2. Fairy tales; 3. My day.
In addition the programme contains two further programme modules which are available from each of the three picture sets: "match word with picture" and "a simple wordprocessor" (Utgaard 1990, pp. 16-17).
Even at with the initial view of the programme MY WORLD it was possible to notice that the pictures for all of the 164 subordinate concepts could be enlarged (3 fixed sizes). The least picturesize up to picturesize 2 and 3, gave respectively 2x and 3x linear magnification. The 3 picture sets had a fixed size that covered approximately 3/4 of the screen. Taken together with the possibilities for effective magnification (size of the retina image in relation to viewing distance), this pro-gramme might possibly provide adequate optimized sight conditions for the visually handicapped. This provides the primary question for the present testing.
The drawings in MY WORLD are saturated and unsaturated line drawings with varied degrees of detail, often in colour. It thus became an interesting further question to see if variation of the parameters of lightintensity and contrast in trials with visually handicapped subjects could offer even further optimization of sight conditions.
MY WORLD has not been made with the visually handicapped as a target group in mind. "Critique" below thus has to be considered in relation to the original aim of the programme. It may be said at once that for the visually handicapped the programme is good, but not good enough. This is a matter for discussion in its own right and we shall return to this point subsequently.
METHOD
Apparatus
The programme MY WORLD was installed on the harddisk of an IBM PS2 per-sonal computer (2Mb RAM and 14" colour monitor with EGA).
The testing of the programme was limited to the pictureset "My Day" using background picture 3 (girl) and the group concepts "table cutlery" / "food". Twelve pictures, with adjustable size, representing subordinate concepts were chosen: plate, fork, glass, porridge bowl (with spoon), knife, /bread, milk, cheese, salami, flour and plant seeds. In addition girl, chair, table (with details and fixed size) of the background picture 3, as well as the written words for the subordinate con-cepts, were presented as identification objects for the subjects (see Fig.1). It might have been desirable to test all the pictures supplied with the programme, but the actual circumstances of testing did not permit this. Nevertheless, the selected concepts should be reasonably representative for the whole range that the programme provides. In regard to the demands they make on sight function, e.g. the amount of detail of the pictures, possibilities for movement of the pic-tures and perspective in background picture 3, the selected pictures should be approximately the same as the remaining ones. A shortcoming of the experi-ment, however, is that the sight function of the subjects, and their concept under-standing concerning distant objects (the programme's pictures of outdoors things), were not tested.