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Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired
Assistive technology (AT) is any item, device, software, or product system used to enhance, maintain, or improve the functional abilities of people with disabilities. There are many people with disabilities in the world, including the visually impaired, the hearing impaired, and the physically impai...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8839832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35161794 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22031047 |
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author | Kiyota, Kimiyasu Ishibashi, Takaaki Shimakawa, Manabu Ito, Kazuyuki |
author_facet | Kiyota, Kimiyasu Ishibashi, Takaaki Shimakawa, Manabu Ito, Kazuyuki |
author_sort | Kiyota, Kimiyasu |
collection | PubMed |
description | Assistive technology (AT) is any item, device, software, or product system used to enhance, maintain, or improve the functional abilities of people with disabilities. There are many people with disabilities in the world, including the visually impaired, the hearing impaired, and the physically impaired. We established the National KOSEN Support Equipment Development Network (KOSEN-AT) with technical college faculty members 10 years ago to assist these disabled and elderly people. However, Japan is facing the challenge of a rapidly aging society, and the digital transformation of assistive device development for people with disabilities has not been adequately addressed. A major reason for this is the lack of engineers in Japan who can develop products with an understanding of the needs of people with disabilities and the elderly. In this paper, we describe a new initiative of the GEAR 5.0 program, a practical engineer education program that will enable the development of assistive devices for the physically challenged and the elderly, which started in 2020 at the National Institute of Technology in Japan. We believe that it is necessary to educate technicians not only with conventional specialized skills, but also with a full understanding of the concept of disability and basic skills in assistive technology. Next, we developed “Touch Talker”, a digital text reading system for the visually impaired. As a part of the GEAR 5.0 program, we conducted an evaluation experiment in which students from a technical college experienced visual impairment in the same blindfolded environment as visually impaired people to evaluate the developed assistive device. To verify its importance, we developed a digital text-to-speech system for the visually impaired, “Touch Talker”, as part of the GEAR 5.0 program. We thought that by conducting evaluation experiments in the same blindfolded environment as visually impaired people, we could make technical college students aware of the difficulties of operating digital devices due to visual impairment. The results of the experiment showed that the developed “Touch Talker” was effective for both the visually impaired group and the blindfolded technical college student group. The evaluation results also showed a similar trend, confirming that the evaluation by blindfolded technical college students is effective for the development of assistive devices for the visually impaired. In addition, the technical college students who participated in the evaluation experiment were able to understand the difficulty of operating digital devices by experiencing visual impairment. It was suggested that the perspective of the people involved is important in the development of assistive devices. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8839832 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88398322022-02-13 Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired Kiyota, Kimiyasu Ishibashi, Takaaki Shimakawa, Manabu Ito, Kazuyuki Sensors (Basel) Article Assistive technology (AT) is any item, device, software, or product system used to enhance, maintain, or improve the functional abilities of people with disabilities. There are many people with disabilities in the world, including the visually impaired, the hearing impaired, and the physically impaired. We established the National KOSEN Support Equipment Development Network (KOSEN-AT) with technical college faculty members 10 years ago to assist these disabled and elderly people. However, Japan is facing the challenge of a rapidly aging society, and the digital transformation of assistive device development for people with disabilities has not been adequately addressed. A major reason for this is the lack of engineers in Japan who can develop products with an understanding of the needs of people with disabilities and the elderly. In this paper, we describe a new initiative of the GEAR 5.0 program, a practical engineer education program that will enable the development of assistive devices for the physically challenged and the elderly, which started in 2020 at the National Institute of Technology in Japan. We believe that it is necessary to educate technicians not only with conventional specialized skills, but also with a full understanding of the concept of disability and basic skills in assistive technology. Next, we developed “Touch Talker”, a digital text reading system for the visually impaired. As a part of the GEAR 5.0 program, we conducted an evaluation experiment in which students from a technical college experienced visual impairment in the same blindfolded environment as visually impaired people to evaluate the developed assistive device. To verify its importance, we developed a digital text-to-speech system for the visually impaired, “Touch Talker”, as part of the GEAR 5.0 program. We thought that by conducting evaluation experiments in the same blindfolded environment as visually impaired people, we could make technical college students aware of the difficulties of operating digital devices due to visual impairment. The results of the experiment showed that the developed “Touch Talker” was effective for both the visually impaired group and the blindfolded technical college student group. The evaluation results also showed a similar trend, confirming that the evaluation by blindfolded technical college students is effective for the development of assistive devices for the visually impaired. In addition, the technical college students who participated in the evaluation experiment were able to understand the difficulty of operating digital devices by experiencing visual impairment. It was suggested that the perspective of the people involved is important in the development of assistive devices. MDPI 2022-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8839832/ /pubmed/35161794 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22031047 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Kiyota, Kimiyasu Ishibashi, Takaaki Shimakawa, Manabu Ito, Kazuyuki Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title | Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title_full | Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title_fullStr | Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title_full_unstemmed | Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title_short | Effects of Social Implementation Education for Assistive Device Engineers at NIT (KOSEN) through the Development of a Digital Reading Device for the Visually Impaired |
title_sort | effects of social implementation education for assistive device engineers at nit (kosen) through the development of a digital reading device for the visually impaired |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8839832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35161794 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22031047 |
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