Statistics and Demographics
In 2003, the Task Force on Access to Information for Print-Disabled Canadians found that three million Canadians, or about 10 percent of the population, are print-disabled.

A 2004 report from Statistics Canada states there are approximately 69,700 Canadians over the age of 12 living with the dual disability of deaf-blindness or another combination of vision and hearing losses that limits their everyday activities.³ 

The population of Canadians who are blind, deaf-blind or visually impaired or is becoming increasingly older. Failing or poor vision often results from conditions that occur later in life.⁴  Many of these individuals are not computer literate and will find it difficult to learn how to use adaptive technologies.

Alternative formats
Print disabilities prevent people from reading standard print due to a visual, perceptual or physical disability. As a result, to meet their information needs, they require publications in alternative formats, such as Braille and audio, as well as adaptive electronic technology.

Braille
Braille is a tactile code that helps provide access to print information. It is equivalent to print.

Braille Cell

Braille is a tactile reading system of raised dots named after its inventor, Louis Braille. The system’s basic “Braille cell” consists of six dots numbered in a specific order, and grouped in two vertical columns of three dots each. To read Braille, individuals gently move their fingers over paper that has been embossed with the Braille code.

Each embossed dot, or combination of dots, represents a letter of the alphabet, small words, contractions, numbers, punctuation signs and even musical notes. Numbers are depicted by a number sign placed in front of the letters “a” to “j”.

There are two grades of proficiency: Grade 1 Braille, or Uncontracted Braille, is the most basic representation of letters, numbers and punctuation. This is the simplest form of Braille, as each word is spelled out in full. Individuals who are new to reading Braille would most likely prefer this form of Braille.

Grade 2, or Contracted Braille, introduces contractions for groups of letters (such as ing or con) and for whole words. In Contracted Braille, several rules govern how certain words or groups of letters are written in certain circumstances. Proficiency in reading Contracted Braille takes a great deal of memory and practice. The advantage of Contracted Braille is that it requires far less paper and can be read more quickly. Individuals who have read Braille since childhood will often prefer this format, as they can skim through a document just as a sighted individual can a print document.

Most individuals who are blind or partially sighted do not read Braille, but for those who do, it is invaluable, as it establishes and maintains their literacy and independence. Deaf-blind individuals rely on Braille to read.

Audio Cassette
Publications produced on cassette tape are appropriate when the print version cannot be accessed.

The publication is read—preferably by a professional narrator—and recorded onto an audio cassette. The audio typically includes references to punctuation, lists, and descriptions of graphs or images. It also often includes tone indexing that marks new sections or pages, so that users can navigate through the text.

For people who are blind, have limited vision or are not proficient with Braille, audio information removes the challenge of interpreting computer files that contain graphs, have multiple columns or have other complicated design components that are unfriendly to screen-reading devices.

Many blind and partially sighted persons have a cassette tape recorder to listen to Talking Books, which have been available from various organizations for many years. Some of these tape recorders have been specially designed with tactile markings that facilitate their use. Older blind readers are used to this method of information delivery and have learned how to operate their cassette recorders independently. Many of these individuals are not computer literate and will probably have difficulty learning to operate a new type of recorder, such as the DAISY reader, independently. Therefore, it will be necessary to produce audio cassettes to at least a minimum standard for as long as possible.

That being said, audio cassettes have their drawbacks. In the consumer market, the technology has largely been replaced by compact disks (CDs) and compact disks–read-only memory (CD-ROMs). Even the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) is no longer producing audio cassettes; instead, it has chosen the Digital Audio-based Information System (DAISY) format. Blank audio cassettes and cassette recorders are being phased out and are sometimes difficult to find commercially.

Adaptive Electronic Technologies
Adaptive electronic technologies help people who are print-disabled communicate.

Adaptive electronic technologies are continually being developed. They are essential to blind, deaf-blind and partially sighted individuals as tools to access information and communicate with others. There are barriers to their use, however, such as the high costs of the equipment—between $2,000 and $10,000—and the lack of proper training in provinces that do not have government-funded assistive devices programs.

DAISY Reader
DAISY is a file format standard for digital (electronic) books, equivalent in a way to HTML file formats for the Web and to ASCII file formats for text.

Some people believe that DAISY technology could become an alternative to audio cassette technology. DAISY is the new digital talking book standard, developed by an international consortium of libraries, that enables a person who is blind or print-disabled to access the information in a book with the same ease with which a sighted person accesses information in a printed book.

With this technology, audio is recorded and categorized digitally so that sections of an audio publication can be quickly located, much in the same way that tracks on a CD can be accessed. Therefore, DAISY offers more navigational capabilities than books on tape. As audio cassettes become obsolete in the future, DAISY will enable the delivery of talking books on CD, on digital video disk (DVD) or over the Internet.

Not all blind and partially sighted persons have a DAISY reader, as they are seven to 10 times the price of a cassette recorder. People living in provinces that do not have an assistive devices program may have to bear this cost themselves, unless a charity makes such readers available. The DAISY reader is fairly complicated to operate in comparison to a cassette recorder and may be challenging for some persons to use independently.

Screen-Reading Software
Screen readers enable their users to browse the Internet, send e-mail, and create and read documents on their computer screen, by voice output, Braille or both methods.

Many of today’s screen readers are highly customizable programs. There are many options that can be changed to fit users’ needs. Users can adjust such things as voice rate, pitch and the amount of punctuation being spoken. With the help of a keyboard, computer users are able to use many applications and operating systems.

To allow users to access information through Braille, screen readers are paired with refreshable Braille displays.

Refreshable Braille Display
A Braille display enables users to access information from their computer when they are not able to use screen magnification or speech output or when they wish to enhance these technologies.

A refreshable Braille display is a piece of hardware with a strip of many tiny holes. Pins protrude through these holes, creating Braille symbols that depict a line of text on a computer screen. Users run their fingers over the Braille display to read the text line by line. For the next line of text, the Braille display is “refreshed” and a new pattern of pins appears.

3 Referenced in the Deaf-Blind Info section of the Canadian Helen Keller Centre (CHKC) website: www.chkc.org/main/db_info/db_canada.htm

4 In 2002, more than 74 percent of new CNIB clients were aged 70 or over. This age group represents about 65 percent of total clients, again indicating a shift to older clients. See www.cnib.ca/eng/publications/pamphlets/stats/index.htm