A Play Environment for Blind Children: Design and Evaluation

1974 ◽  
Vol 68 (9) ◽  
pp. 408-414
Author(s):  
Robert H. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Perception ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
Blind Children ◽  
Orientation And Mobility ◽  
Tactile Maps ◽  
The Individual

A play environment, comprised of eight circular play courts arranged around a ninth court, was designed on the basis of the idea that play could be used to help blind children learn orientation skills that are essential for their development as individuals. Sensory stimulation, especially hearing and touch, and spatial perception are integral parts of the environment, as is the requirement that the child actively participate in order to enjoy the activities. Tactile maps and recorded instructions are also utilized. The design was presented to a panel of experts—orientation and mobility instructors, teachers, a psychologist, a recreation therapist, and a research designer—for evaluation. A majority judged the concept, the overall design, and the design of the individual elements to be “effective” or “very effective” in promoting the development of orientation skills in blind children.

Sensory Stimulation in the Nursing Home

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 126-130
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Home ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Orientation And Mobility ◽  
Individual Needs ◽  
Impaired Person ◽  
The Individual

To continue functioning adaptively, the individual needs constantly varying forms of sensory stimulation. Since such stimulation is often neglected in the nursing home environment, producing particularly devastating psychological effects in the sensorily impaired person, specific suggestions are provided for improving this situation. Orientation and mobility specialists can be invaluable catalysts in providing the skills and motivation necessary for enriching such an environment. Specialists and regular staff can, by analyzing the person's entire daily routine, provide many opportunities for additional sensory stimulation.

Hygrothermal Behaviour of Inorganic Binder-Based Board Materials

2021 ◽  
Vol 321 ◽  
pp. 157-164
Author(s):  
Jan Bubeník ◽  
Jiří Zach
Keyword(s):  
External Environment ◽  
Physical And Mechanical Properties ◽  
Building Structure ◽  
Internal Environment ◽  
Air Humidity ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
Short Rotation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hygrothermal Behaviour ◽  
Diffusion Properties

Currently, the use of board materials as a material intended for the dry construction of building structure cladding in the building industry has become widespread. The most common types of board materials include wood-based boards (particle, fibre, laminated / plywood, oriented strand boards [OSB]), cement-bonded particleboards and gypsum plasterboards or gypsum fibre boards. In the case of board materials based on inorganic binders, these are most often represented by boards in which the fillers used are bonded by plaster or cement. Wood can then be used as filler, which is predominantly an assortment of inferior-quality trees or comes from a short rotation coppice, treated by various technological processes. Microstructure and material composition have the greatest influence on the physical and mechanical properties of the boards. The use of the boards in the internal or external environment is determined by their individual properties. Another indicator for the possible use of boards is the form of moisture with which the board comes into contact after installation into the structure. For the external environment, the boards have to withstand mainly liquid moisture; in contrast, in an internal environment, the boards come into contact mainly with air humidity. The diffusion properties of the individual products are also crucial for the overall design and use of the boards for structure cladding.

Environmental Information Required by Individuals with Visual Impairments Who Use Orientation and Mobility Aids to Navigate Campuses

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-276
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Papadopoulos ◽  
Konstantinos Charitakis ◽  
Eleni Koustriava ◽  
Georgios Kouroupetroglou ◽  
Rainer Stiefelhagen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Visual Impairments ◽  
Environmental Information ◽  
Repeated Measures Analysis ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Mobility Aids ◽  
Orientation And Mobility ◽  
Information Safety ◽  
Convenience Sampling ◽  
Tactile Maps

Introduction: This study investigated the user requirements of individuals with visual impairments regarding the information to be included in orientation and mobility (O&M) aids in order for optimally useful audio-tactile maps of campuses to be developed. In addition, this study aimed at investigating the importance (usefulness) that individuals with visual impairments attribute to environmental information of campuses. Methods: The researchers listed 213 pieces of environmental information concerning campuses and address them in survey by conducting a respective questionnaire. Participants were asked to evaluate the information, regarding the importance or usefulness of the information in regard to safety, location of services, and orientation and wayfinding during movement. Through convenience sampling 115 adults (aged from 18 to 64 years) with visual impairments from four countries (Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Germany) took part in the research. Results: Pieces of environmental information, sorted in descending order starting with the most useful ones, have been listed. A repeated measures analysis of variance yielded a significant main effect for the type of information (safety, location of services, and wayfinding and orientation): F(2, 228) = 70.868, p < .001. Discussion: This study resulted in the specification of the most significant or useful information that should be included in O&M aids of campuses for individuals with visual impairments. Implications for practitioners: The results of this study will hold the interest of developers of O&M aids, O&M practitioners, rehabilitation teachers, and instructors who design and construct O&M aids. Moreover, the context for appropriately designed tactile or audio-tactile maps for campuses is provided, and campuses around the world could rely on this study for the creation of a valuable accessibility aid.

Autonomous audio heater car: A comprehensive project-based analog design experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L LeBoeuf ◽  
Jorge T Gómez
Keyword(s):  
System Design ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Analog Design ◽  
Guided Discovery ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
The Individual ◽  
In Transit ◽  
Design Experience

This paper presents a methodology for teaching analog design concepts in the context of a single conceptual design and competition. The autonomous audio heater car is a comprehensive project-based analog design experience within a conceive, design, implement, operate framework. The students participate in the overall design process with guided discovery, rather than merely conducting scripted laboratory exercises. Students develop an understanding of the analog design required for each subsystem through weekly individual pre-laboratory and laboratory exercises. The car is guided to a beacon by light and/or audio tone. In transit, the car heats water to a temperature corresponding to the beacon tone and emits a tone corresponding to the instantaneous water temperature. The project culminates with team-based system integration and a competition. The individual work serves to cross-train all of the team members such that they all contribute effectively in the teams. The project motivated students because it provided a framework for laboratory topics, which would typically be considered without the broader context of a system design introduced at the beginning of the course.

Development of Scales for the Measurement of Orientation and Mobility of Young Blind Children

1969 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. E. Lord
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
School Age ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
Blind Children ◽  
Orientation And Mobility

Due to the growing interest in extending orientation and mobility instruction to include elementary school age blind children, research was carried out to define the behavioral components in orientation and mobility which are relevant for young blind children, and to develop scales for the measurement of these skills. The construction of the scales is described, and experimental results with 173 blind children are presented.

On the Acquisition of Aesthetic, Escapist, and Agentic Experiences

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth C. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Story Line ◽  
Home Setting ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Full Attention ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Involvement

The present study investigated a set of eleven aesthetic and recreational activities according to the types of experiences they provide. Aesthetic, Escapist and Agentic experiences were studied. Aesthetic experiences were defined as those that absorb one's full attention and arouse one's senses and emotions to a state of transcendance. Escapist experiences were defined as those sought as desirable substitutes for a presently anxious or unpleasant state. Agentic experiences are those that the individual uses in an instrumental fashion to acquire information or learning. It was found that the dimensions underlying activity similarity for each type of experience included: presence vs. absence of a story line, nonvisual sensory stimulation, active vs. passive participation, solitary vs. group involvement and in-home vs. out-of-home setting.

scholarly journals MAPPING DISPLACEMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Valeria Lazarenko
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Perception ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Narrative Interview ◽  
First Results ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
The Individual

The international armed conflict in Ukraine, which has been going on for already more than five years, has caused significant changes in Ukrainian society. More than 1.7 million people have been forced to leave their homes and become internally displaced. In such conditions, the question of identities becomes one of the most important for the affected people. The overall social situation of displacement has contributed to the individual and community self-perception of displaced people, and the creation of the ‘resettlement identity’ among them. Such specific social identity became the main subject of the author's research and will be discussed in the current paper. This article presents the first results of the ongoing research into social identities of displaced people in Ukraine. The research was conducted through a combination of narrative interviews and mental sketch mapping of the respondents' home cities in Donbas and their current places of residence. The research data was analysed from the perspectives of social psychology as well as of human geography, and the results show how the emotion-laden phenomenological experience contributes to spatial perception of the city and to turning space into place. The mapping and narrativization processes make it possible to distinguish the crucial elements of the complex identity of the displaced people: the Donbas identity, the Ukrainian identity, and a specific resettlement identity that simplifies the identification with a huge group of people sharing similar experiences. Our research shows that mental sketch mapping as a method helps to elicit the complexity of identities among the displaced people. Moreover, mapping exercise, combined with a narrative interview, also had a therapeutic effect upon the respondents as the research subjects experienced change during the interview. The complex usage of a position of existential outsideness (Relph 1980) revealed in the research, may be the symptom of a personal crisis. Thus the reflexive work on the maps may be a tool for displaced people to rethink and transform their spatial-temporal coordinates and their identities.

scholarly journals "Something Wicked This Way Comes": Apocalyptic Overtones and the Descent into Ennui in John Logan's TV Series Penny Dreadful

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Logsdon
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Western World ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Wolf Man ◽  
Insight Into

While scholars have provided some insight into Penny Dreadful, no one has addressed the relationship of the piece’s overall design to the writer’s vision. Indeed, Penny Dreadful is offered as a warning of a darker age to come. Accordingly, writer John Logan sets his series in a late Victorian, Gothicized London that serves as a microcosm for a contemporary Western world experiencing a psychological and spiritual disintegration that touches the individual and the larger culture. Logan calls attention to the anxieties generated by this disintegration by incorporating into his series characters from late Victorian Gothic fiction: Frankenstein and his creature, Dracula, the Wolf Man, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll. The individual and cultural anxieties suggested by these characters’ “monstrous” behaviors have their basis not only in their sexual dysfunctions but in their despair over God’s absence. This crisis is centered in sexually adventurous Vanessa Ives, whose attempts to return to the Christ Who has rejected her hold the series together. In the series’ final episode, just before her death, Vanessa has a vision of Jesus. In response to Vanessa’s death, most of the remaining characters are seized by an ennui that has its counterpart in our own culture. The suggestion is that Logan uses Vanessa Ives as a symbolic representation of a dying world view, which, somewhat ironically, provided for her remaining friends a hope that sustained them.

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