Specification for book holders and prismatic spectacles for use as reading aids in hospitals and the home

One of the aspirations of many low vision patients is to read newspapers. Many low vision practitioners use 1M print (Snellen equivalent 6/15 at 40 cm or 6/24 at 25 cm) as the bench-mark for prescribing low vision optical devices for patients who wish to read newspapers. There are certain sections of the newspapers, however, with print sizes that are smaller than 1M, there-fore prescriptions based on 1M print size may present difficulties to the patient. The purpose of this study was to measure the smallest print sizes of selected sections of South African newspa-pers. Based on the print size values, advice could be provided for effective prescription of reading devices for low vision patients whose desire is to read all or specific sections of newspapers. Print sizes in eight sections of 38 South African newspapers were measured using a 7x measuring magnifier with graticle. The smallest print sizes in the various sections of the newspa-pers ranged from 0.6 mm or 0.4M (6/9.5 at 25 cm or 6/6 at 40 cm) to 1.9 mm or 1.3M (6/30 at 25cm or 6/20 at 40 cm). The mean sizes of the various sections of the newspapers ranged from 0.7 ± 0.18M for the advert section to 1.12 ± 0.07M in the news section. Reading device magnification established by using 1M print size as benchmark for prescrib-ing reading aids for low vision patients may not afford the visual capability needed to read all sections of a newspaper. Such patients, thus may experience difficulty when reading certain sec-tions of newspapers. There is therefore, a need for low vision practitioners to have a specific knowledge of the print sizes of the section of newspapers that the patient wants to read and prescribe for them accordingly.

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Reading aids for adults with low vision

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews ◽

10.1002/14651858.cd003303.pub3 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Gianni Virgili ◽

Ruthy Acosta ◽

Lori L Grover ◽

Sharon A Bentley ◽

Giovanni Giacomelli

Keyword(s):

Low Vision ◽

Reading Aids

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Impact of Reading on the Biological Foundations of Language, Cognition, and Emotion

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities ◽

10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.09b ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

Author(s):

Radhakrishnan Sriganesh ◽

◽

R. Joseph Ponniah ◽

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Conceptual Model ◽

Reading Ability ◽

Neuronal Development ◽

Learning Difficulties ◽

Educational Interventions ◽

Cognition And Emotion ◽

Biological Relationship ◽

Genetic Makeup ◽

Reading Aids

The article explores the biology of reading and how reading influences the biological relationship among language, cognition, and emotion (LCE). Reading aids in the enhancement of LCE under the precondition that biological predispositions for reading ability and LCE, such as genetic makeup, epigenetic modifications and neuronal development are favourable. A conceptual model was developed to explain how reading incrementally enhances LCE. The model serves as a tool to understand the biological and pedagogical conditions through which reading helps in progressing through successive LCE levels. The article also proposes that this holistic perspective of reading, considering genetics, epigenetics, neuroscience, neuropsychology and pedagogy, paves way for targeted clinical and educational interventions for people with language learning difficulties/disability.

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SEDIQA: Sound Emitting Document Image Quality Assessment in a Reading Aid for the Visually Impaired

10.20944/preprints202107.0200.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jane Courtney

Keyword(s):

Image Quality ◽

Quality Assessment ◽

Character Recognition ◽

Optical Character Recognition ◽

Visually Impaired ◽

Image Quality Assessment ◽

Document Image ◽

Read Aloud ◽

Reference Image ◽

Reading Aids

For Visually impaired People (VIPs), the ability to convert text to sound can mean a new level of independence or the simple joy of a good book. With significant advances in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in recent years, a number of reading aids are appearing on the market. These reading aids convert images captured by a camera to text which can then be read aloud. However, all of these reading aids suffer from a key issue – the user must be able to visually target the text and capture an image of sufficient quality for the OCR algorithm to function – no small task for VIPs. In this work, a Sound-Emitting Document Image Quality Assessment metric (SEDIQA) is proposed which allows the user to hear the quality of the text image and automatically captures the best image for OCR accuracy. This work also includes testing of OCR performance against image degradations, to identify the most significant contributors to accuracy reduction. The proposed No-Reference Image Quality Assessor (NR-IQA) is validated alongside established NR-IQAs and this work includes insights into the performance of these NR-IQAs on document images.

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Excerpta Historica Constantiniana: An Encyclopaedia from Tenth-Century Byzantium?

Journal of Abbasid Studies ◽

10.1163/22142371-12340055 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 243-263

Author(s):

Dariya Rafiyenko

Keyword(s):

Future Study ◽

Tenth Century ◽

Arabic Literature ◽

Comparative Perspective ◽

Ancient Greek ◽

Medieval Manuscripts ◽

Modern Arabic ◽

Reading Aids

Abstract When approaching Byzantine-Greek texts that organize knowledge in one way or another, Byzantinists encounter similar issues to those facing Arabists working on pre-modern Arabic literature. In this article, I discuss two of these more specifically: (1) The layout of the medieval manuscripts has been hitherto systematically neglected, although many manuscripts contain chapter headings, lists of contents and other features that provide “reading aids” or “finding devices” and thus offer clues as to how the text they contain were conceived and designed to be read; and (2) The term “encyclopaedia” has been used in too vague a fashion with regard to Byzantine works of the tenth to twelfth centuries CE and has to be reconsidered. This article discusses both issues with reference to the example of the Excerpta historica Constantiniana (henceforth, Excerpta), apparently a reference work, written in Ancient Greek in Constantinople in the tenth century CE. The goal is to make a description of the Excerpta available to Arabists, laying the ground for future study of the two traditions in comparative perspective.

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