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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Creative Typesets Require Innovative Solutions: A Study of Differences in Braille Indicators

Hannan, Cheryl Kamei January 2008 (has links)
Currently, students who read tactually must learn specific braille indicators that correspond to typeset changes such as bold, italic, and underline. These symbols do not stand out like printed attributes. To learn emphasis indicators, students must understand the concepts of print and memorize corresponding braille coding, which requires explicit training. Because tactile readers can only "see" that which is under his/her fingers, scanning and locating indicators is difficult. One must scan the passage word by word to find the emphasis indicator. In contrast, a sighted child can quickly glance at a page and recognize attributes instantly. The difficulty in tactually recognizing typeset, leads to slower recognition of important information and potentially affects reading fluency for beginning readers.This research study compared the use of the current braille code (CBC) with two alternate ways of presenting typeset. The research questions were: (a) Is there a difference in speed in finding the emphasis indicators when presented in three different formats? (b) Is there a difference in accuracy of recognizing the emphasis indicator when presented in three different formats? (c) What are the students' perceptions and opinions about the various indicators?A quasi-experimental design was implemented and three types of data were collected: (a) measurement of speed - in seconds, (b) measurement of accuracy - in number of correctly identified words and indicators, and (c) the perceptions of students before and after the data were collected. The independent variables were the three ways of presenting typeset (CBC, Ua, and Ub), and the dependent variables were speed and accuracy. Quantitative data were analyzed using ANOVA for speed and accuracy and correlational data were conducted to determine if relationships existed between speed and accuracy. Qualitative data were categorized and reported.Results showed a statistical difference between the speed at which students located words with emphasis, but no difference was found in their accuracy. Interview data showed that most students did not have a grasp of print concepts or understand the purposes of using the indicators. Students also indicated that they preferred the alternate formats (Ua or Ub), rather than the current braille code (CBC).

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