Visually Impaired Resource Guide Assistive Technology For Students With Low Vision Access to Text Material

Access to Text Material

The term Electronic-Text would appear to refer to almost every piece of data that is in computer readable form. The term has however acquired a more restricted meaning. E-text refers to an electronic copy of any previously published material. E-text would be the digitized copy of a book, publication or other printed text.

As students who are visually impaired progress through school, they require independent access to flexible technology that can address their changing needs. Lacking adequate visual feedback, writers who are visually impaired frequently use alternative means of displaying text which rely on other senses. Access to electronic text allows the user access to information in the alternate format of their choice e.g. refreshable braille display (power braille 40 or RBT 40), speech feedback through a screen review program (JAWS) or a screen reading program (zoomtext level 2, texthelp! 98).

There are many electronic text sites on the worldwide web. For example, New York University has a good Web page at www.nyu.edu/pages/advocacy/info/etexts.html (I found this site using the search words electronic text.) The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired web site has variety of etext books available for downloading.

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