Enhancing general spatial skills of young visually impaired people with a programmable distance discrimination training: a case control study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The estimation of relative distance is a perceptual task used extensively in everyday life. This important skill suffers from biases that may be more pronounced when estimation is based on haptics. This is especially true for the blind and visually impaired, for which haptic estimation of distances is paramount but not systematically trained. We investigated whether a programmable tactile display, used autonomously, can improve distance discrimination ability in blind and severely visually impaired youngsters between 7 and 22 years-old.

Methods

Training consisted of four weekly sessions in which participants were asked to haptically find, on the programmable tactile display, the pairs of squares which were separated by the shortest and longest distance in tactile

SUBMITTER: Leo F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6714081 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature