Thank you Martina,

I second your opinion. There is nothing unethical in this study. On the opposite, the main goal of this study and the device is to help blind and visually impaired people!

Is it ethical to have a case-control (with and without the device) in this research?

We have recently given a master degree in education and research to a blind student.

Emotions, happiness, goals achieved!!

And we thougth: do we motivate? Are we doing well enough?

How can we give the same opportunities to others, with physical or other impairments

How can we give opportunities?

We recently gave a master degree in education and research to a blind student

How can devices and strong motivation could be fairly and justly available to all?

You'd need a control group - a group of students that learns Braille with a regular Braille display - so that you can compare their progress to the progress made by students using your device.

Do you know how long it takes to learn Braille? It might be too long for your project/ the time you have at your disposal, so you might want to consider that. It might be "enough" to observe the students mastering only the first lessons - to see how both groups get started with Braille - and then to return to the students after a few months and compare both groups again. How well do both groups manage now?

I'd recommend using single-subject research methodology. A multiple-baseline across subjects design would suit. This kind of design is ideal for intervention research. And it's especially useful for populations of students who are blind bc this is such a low incidence disability.

Dear Rossana,

Thank you for your concerns. The studies will follow the standards of ethics that AUST uses for research. A consent form will be used and should be signed by all students in the research.

Dear Martina,

Thank you for your valuable information. I should do my homework and visit a center where they teach Braille, and for sure your suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for the answer. I will look into it.

Hi Daniel,

You have a reference for this multiple baseline across subjects design?

Hi Michel, you should make a usability test. Ask students for their expectations before starting the lessons. At the end ask how satisfy they are with the course and learning results. Try to follow ISO 9241. As a side effect you will get a lot of interesting input for further develeopment of your braille device.

Joris,

A couple of good sources for multiple baseline designs and other single-subject designs are by Alan Kazdin and David Gast.

Kazdin http://www.amazon.com/Single-Case-Research-Designs-Clinical-Settings/dp/0195341880

Gast: http://www.amazon.com/Subject-Research-Methodology-Behavioral-Sciences/dp/0805862773/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395926599&sr=8-1&keywords=david+gast

Hope this helps.

Hi Gunter,

Thank you for your comments. I will surely take them into consideration.

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for the links. Is there any open-access material about the topic?

Wikipedia actually has some good basic information on single-S designs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_research

Paige Pullen's recommendation is a good one. I looked at the wikipedia info and it's very good.

If you are thinking in an experiment-based or quasi-experiment based paradigm then have two groups of blind students. Test their prior knowledge if they are comparable (almost the same). Next, let one group use your system, and the other group use the usual method of learning. Then test their learning.

But if you are thinking along an Action Research paradigm, then just report on the successes that your system received, based on the achievement of those blind students who used them. ;-)

Why use blind students: this creates ethical problems. I would ask a statistician if you can use AB and BA design with twins, and use subjects as their own controls and store much data in order to use few subjects? Also carefully study the task, to understand, even model, what has to be learned, and how, to have the right sort of data? And wonder why one method would be superior to another, and for whom?

How can testing Braille devices with blind people be unethical?? I dare say that you won't get sighted people to learn Braille. And even if you found someone - twins?? - they might use those devices differently from blind people so you'll hardly receive useful results here, sorry.

Thank you Paige and Daniel. This is a useful link that will help a lot.

Thank you Jose,

This is what I was thinking about. I just needed a method to quantify the results.

Dear Joris,

The device was designed and implemented to help blind and visually impaired persons. And when we presented it in local and international conferences (as an engineering application) many people suggested that we should try it. In particular, a group of Braille instructors in an institute for the blind people. This was the drive behind this.

Thank you Martina,

I second your opinion. There is nothing unethical in this study. On the opposite, the main goal of this study and the device is to help blind and visually impaired people!

First, which group do you want to help:- blind children learning braille as their primary route into literacy; or newly blind adults who are already 'literate'? Second, which is your main objective, the improvement of the writing or the reading of braille?

Once these issues have been sorted, I would suggest you think about using a volunteer group of sighted people to 'debug' your teaching methods before going on to experimenting with blind people as your 'subjects'. Splitting up your subjects into two groups and then comparing the 'mean' scores on the post-test would make the whole process very long. You could, using just one group of subjects, alternate the teaching of at least two methods, regularly measuring progress and comparing percen tage of 'gain' scores. But do go ahead.We need more objective evidence of the effiicacy of devices and teaching methodologies. Michael Tobin, retired researcher.

Louis Braille was blind himself, at the end of his life, and had severely impaired vision when he made his discovery. Of course, no double blind clinical trial was needed. And of course it is important to work with the intended user groups and to carefully look into their needs. But, if you want to get anything published, and if you want institutional support, and if you want to do research and be respected for it, you d o need methodology and you d o need to take care of ethical considerations.

And frankly, you also need to look at the context. Braille discovered his method at the age of fifteen, after spending several months to muse over the problem and after having studied several alternatives. He implemented in a few days only, but later his fabulous method was f o r b i d d e n in the institute where they all lived. They already had invested in wooden relief characters, they wanted to be able to read what the students were reading, or what else, but it took long years before this changed and much longer before it travelled abroad.

So better plan how to convince whom, it is necessary.

Thank you Michael for your comments. We are not "using" blind people as "subjects" for testing, and we will never do that. This research will follow the highest ethical norms. The device was designed to help visually impaired and blind people.

Thank you Joris, your point is very important and we will surely take it into consideration. We will convince the right people and follow the highest standards in the methodology and ethical research.

Hi Michel,

Good luck and please keep me informed at: [email protected]

If I remember well from a newspaper article the eventual 'proof' that Braille worked was organized by a journalist when a new building was opened and the other technique, the relief characters allowed for more control by the caregivers, had been paid for. This was in 1843 I think, Louis was at that time more interested in playing the piano and died short thereafter.

Only in the twentieth century did Braille - technology travel abroad, and at a slow pace. Please look these details up before you publish.

Thanks again Joris, I will look the details up as you have recommended.

Michael, You need to take account of my age. "Subjects" was the psychologically correct technical term for the more modern "participants" when I was learning to conduct experimental research with blind people.

Regards,

Michael

Thank you Michael. I guess the scientific terms are constantly changing and evolving.

Regards

Thank you Gianluca,

We will test the device in a similar way. I will share the findings in here.

I am also working on a similar device as the AudiNect. We can do some major collaboration in this.

Regards,

Funny to read that, thank you. Some people advocate open source or web based distribution for all communication aids, because distribution otherwise is not cheap at allr, and might be done by caregivers or families of the client groups?

For one initiative by a man who recovered from hemiplegia, practical aids for comfortable living, consider weerhandig.nl

A second point that I would suggest is to somehow estimate the effort needed to attain a certain speed, if at all possible, and somehow estimate clients compliance and cost effectiveness for both the individual and the school(s).

Some high tech is, well, not too cheap to maintain. Good luck!

this linck can help you

setbc.org/download/archive/pdf03/bn32rprt.pdf

Thank you Joris Verrips,

Your ideas are very important. I will surely include your suggestions in my research. And by the way, our system is inexpensive to maintain.

Thank you ya Gohary,

But I guess the link you provided is broken :(

Thank you Michel. But it is cost of ownership that matters more than cost of maintenance?

Dear Joris,

We developed a low-cost system as a part of a senior project (by students). We do not intend to make profit out of it, just for research and humanitarian purposes.

Hi Michel,

Good of you. How are you going to service it? I just looked into the relatively new Scala language, with many advanced features for experienced programmers. The language is open source, and can be downloaded with a complete environment. To learn it and to publish your software on the web you can get paid assistance, with several firms who offer weeks of training including videos and assignments. See Scala.org if you are interested in programming and have time to learn about advanced object oriented features.

Some people plead against this language because,. though elegant and innovative, it has a long learning curve. As many modern programming languages, Wolframese included. So cost effectivity comes around somewhere. In my experience, often does. So ... can you specify the cost of ownership? Or find it out?

Joris

Dear Joris,

We have the cost of the prototype, but the production cost and the cost of ownership can be specified. I will work on that!