Softwares de acessibilidade Dosvox e Virtual vision: um programa de ensino ao aluno com cegueira

Abstract

Dosvox and Virtual Vision accessibility software are screen reader programs that allow reading of the information presented on computer screens through speech output using voice synthesis technology, making their use possible by people with blindness. The objective of this study was to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching program for the use of accessibility software Dosvox and Virtual Vision by students with blindness of elementary and middle school. To this end, we developed a quasiexperimental study with an AB design, attended by two students with blindness, 18 and 19 years old, who were attending the sixth grade of elementary school and the third year of middle school, respectively. Both attended the same Resource Room facility featured by a public school located within the countryside of the State of São Paulo. The Education Program was 30 hours long, with one hour weekly classes. The following tools have been used to collect data: a) A semi-structured interview, applied preintervention to check the suitability of participants to the inclusion criteria of the study and characterize them. b) The tasks protocol has been used to measure participants' knowledge at two different times: 1) before the education program had been applied (pre-intervention) and 2) after the education program was implemented (postintervention). c) Questionnaire to measure participants' satisfaction. d) Field diary to record the development of the education program. The analysis and interpretation of data was quantitative and qualitative: a) Quantitative evaluation of data from protocol tasks. b) Qualitative evaluation of data from semi-structured interview, from questionnaire and from the field diary. The results obtained in quantitative evaluation showed that performance of the first participant was better than that of the second participant. The qualitative evaluation has shown that the education program was effective for developing flexible teaching strategies that allowed participant 1, who had no computer and had no prior knowledge about the software, a great level of knowledge acquisition. Participant 2, who had a computer and prior knowledge about the software, was enabled to improve his technique so that now he performs numerous tasks with excellence. By making both of them able to use Microsoft Word and access the virtual environments with a computer equipped with Dosvox or Virtual Vision, the new pedagogical strategies arising from the use of computers in the classroom promoted the transition of the educational process of participant 2, previously marked by the demerit of his intellectual capacity, failure and assistance, to a new reality guided by equality and sharing with his peers. No considerations were made about the educational process of participant 1 due to the absence of a computer in the classroom where he had been studying.