Supporting visually impaired children with software agents in a multimodal learning environment

Visually impaired children have a great disadvantage in the modern society since their ability to use modern computer technology is limited due to inappropriate user interfaces. The aim of the work presented in this paper was to develop a multimodal software architecture and applications to support learning of visually impaired children. The software architecture is based on software agents, and has specific support for visual, auditory and haptic interaction. It has been used successfully with different groups of 7-8 year-old and 12 year-old visually impaired children. In this paper we discuss the enabling software technology and interaction techniques aimed to realize our goal and our experiences in the actual use of the system.