UKAAF: Setting the standards for accessible PDF

The UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAAF) have published a minimum standard for the use of accessible PDFs for assessment. This is a really important document for anyone in the UK who has a print impairment. It sets the minimum standard that PDFs should fulfil in order to be used successfully with assistive technology. The standard will promote inclusion in education as there is now clear criteria as to what makes a PDF file accessible. It has been suggested by assistive technology experts that there is in excess of 13% of the UK population that have a print impairment. This means that there is a very significant group of people who can benefit hugely from accessible documents. If we consider that 13% of students in schools, higher and further education have a print impairment, it is important for a minimum standard to be in place so that providers have a point of reference. The UK is a world leader in the assistive technology sector. UK businesses employ approximately 10,000 people in the provision and development of assistive technology products and services. It is therefore important that the UK has this minimum standard in place and that leading experts in the field of accessible PDFs for education have contributed to the development of the document. There have been contributions from representatives of national charities, advisory groups, awarding organisations, specialist teachers and commercial organisations currently providing accessible PDF files for assessment. For a copy of the guidance go to: www.ukaaf.org/guidance-downloads#efile

Be My Eyes

The Danish developer Robocat launched a new app that could be of great use to visually-impaired people. Visually-impaired people use the camera on their mobile device to shoot live video of whatever it is they need distinguishing or reading, and a sighted volunteer on the other end tells them what they need to know. The app was launched in Denmark a few months ago and the developer has about 700 helpers. The free app is available for IOS and the Android app is under development.

Boost For Gene Therapy

Work is under way to discover if people with a rare inherited eye condition could benefit from treatment that could restore their sight. Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA) is a family of rare inherited eye conditions that lead to severe sight loss in young children. In 2008, an early clinical trial showed that gene therapy can safely and successfully restore some vision to people with one form of LCA. Now researchers at London’s UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital are targeting another of the genes behind LCA. They are developing a test to find out which people with LCA and variations in the gene AIPL1 could benefit from treatment with gene therapy. People with LCA have poor vision and involuntary eye movements (nystagmus). Symptoms are present at birth or appear in the months soon after and LCA is usually diagnosed following an electroretinogram (ERG) test showing little or no electrical activity from the eye. Photoreceptor cells in the retina at the back of the eye normally detect light and send visual signals on to the brain, but in LCA, faults in any one of several genes that have been identified so far mean that this system does not function normally. Research has shown that gene therapy can rescue photoreceptors and preserve sight in mice with LCA-like sight loss caused by mutations in the AIPL1 gene. Clinical studies have also discovered that people with LCA and variations in AIPL1 can still show some ERG activity. This is important because it means there must still be some remaining photoreceptors that could potentially be rescued and preserved. However, before AIPL1-targeted human gene therapy can begin, researchers must overcome the hurdle that AIPL1 has many natural variations in its DNA sequence.This can make it hard to determine if the AIPL1 changes identified are causing disease, or if they are just part of this gene’s normal variation. In the current study Dr Jacqueline van der Spuy and co-investigators Professors Michel Michaelides and James Bainbridge aim to find out whether the AIPL1 variations in a group of LCA patients selected for potential AIPL1-targeted gene therapy do in fact cause disease or not. This in turn will help identify the patients that could benefit from gene therapy. Dr Dolores M Conroy, Director of Research at Fight for Sight said: “Knowing which LCA patients can benefit from targeted AIPL1 gene-therapy is a vital step before clinical trials can take place. The results will also lead to a much better understanding of which clinical signs and symptoms are associated with different AIPL1 variants, giving us a much fuller picture of LCA."

Sight Village Scotland 2015

SITE are delighted to announce that we will be exhibiting at the Sight Village Roadshow events in Scotland this April. The events will take place in both Edinburgh and Glasgow:   The Edinburgh event takes place at the Hilton, Grosvenor Street on Tuesday 21st April and the Glasgow event takes place at the Marriot, Argyle Street on Wednesday 22nd April. Doors open to the public at 10am and close at 3pm each day.   Put the dates in your diary and come along and join us for either of the events.

Apple Watch Accessibility/Very Likely

The big question on the minds of blind Apple enthusiasts is will the new Apple watch be accessible?... Leaked Apple Watch iPhone "Companion" app reveals activity reminders, monograms on... This week it was reported that the latest iOS 8.2 beta reveals that an Apple Watch application for the iPhone is in the works. Now, a source has revealed some of the details and functionality of the iWatch……. http://www.techradar.com/news/wearables/apple-iwatch-release-date-news-and-rumours-1131043