Clinical trial NCT06237829: Testing Tactile Aids With Blind Subjects
Official title: Testing Tactile Aids With Blind Subjects
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Vision, Low
Blindness
Keywords: Tactile Aid
Lead sponsor: University of Delaware
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2024-02-02
Enrollment: 100
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 16
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: SEQUENTIAL
Intervention model description: Groups of participants will proceed with tactile aids in increasingly higher levels of complexity. The primary evaluation of participant outcome is the success rate with which they can correctly distinguish between multiple surfaces. In the first intervention, participants will be asked to categorize two different coated materials into their respective categories by touch. Participants who score 65% or higher, will be asked to continue. In the second intervention, participants will be asked to categorize four different coated materials into their respective categories. Participants who statistically significantly above chance can identify coated materials successfully will be asked to continue. In the last intervention, participants will be asked to identify between multiple categories on a tactile chart made from a combination of traditional physical features denoting categories and the coatings under investigation denoting another category.
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The objective of this project is to create richer tactile aids by using materials chemistry to create tactile sensations in tactile aids, as an alternative to traditional physical bumps, lines, or textures. These materials are commonly used in household products, but have not yet been used to enrich tactile aids. Successful outcomes are primarily the accuracy with which low vision or blind subjects identify objects made from tactile coatings versus traditional tactile aids. Other outcomes include time to completion of the task, or the number of distinctive categories that participants can identify.

Detailed description: Traditional images and graphics, like mathematical plots or charts, are not accessible to low vision and blind people. Instead, for blind and low vision people, tactile aids are traditionally used to convey abstract concepts. However, tactile aids cannot convey as rich or as dense of information as traditional visual graphics, limiting independence and access to gainful employment for low vision and blind professionals.

The primary reason why tactile aids are inferior to visual graphics is that tactile aids are made from a combination of physical bumps, lines, and labels. Placing too many details on a single tactile aid quickly becomes illegible to the user because the various bumps, lines, and textures blur together, which is known as "tactile clutter".

The objective of this project is to create richer tactile aids by using materials chemistry to create tactile sensations in tactile aids, as an alternative to traditional physical bumps, lines, or textures. These materials are commonly used in household products, but have not yet been used to enrich tactile aids. Successful outcomes include having low vision or blind subjects identify objects made from our tactile materials quicker than traditional tactile aids, or to successfully identify more categories on a mathematical plot than is currently possible with existing tactile aids.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Visual Impairment: Participants should be blind or visually impaired for greater than 10 years, either congenitally or acquired.
* Tactile Aid Usage: Participants must use tactile aids regularly.
* Mathematical Knowledge: Participants should have a basic understanding of mathematical plots, equivalent to at least high school geometry.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Limb Conditions: Participants with amputations or outer extremity conditions affecting hand use will be excluded.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Success rate for correctly interpreting a tactile numeric plot of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of four countries.
timeFrame: Immediately after human testing (middle of year 2)
measure: Usability of GDP plot tactile aid.
timeFrame: Immediately after human testing (middle of year 2)
measure: Time to completion of a tactile board game.
timeFrame: Immediately after human testing with this tactile aid (end of year 3)
measure: Success rate to completion for a fake money counting task.
timeFrame: Immediately after human testing with this tactile aid (end of year 4)
measure: Success time to completion for a fake money counting task.
timeFrame: Immediately after human testing with this tactile aid (end of year 4)
measure: Usability and general feedback
timeFrame: Through study completion, 4 years.
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Newark
country: United States
facility: University of Delaware
state: Delaware
Study officials:
References: