Why are lamp-posts not soft and bendy? This is a question that I, Dave, seem to be asking myself on a regular basis at the moment.
 
Over the past few weeks I have come in to contact with a few metal posts whilst walking in to town. You know the type; they are the thick metal ones that usually are holding up road signs or a street lamp; the hard metal, non-forgiving ones.
 
My assumption is that they haven’t been breeding or the council haven’t spent more money erecting new ones and that they’ve always been there and that I’ve always managed to navigate around them, be that with Errol, my old guide dog, or with my white stick.
 
So, something has changed and, discussing this with Vicky, I can only conclude that I’m hitting these posts now due to my sight deteriorating to a point that I now don’t receive any indication that they’re there. Its weird because, if asked, I would have said that I haven’t been able to see them for ages, but whilst they haven’t been clear, we can only assume that I was getting some sense that they were there and therefore managing to avoid them whereas now I don’t even get that.
 
No doubt that there are many people reading this and wondering what my stick is for if it’s not to help identify these posts so that I don’t walk in to them and you would be right. The white stick is designed to be swept from left to right, going just beyond the width of my shoulders, and therefore should make contact with and alert me to objects that are in my path. I would then be able to identify the object and navigate safely around it. Well that’s the theory! In practise, even when sweeping the white stick correctly, it is easy to just miss an object as you sweep and, especially if it’s just off centre and not very big (like a lamp post), not  know about it until you hit it with your knee and/or shoulder or sometimes head.
 
A few weeks ago I bounced off the post in the photo. This is a particularly hefty post situated near a bridge on the busy A23, my route to Redhill town centre. I was walking home, had just gone under the bridge and, as I came out from under the bridge I was thinking about a car on the pavement that I had had to navigate on my way in. Right at that point, I was also overwhelmed with the noise from a train passing overhead, a large lorry passing on the road creating an echo under the bridge and also the noise of a crane or mechanical equipment operating nearby and then boom… the noise of a metal pole hitting my head!! I’ve no doubt that someone in a car or walking near me would have seen it and I wouldn’t blame them if they had a small chuckle at my expense but I can tell you that it hurt… it also bent my sunglasses and split the skin above my eyebrow!
 
So I have put this in the memory bank and haven’t hit this post since. I had also put hitting this down to the noise and nothing more. However, just this morning it happened again. It wasn’t the same post but it was on the same road!
 
I must admit, I don’t walk in to town as often now as when I had Errol and this is partly due to not having a need to but also a bit of ‘can’t be bothered’. I would consider myself to have good cane technique and be safe with using it, however, these couple of incidences have knocked my confidence and brings home how difficult getting out and about really is. I do find that I’m having to concentrate lots more when out on my own and that I get tense in the shoulders and I’m sure that this is partly due to not really knowing if I’m going to hit anything…
 
I wanted to share this with you all, not for sympathy, but to raise your awareness as to what it is really like for blind people using a white cane. Getting around with a white cane is slow, sometimes frustratingly so, and requires lots of concentration. I have a map of the town in my head that I recall all the time but this map isn’t just where roads are, but references key points/landmarks on a journey, pedestrian or safe road crossing points, particular areas where pavement parking is bad, etc. I also have to remember where particular shops or houses are or obstacles such as trim trail equipment in the school playground! It doesn’t stop there, I then remember where steps are, where doors are and whether they swing in or out and then what’s inside… where the reception or customer service desk is, what other hazards might be waiting, etc. This all requires a certain level of concentration and if this slips or I get distracted (this could be by a car parked on the pavement or a loud noise as in the example above, or one of those pesky A frames, anything really that I’m not expecting) then I could get injured or lost very quickly!
 
A good example of a hazard/obstruction can be read in a Facebook post that I wrote back in June when  I came across a builder’s van parked over a designated safe crossing point at the top of our road - https://www.facebook.com/705702186224015/posts/2160066160787603?s=725461053&sfns=cl
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

Vicky: Dave and I have both read and enjoyed books 1 and 2 of this series – The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect. My book club has also read at least book 1 (we’re a pretty rubbish book club – more a wine and crisps club - so don’t put any store by the fact that many of them won’t have read any further. **Update, one of our members has read all 3 and gave this one a 10/10!!**).
 
The books are described as feel good and they certainly are, leaving you with a warm feeling and hope about humanity (much needed at the moment) but they are deeper than that.
 
The books are narrated by a genetics professor, Don Tillman and the first one is about his quest to find true love. Don has never been on a second date and finds social situations hard to read, therefore he devises a chart to find his suitable match. Things understandably don’t quite go according to plan. The second book continues with his relationship.
 
The books make you smile and even laugh, but only ever with Don the narrator and never at him. His way of describing and relating to the world may not be familiar to many of us but it is intriguing and at times enlightening.
 
Although I would urge everyone to read all 3 books, it’s the third book that I felt was worthy of a mention on this blog as it relates to a lot of discussions held within the wider disability community and touches on subjects that we discuss in our training. Unfortunately, RNIB Talking Books have not yet caught up, so Dave has been unable to read it yet.
 
This third book, ‘The Rosie Result’ is set later in Don’s life when he also has a son, Hudson. The book covers a year in their lives and, with lots of anecdotes along the way, uses situations and other characters to cleverly raise questions about acceptance and fitting in, making the reader consider that maybe this shouldn’t be a one-way street, i.e. it shouldn’t all be about the person in the minority feeling pressurised to fit in with the majority.
 
There’s a great analogy at one point by a speaker talking about the social model of disability – ‘Imagine everyone used wheelchairs except you and society was designed to accommodate them, you’d knock your head on door frames and have to ask for chairs at restaurants.’
 
It’s a great read and one that should have us all questioning how we behave and react in society. I don’t want to ruin the story for you but a few quotes will hopefully give enough of a sense of this book to encourage you to read the series…
 
‘Hudson preferred to wear the summer uniform, with shorts throughout the year. The school rules specified that Years 5 and 6 boys were to wear long trousers in the cold season, other than in exceptional circumstances. Hudson had argued that as he was the only student who wanted to wear shorts, he was exceptional, and therefore should be accommodated. After extensive discussion, the school agreed.’
 
Talking about ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) ‘Psychologists and parents love it. Of course they do, because that’s who it’s for – not for the kids being trained like puppies…She’s being trained to spend her life seeking approval from others.’
 
‘…a lot of people think autistic people are weird and uncaring…my parents and teachers tried really hard to help me fit in because they didn’t want people to think I was autistic and then assume those things about me…but it took a lot of work that I could have spent on other things…what I learnt is that autistic people shouldn’t have to do all the changing’
 
‘I’m not a person with autism any more that I’m a person with lesbianism. I’m lesbian, I’m autistic. When I get a cold, I have a cold; I’m a person with a cold and I want to get rid of it. Medical help appreciated. But being autistic and lesbian, that’s who I am, and I’m not interested in anyone trying to cure me of who I am.’
 
‘I would never have the intuitive sense of others’ emotions that supposedly is needed to deal with interpersonal problems, but I had done my best using rationality, experience and hard-won learning about human behaviour and these skills had been sufficient.’
 
And the final word must go to Graeme himself:
‘This series of novels was inspired and informed far more by life experiences – my own and others’ – than research. Thanks to everyone – all of you – who contributed to those.’
 
We urge you to read these books and let us know your thoughts!
 
Dave: Well, all that has done Vicky is make me want to read it; it sounds intriguing and interesting. Come on RNIB… how long will I need to wait until this book is available in an audio format?
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

We’re asked many questions on our training sessions but it’s the first time that I (Dave) have been asked this one – “Did your wife dress you this morning?” Now of course I expect my wife to dress me every morning but the reality is that she is usually still asleep when I’m getting dressed so the answer to this question is “No”.
 
After we had all had a chuckle, we established that the actual question she was asking was “Did you choose your clothes or does your wife choose them for you?” She wanted to know how I, or blind people, choose their clothes because she thought this must be difficult if you can’t see.
 
It is actually a really sensible and good question and my answer was something like:
 
“It is relatively easy for a man to choose what to wear (or me anyway). I tend to wear jeans (blue and black) and then either a polo shirt or a smart casual shirt but pretty much I can put any top with any jeans and it’ll be fine. My VIDA training shirt has an embroidered VIDA Training logo so this makes it easy to identify but I keep my training clothes together in a particular part of my wardrobe so I know where it is when I need it”.
 
However, for women it is likely to be harder due to the array of clothes (basing this fact on my wife’s wardrobe) and the importance of matching colours, styles, etc. Ultimately most vision impaired people will have a very organised wardrobe and be fully aware of what they have in it, what colours the items are and what they go with. 
 
I do get help with pairing my socks after they’ve been washed as I like to wear stripy socks or socks with coloured toes or soles but if I didn’t have help to do this then I would use pegs to pair them when I take them off so that they come out of the washing machine together. I don’t feel it appropriate to talk about my pants… surely that’s taking it too far! :-)
 
In years gone by people used to sew different shaped and sized buttons in to their clothes so that they could then identify what an items colour was and what it went with by the shape or size of the buttons. Obviously you had to remember the relationship of each shape and size button but for some people this really worked and some still use this method today.
 
A few years ago RNIB released a gadget called the Pen Friend. This is a scanning gadget that is used for many purposes including food items, DVDs/CDs, important letters and much more. It is also a great gadget for identifying clothes. It works by reading labels that have a unique bar code that You scan and record a description to and when you re-scan the label it reads out the description. You can get labels that are washable, freezeable, stickable and some that attach with a tie making this a great gadget for so many things.
 
I guess nowadays there are also new apps coming out all the time that will be able to help. The Be My Eyes app could be used to get support with identifying clothes as could the Aira service that is soon to be released in the UK; you would just need to be careful when using one of these video call apps that you had at least your underwear on!! :-)
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information. 

No this is not our combined age (though not far off eh Dave 😊) but equally surprising is that Dave and I (Vicky) can’t believe we’ve written and posted 100 VIDA Insight blogs over the last few years…where did all that time go?
 
We really hope that you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed thinking about topics and writing them. Most of our posts have been based on our own experiences but some have been based on books we’ve read, conversations we’ve had or other articles that have got us thinking. We hope they have provided you with some insight about vision impairments. We also hope that, on occasions, they’ve made you laugh.
 
So, just in case you haven’t been reading them or have come late to the party and only seen a few, here’s some of our highlights (of course you’re welcome to read all 100):

• The first one to mention has to be Dave’s heartfelt blog about Errol, his wonderful guide dog who suddenly and very sadly had to be put to sleep in June 2017. We can’t believe that this is now over 2 years ago – In Memory of Errol (13.06.2009 – 22.06.2017)
• Our Dans le Noir experiences – Dave’s visit in August 2017 described in blog No. 86 Dans Le Noir - Dave’s Experience  & my visit the year previously for my husband’s 50th birthday – No. 19 Celebrating at Dans Le Noir
• Dave’s various posts about his experience of using technology – No. 97. Be My Eyes: My Experience; No. 87. Accessible TVs in honour of #WorldTVDay and his series of 3 starting with No. 42. Blind Tech Part 1
• My posts about the books that we’ve read over the years which relate in some way to vision impairment – our favourite one being Touching the World by Cathy Birchill and Bernard Smith. We would recommend this wonderful book to anyone, about 2 people travelling the world on a motorbike, one of whom happens to have RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa, one of the eye sight conditions Dave has). Our blog about this one was No. 48. Touching the World. In reading various books, we’ve come to realise that we prefer the ones written by people with first hand experience – either by a person who is themselves vision impaired or co-written by one person with a vision impairment and one person who is sighted, so we also wrote a blog about this – No. 75. First hand experiences
• Answers to questions we get asked and interactions we have with people – No. 88. Do you forget Dave is blind?; Our ‘I thought you were blind?’ series starting with post No. 72. I thought you were blind, part 1; No. 90. Anytime, Anywhere…; No. 53. Access All Areas and No. 6. Sorry, who are you - part 1;
• Hints and tips (hopefully) gained by us working together – No. 70. Playing to Our Strengths; No. 50. Help, Hindrance or Interference; No. 49. Stirred not Shaken; the rest of our ‘Sorry, who are you?’ series – No. 7. Sorry who are you? Part 2 and No. 8. I’m just going for a wee! (or Sorry, who are you?... Part 3) and our series on Communication, starting with No. 11. See you tomorrow...(Communication Part 1)
• And finally, mainly here because they cover one of our favourite topics – food!! (But also because they cover everyday experiences and touch upon gadgets and technologies that might be helpful to others) – No.23. Food…#BritishFoodFortnight; No. 27. Blind Baking Part 1 and No. 28. Blind Baking Part 2; No. 30. What’s in that sandwich? #NationalSandwichDay and No. 61 Argh…Where has my burger gone?

 
Please have a read of any of these that catch your interest or as I said before, feel free to read the full 100! And, please do feel free to share your experiences and thoughts by commenting…
 
We will continue writing a monthly blog so please check in on the 15th of each month to read our latest one.
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

Dave and I (Vicky) have recently read (Dave in audio format, Vicky in paperback) this book by Nicola Naylor about a woman with a vision impairment travelling around India. Having been enthralled by India from childhood, this was a lifelong dream for Nicola, but also being an aromatherapist in the UK, she wanted to learn more about traditional Indian medicine too.
 
One review I read (courtesy of Good reads) described the book as
“A traveller without sight takes her dream trip, alone and unsupported, learning about alternative healing and unveiling an India few are able to experience.” Whilst the book does provide an insight into Indian medicine, massage techniques and culture, which are in themselves interesting, from our point of view, the most fascinating parts of the book were Nicola’s thoughts about juggling her desire to travel independently with accepting the support offered along the way and accepting that, if offered in the right way, this sometimes enhanced her experiences rather than diminishing them.
 
Below are some quotes that I think demonstrate the above in Nicola’s own words.
 
From the start of the book:
“Ordinary people, all of us, can do extraordinary things but not always. All our stories are individual and personal as are the inner and outer journeys that we make. That is what makes them refreshing and engaging. I hope that my own story offers enough flavour to whet the appetite but leaves people to discover their own recipes. When I was in the early years of coming to terms with having lost my sight, I know I would have chosen to starve rather than to digest other people’s survival triumphs and ways of overcoming disability”.
 
“I had never been able to use my cane at home because of the stark associations with blindness that it stirred up. When I first lost my sight a guide dog was the only acceptable solution. I did not imagine that I would be able to use a cane in India to guide me around: the skill and technique of doing so required training, which I had resisted. However, I had reluctantly accepted that I needed some symbol to identify my disability for those times when I needed help. But when the moment approached to take out my cane, I realised I had underestimated my anxiety.”
 
There is one section in the book where her friend goes to ‘nip out’ of the car to sort out an arrangement without her. “This time I felt that as the purpose of the visit directly concerned me I was not going to be left in the car like a child. People have often just ‘nipped’ to do this or that and left me to wait because they thought it easier and quicker than asking me to come. It makes me feel like an inconvenient appendage, or worse still, a nuisance invalid or child.”
 
And when an air stewardess takes her hand in order to guide her:
“With the stewardess I slipped my hand free of hers and placed my fingers gently but firmly on her elbow…. All at once I felt myself back in control, and the fear subsided.”
 
Later in the book, Nicola discusses her feelings about receiving some assistance:
“I did not want Goutam to feel I was rejecting his generosity and kindness. If I stuck clumsily to the western model of independence and self sufficiency I knew I risked offending my Indian friends. …I was beginning to see that giving and receiving help altruistically, according to need and opportunity was an integral part of Indian culture, a vital interdependence in a country with so many people and so much poverty…. A thought slid round in my head about how the ties of dependence might have a strengthening as well as a restricting pull, while independence could be an isolating straight jacket, I decided I needed to discover a little more about this approach and for a while be a less intrepid, less selfish explorer.”
 
“When I reached town I decided to take a bus to Mr. Atuna’s evening yoga class rather than go back to the club. After another vigorous class, Mr Atuna said to a class member “Arun, please be taking our guest to the bus stop.” There was no sense in which a favour was being granted, or that I was being an inconvenience, and I felt comfortable with my need for help.”
 
To me, this and other instances in the book highlight how we all have to adapt and change to accommodate each other or our circumstances, whether this be to do with assisting or being assisted by others or understanding cultures that differ to our own. I think this is summed up by a quote from another book we have read - ‘Touching the World’ by Cathy Birchall and Bernard Smith - “What you see depends mainly on what you look for”. ‘Touching the World’ is a fascinating account of 2 people's journey around the world on a motorbike, detailing their fantastic adventures and accounts of the generosity of human nature (in general) but also the strength of character required by both of them to undertake such a journey. Cathy has RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa) and whilst the book is much more than about Cathy's blindness, it is part of everyday life for Cathy and Bernard (her sighted partner) and so is an integral part of the book. We have discussed and recommended this book on many of our training courses and wrote an insight about it last February for #WorldBookDay - https://vidatraining.weebly.com/blog/february-28th-2018.
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

I, Dave, know that I have spoken about apps for vision impaired people but I don’t think that I’ve done an actual review of an app for one of our Insights previously. Following a recent experience, I thought that I would share this with you…
 
I currently use an iPhone 8 and access it using the built-in ‘Voiceover’ (https://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/vision/) screen reader. Using a range of taps, swipes and gestures, I can access pretty much all of the phones built-in features as well as many apps including banking, shopping and social media apps.
 
I also have a folder that contains several apps specifically created for vision impaired people including Microsoft’s Seeing AI (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/seeing-ai?SilentAuth=1) and Soundscape (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/soundscape/), Be My Eyes (https://www.bemyeyes.com/), KNFB Reader (https://knfbreader.com/) and TapTapSee (https://taptapseeapp.com/) to name just a few.
 
Although I use a couple of these apps frequently (they all do a slightly different job), it was the Be My Eyes app that I used recently and the one that I wanted to share my experience of.
 
The Be My Eyes website describes the app as: Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance through a live video call.
 
And that is exactly what happens… a few days ago, whilst working at home, my laptop started playing up before it stopped responding completely. Similar to my phone, I use a screen reader called Jaws on my laptop but when the screen reader stops talking to me I have no idea what is on the screen or where I am. With no-one else in the house, I tried some of the other apps mentioned above to see if I could work out if there were any error messages on the screen but they just didn’t work. Finally I resorted to the ‘Be My Eyes’ app and called up one of the sighted volunteers.
 
I was quickly connected to a lady (apologies for not getting your name if you ever read this) in Swansea. She was able, using the video connection, to direct me to point the camera to the screen and inform me that there was nothing on my desktop that was obviously causing my Jaws software not to speak. She was then able to escort me through shutting down the laptop using verbal prompts so that I could re-start it and continue with my work. The call took about 2 - 3 minutes and this included a short amount of ‘social’ chat where I found out that I was her first Be My Eyes volunteer experience, joked about her telling me that she had just got out of the shower (she quickly told me that she was dressed - not that I would have seen anything anyway) as well as me thanking her for her help.
 
This wasn’t my first experience of using the app but this was by far the most important time I have had to use it. Previously I have tried to get someone to read the bill in a restaurant or read a label on a tub of herbs but these were really for testing purposes to see how the app worked.
 
Currently there are 2,090,032 sighted volunteers who have downloaded the app and have signed up to be a sighted volunteer and just 124,087 vision impaired people who have signed up and use the app. This means that the chances of a sighted person actually being called up is slight but without the volunteers the app just wouldn’t work at all!
 
If you want to be a volunteer, then just download the app and register. The app is available for the iPhone (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/be-my-eyes-helping-blind-see/id905177575?mt=8)and Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bemyeyes.bemyeyes) platforms.
 
If you have a vision impairment and feel that you would benefit from using this app, then download the app (as above) and follow the steps for registering as a vision impaired person. Once registered you’re just 30 seconds away from getting sighted support! :-)
 
Read more about this amazing app at: https://www.bemyeyes.com/
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

Having shared the Facebook post about a woman with a guide dog being told by another passenger to get off a bus as her dog couldn’t be a guide dog as it wasn’t yellow (yes I know, unbelievable but sadly true) – I, Vicky, thought it might be a good time to write a blog about assistance dogs and their different roles. It also happens to coincide nicely with the book I’m currently reading called ‘Dogs with Jobs’ by Laura Greaves – about all the different roles dogs undertake.
 
Assistance Dogs UK is an umbrella organisation for 8 Assistance Dogs charities in the UK. Their roles are different and varied – just like the dogs themselves! The 8 organisations are:
·      Canine Partners
·      Dog AID
·      Dogs for Good
·      Guide Dogs
·      Hearing Dogs
·      Medical Detection Dogs
·      Support Dogs
·      The Seeing Dogs Association
 
Canine Partners (www.caninepartners.org.uk) provide dogs who assist people with physical disabilities and impairments with practical day to day tasks that may otherwise be difficult to perform. They also provide increased confidence, independence and social interaction. Their dogs wear a purple coat to identify them.
 
Dog AID (www.dogaid.org.uk) empower people with physical disabilities to train their own pet dog to assist them with daily tasks which are tailored to the individual. These dogs wear a red and fluorescent yellow coat.
 
Dogs for Good (www.dogsforgood.org) assistance dogs support adults and children with a range of disabilities and also younger children with autism. They also provide a Family Dog service that gives advice and support to help families with a child with autism get the most out of their relationship with their pet dog. In addition they train and support community dogs and their specialist handlers to work in activity and therapy in communities and schools. Their trained dogs wear a green coat.
 
Guide Dogs (www.guidedogs.org.uk) provide dogs who will guide adults and young people who are blind or partially sighted. Qualified guide dogs wear a white harness with yellow fluorescent strips.
 
Hearing Dogs (www.hearingdogs.org.uk) provide dogs for adults and children with a hearing impairment. These dogs are trained to alert deaf people to sounds they would otherwise miss, such as doorbells, alarm clocks, fire alarms etc. Qualified hearing dogs wear a burgundy jacket.
 
Medical Detection Dogs (www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk) have dogs that are trained to detect the odour of human disease. This is used both for Bio Detection dogs and also Medical Alert Assistance Dogs who support people with complex health conditions and use minute odour changes in a person to alert them to take preventative action. They wear a red coat.
 
Support Dogs (www.supportdogs.org.uk) are dedicated to increasing independence and quality of life for people with various medical conditions. They have 3 specific programmes: Autism Assistance Dogs for young children, Seizure Alert dogs for people with epilepsy and Disability Assistance Dogs. Their trained dogs wear a blue coat.
 
The Seeing Dogs Alliance (www.seeingdogs.org.uk)
Training dogs to guide blind and partially sighted people. Qualified dogs wear a yellow coat.
 
As you can tell from this list, assistance dogs’ breeds and roles are widely different and varied. However, all qualified assistance dogs can be identified by the coats or harnesses they wear when working which, although different colours all have the name of the organisation clearly shown too. These assistance dogs shouldn’t be disturbed when working so please don’t stroke or feed them. If they are relaxing, then you can ask the owner if it’s okay to say hello to the dog.
 
Legally guide dog and assistance dog owners have important rights under the Equality Act 2010 (EA). This Act ensures people with disabilities to have the same right to public services as everyone else.
This includes taxis and minicabs unless the driver has a medical exemptions certificate from their GP. And yes, this law applies whatever the colour of the assistance dog!!
 
In the past there have been negative comments on social media about these dogs being trained to be slaves, all I can say in response to that is that Dave’s guide dog, Errol always looked so proud to wear his harness, standing up straighter whenever the harness was readied for him (and just for the record, Errol was a black dog – a German Shepherd crossed with a Golden Retriever). Also, Guide Dogs and I’m sure all assistance dog charities, regularly monitor the health and well being of the dog and their focus is that it has to be right for the dog, not just the owner.
 
In reading the book ‘Dogs with Jobs’ which covers a whole range of different roles that dogs undertake, from being assistance dogs, pat therapy dogs, a dog who acts (from his own choice) as a guide dog for another dog, dolphin detector dogs and a dog whose role it is to keep the Seagulls away from the Australian National Maritime Museum, I think what struck me most was each owners immense respect for what their different dogs could do. Some had been trained, but many had a natural instinct for the role they undertook. And when the dog decided it wanted a break or to stop working, then that was respected to.
 
And, just as an aside, in one of the other services Dave and I run, the Disability Equipment Service (www.disabilityequipmentservice.co.uk), we have been proud to sponsor a guide dog (aptly named Des), through the first year of his training. We have just raised enough money to do this again and will then also hope to start supporting Support Dogs too! This money is raised through kind donations of both money and disability equipment, which we then sell on to support the running costs of the website with 25% being donated to an Assistance Dog charity. Find out more about Des on our Disability Equipment Service Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/disabilityequipmentservice/. And if you want to read more about Dave’s lovely guide dog, Errol, Dave wrote a heartfelt tribute to him when he sadly passed away in June 2017 - https://vidatraining.weebly.com/blog/archives/06-2017
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

“In December 1996 the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 November as World Television Day commemorating the date on which the first World Television Forum was held in 1996.” (from Wikipedia).
 
With it being World Television Day today, Wednesday 21 November, I (Dave) felt it appropriate to write about televisions and in particular how they have progressed in recent years to be much more accessible for vision impaired people. I am also considering upgrading my 13 year old Sony TV with a new, more accessible one so this VIDA Insight has become a bit of a research project at the same time! J
 
TVs have generally been poor when it comes to accessibility. Some sets used to enable you to change the contrast of the text in the menus but that was pretty much it. Panasonic worked closely with the RNIB and released a TV in 2012 that spoke the channel number and programme title when you moved through the stations but it didn’t read the full electronic programme guide (EPG). There have been a few set-top boxes that have had screen reading capabilities with the most popular being the TVonics set-top box with built-in hard drive for recording TV programmes. I actually still have one of these and it still works well and is fully accessible but they were discontinued several years ago and can now only be bought second hand. They sometimes come up on the Disability Equipment Service website (www.disabilityequipmentservice.co.uk) – another service that Vicky and I run and also via places like eBay.
 
However, things are progressing and there are now several TV manufacturers that are selling TVs with built-in screen reading facilities. I’ve yet to go to a store to test them out but, from digging around on the internet and from listening to podcasts, know that some are now available.
 
I’m not going to go in to too much detail in this blog as it would just go on and on and on…. So I’ll mention below some of the leading manufacturers and provide a direct link to their website where you can read more information about their particular accessibility features. They are in no particular order and I’m not in a position to recommend one, however, as a Sony fan I will be looking at their range to see how good it is. It will need to be very good as the features offered on the Samsung TV’s appear to be very impressive.
 
Sony – offer 3 main accessibility features that they are calling:
·      Vision Assist - Easy to see / convert to sound -
·      Hearing Assist - Easy to hear / convert to text -
·      Action Assist - Easy to use / support operation -
https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/accessibility/
 
Samsung – Have included a range of features including Voice Guide, Audio Description, High Contrast, Enlarge, Colour Inversion and Greyscale. They also have a few features for people with a hearing impairment as well as very smart learning tools including Learn Remote and Learn Menu.
https://www.samsung.com/uk/accessibility/tv/
 
Android – There is now a screen reader called Voiceview available on smart TV’s running the Android operating system as well as on the Amazon Fire Stick. Similar to the above, Voiceview will read aloud screen menus, programme information, etc.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT205454
 
Apple TV – All Apple products now have a built-in screen reader called Voiceover. This is also the case for the Apple TV 4K and the Apple TV set-top box - you can navigate all of the menus without seeing the screen.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT205454
 
Panasonic – Although Panasonic have sold TVs with voice guidance since 2012, I can’t find any information about their newer TVs doing much more. Voice Guidance reads the on-screen text (channel and programme title) and volume levels but doesn’t read the full EPG. Sadly I couldn’t find a quick link to the Voice Guidance on the Panasonic website as it wasn’t that accessible with my screen reader and a Google search didn’t reveal much other than stories from 2012 when the Vieira range of talking TVs was launched!
 
In addition to surfing the internet, I have listened to a few podcasts about accessible TVs. The best ones were from the RNIB’s Tech Talk podcast. RNIB Tech Talk is a podcast and radio show (RNIB Connect Radio) for vision impaired people who are interested in accessible technology.
 
There have been discussions about accessible TVs recently on episodes 242, 243 and 249 during the weekly 1 hour Tech Talk programmes hosted by Steven Scott, Shaun Preece and Tim Schwart. They were talking about the Sony and the Samsung in particular and went in to some detail about how some are better than others when it comes to accessibility of the apps on smart TVs.
 
You can listen to all of the RNIB Tech Talk podcasts at:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/rnib-tech-talk/id1151878596?mt=2
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.
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Queen Alexandra College (QAC) are once again bringing their Sight Village exhibition to London.
 
QAC say “The Roadshow allows visitors to come and find out more about the latest technology, equipment and support services available to people who are blind or partially-sighted. If you or a family member have a visual impairment it could be of great help to visit the show. We also welcome a wide range of professionals that support people with visual impairments and businesses looking to better meet the needs of their employees and customers.”
 
Vicky and I already have pre-registered and will be attending on Tuesday 6th November. We had a great time last year, meeting many of the exhibitors and updating ourselves on the latest equipment and services available for vision impaired people and we’re hoping to do the same again this year. Of particular interest to us, AIRA will be present this year and with this service about to roll out in the UK, it will be good to see first-hand how this really works. The new OrCam is also meant to be a great device so it’ll be interesting to see this compared to last year’s version.
 
If you’re heading to the exhibition on Tuesday 6th November then keep a look out for Vicky and I; we’ll have our VIDA shirts on so will be relatively easy to spot for most of you!
 
The exhibition specifics…
 
Date & Times
Tuesday 6 November, 10:00 – 17:00
Wednesday 7 November, 10:00 – 15:30
 
Venue
The Kensington Town Hall, Hornton Street, W8 7NX.
 
Food & Drink
Refreshments are available for purchase throughout the event.
 
 
For more information about the exhibition and to pre-register, visit: http://www.qac.ac.uk/exhibitions/sight-village-southeast/3.htm
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.

I’m (Dave) very much a realist when it comes to my sight and live each day as best I can using the limited sight that I have. I’m regularly asked if there is any treatment or operations that I could have to improve or restore my sight and my simple answer to these questions is ‘No, not really’.
 
However, I have spoken to my consultant at Moorfields about the research in to my condition (Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP)) and have had discussions about retina implants and in particular the Argus II ‘bionic eye’ developed by American company Second Sight Medical Products, as this is the most advanced treatment currently available for RP in particular.
 
“Surgeons at Manchester and Moorfields Eye Hospital made history by delivering the world’s first trial of the Argus II Bionic Eye implants in RP. Specialists at both Hospitals initially supported early studies, which demonstrated that the Argus II restores a degree of visual function to patients who have suffered complete blindness due to the condition.” (https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/bionic-eye-surgery/)
 
Currently my small amount of vision is probably better than what I would get from the Argus II and I don’t have to wear camera glasses or charge batteries, etc. so this treatment isn’t on my radar just yet. However, I do believe that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel (I couldn’t help myself with this pun) either via a bionic eye or with stem cell treatments.
 
A story broke recently that pricked my interest about a bionic eye that had been printed using a 3D printer. I read an article on the Daily Mail website that covered the story quite well…
 
“Scientists have taken another important step towards building the world's first bionic eye, which could give millions of blind people the chance to see again.
 
In a world first, a team of researchers have built a three-dimensional artificial 'eyeball' capable of detecting changes in light levels.
 
The bionic eye, which mimics the function of the retina in order to restore sight, works in tandem with an implant to convert the images it sees into electrical impulses for the retinal cells, which carry image signals back to the brain.
 
By using 3D printing, scientists were able to produce the prototype much faster than previous efforts – sparking hope this could be a viable commercial solution in the future. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6109589/One-step-closer-creating-worlds-bionic-EYE-Scientists-3D-print-prototype-eyeball.html).”
 
It is the 3D printing that took my interest in particular and the ability to print light detecting electrodes on a curve. I remember attending an exhibition in London 6 or 7 years ago that showcased 3D printing and what you could do using this new technology. Items ranged from candle stick holders and small ornaments to remote control cars through to some pretty cool stuff like personalised printed electric guitars and drum kits. Back then they were talking about 3D printing being available in the home in 10 – 20 years with the future being that you’ll be able to download a template and print your own parts – circuit boards for washing machines for example. I certainly didn’t think back then that this technology, particularly in such a short time period, would be printing a bionic eye or could be the answer to restoring my sight!
 
As I mentioned at the beginning, I am a realist and am not expecting my vision to be restored before I die, however, I am excited by this kind of developments as it demonstrates that work is being done and there could be hope, if not for me, for people in the future.
 
We’re always interested to know about other people’s experiences and thoughts. Please share these by commenting…
 
Interested to learn more about VIDA Training? Read about our Training and Consultancy packages, specialising in Vision Impairment and Disability Awareness, Communication and Team Building or contact us for further information.