Abstract
People with visual impairments find themselves confronted with numerous daily challenges, such as negative societal attitudes and inaccessible environments, which hinder their full participation in society. These systemic acts of exclusion can result in feelings of social isolation, invisibility, deprivation of human rights, and dependency by the visually impaired. Over the decades, assistive devices have played an instrumental role in overcoming some of these challenges. The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) brings with it a multitude of digital technologies, which present significant potential to facilitate experiences of social inclusion for people with visual impairments. For this research 3D printing, the Internet of Things, and text-to-speech applications were selected as case studies of 4IR technologies that are being used by people with visual impairments, in order to investigate whether and how they facilitate experiences of social inclusion for people with visual impairments. Academic literature has researched the 4IR, as well as traditional assistive devices for the visually impaired, however, the gap in the literature that this study aims to address is to document experiences of social inclusion of people with visual impairments, brought about by digital technologies of the 4IR. The study adopted the International Classification of Functioning disability model as the theoretical framework.
This study aimed to investigate whether and how 4IR digital technologies facilitated experiences of greater social inclusion for people with visual impairments.
The objectives of the study were to:
Explore how 3D Printing has been used by people with visual impairments.
Assess whether and how the use of 3D Printing has led to experiences of greater social inclusion for people with visual impairments.
Explore how the IoT has been used by people with visual impairments.
Assess whether and how the use of the IoT has led to experiences of greater social inclusion for people with visual impairments.
Explore how text-to-speech applications have been used by people with visual impairments.
Assess whether and how the use of text-to-speech applications has led to experiences of greater social inclusion for people with visual impairments.
An interpretivist qualitative case study approach, using in-depth interviews was employed in order to answer the research aim and objectives. Through the adoption of purposive and snowball sampling strategies, 19 participants from South Africa, Canada, the United States and Australia were selected to participate in this study. The data was analysed through an inductive and thematic approach. Both procedural and process ethics were followed during all steps of the research process.
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The findings showed that 3D printing, the IoT and text-to-speech applications were able to facilitate experiences of social inclusion for the participants in multiple settings such as at home, at the workplace, at social/religious settings and at educational settings. 3D printing was adopted to teach STEM to students with visual impairments. The IoT featured predominantly in the home environment through virtual voice assistants. Text-to-speech applications were prevalent in all settings to facilitate experiences of social inclusion. Another key finding was that the extent of experiences of social inclusion is dependent on factors such as privilege, nationality, and access to technology.
The study proved that the interaction between the participants visual impairment, and the adoption of 4IR digital technologies was able to shift the experience of disability in a positive way, leading to feelings of belonging, value, recognition, dignity, and self-reliance which are indicative of social inclusion. The findings further demonstrated that social inclusion for people with visual impairments has become more technology driven rather than society driven.