This is exciting to report. We tested the WiiCane for veering reduction only at HK last week. The students were deaf and hard-of-hearing. None used spoken English feedback; all used vibration delivered by remotes attached to the arms.
I reviewed the video data for two students for three days. I made sure that the data are accurate by viewing every trial, not using the computer system-generated data. This means that when the parameters were temporarily changed or the system malfunctioned due to user error, I eliminated the few bad trials. The results are we have some clean data and we can see learning with this subject. I looked at another student and there was learning but less dramatic and the data was not as clean because the parameters for the device were different on two days of trials.
For the one subject I will call SG, the improvement in reduced veering is clear. Here are the mean number of feedback prompts for veering for this subject:
Day 1 cumulative trials 11 6.36
Day 2 cumulative trails: 34 3.30
Day 3 cumulative trials: 49 1.87
This indicates to me that the feedback system can work with vibration only, and can work with deafblind travelers. How consistently and compared to spoken English we do not know for certain.
The graph is above.
2 comments:
Excuse my typos, as always!
Gene - I am glad you are collecting some "clean" data. It is encouraging that the vibration only mode is proving useful for reduction of veering in this subject.
In my opinion, the bottom line is that the O&M field will be interested in the WiiCane only if there is data that supports that it works to improve O&M skills, such as veering.
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