Development of Audio Video Describer using narration to visualize movie film for blind and visually impaired children

For the blind and visually impaired children, they are having limited ways for interactive learning and this is one of the challenges for acquiring knowledge and skills for independent living. There are some approaches that could be used to make the learning more enjoyable and interactive. In increasing the accessibility to the learning opportunity for the blind and visually impaired children, an experimental model of Audio Video Describer (AVD) is believed to assist them to experience movie film. By developing the AVD using narration, this paper presents the findings from a preliminary analysis of using an experimental model which was tested to 20 normal sighted students to evaluate the effectiveness of the experimental model that later will be tested to the blind and visually impaired children. In this initial study, a survey was conducted to understand the effectiveness of the AVD. The key findings from the analysis are the suitability of language, voice, pitch and timing used for the audio description and also the potential that AVD can assist the blind and visually impaired children to experience and enjoy movie film. With the use of AVD, it will eventually results in minimal help from the normal people to describe the movie for them.