On the prototype system of aloud-reading in Japanese for documents including mathematical expressions

摘要

Current screen readers can not deal with mathematical expressions except for arithmetic ones. We develop an aloud-reading system that can treat technical materials for undergraduates, as a new tool to allow visually disabled students to access scientific information. This system utilizes "95Rcader', which is one of the most popular Japanese screen reader for Windows. It is constructed as a macro for sound output, analyzes structures of LaTeX files and reads mathematical expressions aloud so that their content can be understood precisely. Freehand accesses by sound to elements of mathematical expressions and a user dictionary for adding new symbols or changing sound definitions are also available.