1. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. 5/5/2015 Expanding Audio Access to Mathematics Expressions by Students with Visual Impairments via MathML Lois Frankel Educational Testing Service June 29, 2012

2. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. The Problem 5/5/2015 Text-to-speech support for math expressions is in its infancy – Limited choice of syntax/semantics – Limited screen-reader support – Limited or no within-expression navigation – Difficult to author – Works in limited environments 2

3. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. Project Goals 5/5/2015 Add classroom-like synthesized speech “style” Add author- and user-customization features Add interactive navigation Allow math to be created and listened to with screen readers within Microsoft Word (and elsewhere) 3

4. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. A Brief Demonstration 5/5/2015 Authoring Playback 4

5. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. First Feedback Study 5/5/2015 Evaluated first version of the new “ClearSpeak” against the existing MathPlayer styles Simple Speech and MathSpeak 15 high school students with blindness or low vision, currently enrolled in Algebra 1 or above 5

6. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. Preliminary Results of First Feedback Study 5/5/2015 Quantitative evaluation in progress Understanding of and some preferences for terminology vary 6

7. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. First Study: Preliminary Results (2) 5/5/2015 7 Familiarity of Speech: Very Familiar Somewhat Familiar Somewhat Unfamiliar Very Unfamiliar Simple Speech5722 MathSpeak6522 ClearSpeak*9500 Discussion points: Speak "times" vs. parentheses (open/close vs. left/right).

8. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. First Study: Preliminary Results (3) 5/5/2015 Discussion Points: Squared/Cubed vs exponent or power language Exponent/power/superscript/baseline 8 Very Familiar Somewhat Familiar Somewhat Unfamiliar Very Unfamiliar Simple Speech0817 MathSpeak1446 ClearSpeak*6810

9. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. First Study: Preliminary Results (4) 5/5/2015 9 Liked Most Liked Least Simple Speech43.5 MathSpeak211.5 ClearSpeak*80

10. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. Thoughts for Moving Ahead 5/5/2015 Navigation Word / better screen reader integration Importance of preferences and flexibility Voice Quality Contact me if you know teachers, schools, students that might wish to participate in upcoming studies. 10

11. Copyright © 2012 Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. Contact Information 5/5/2015 Lois Frankel: lfrankel@ets.orglfrankel@ets.org Beth Brownstein: bbrownstein@ets.orgbbrownstein@ets.org Neil Soiffer: neils@dessci.comneils@dessci.com MathPlayer: http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/ http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/ The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R324A110355 to the Educational Testing Service. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education 11