We conducted the questionnaire survey on school lessons and student life for the teachers in special needs education school. The low-vision students had the problem that they could not see characters clearly on the blackboard by using monocular. In order to solve this problem, we constructed the scripts information acquisition support system for them. This system has three functions consisting of displaying a region of interest, magnifying characters, and inserting a line break of the text automatically. We evaluated the reading speed and the error rates of two reading tests using monocular and the system for thirty ordinary examinees wearing the simulation lens. The results of two tests revealed that the error rates were extremely low and the reading speed using this system is faster than that using monocular by 19.6%. The above results suggest that this system can be applied for the visually impaired person.

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The mechanism for the activation of cerebral function through singing and listening music was investigated. In this research, the effect of singing and listening to music on cerebral function and the effects on autonomic nerve systems were clarified. The fluctuation of oxyHb was analyzed for quantifying the active state of cerebral function. The CSI to investigate the activation level of sympathetic nerve and the CVI to investigate the activation level of parasympathetic nerve were analyzed for quantifying the fluctuation of autonomic nerve systems. The result of experiment showed that the oxyHb increased during the music tasks and the oxyHb decreased during the rest. Additionally, it was shown that the sympathetic nerve became predominant in singing music. In addition to this, we proposed a new evaluation index quantifying the active status of cerebral function using the absolute value of oxyHb and the differential value of oxyHb. By use of this evaluation index, the effectiveness of relaxation with listening music and relaxation without music on the active status of cerebral function were investigated. In these investigations, the effectiveness of music therapy was increased when the parasympathetic nerve became predominant efficiently

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This study proposes a light-emitting device to support hearing impaired people in a group conversation. Many hearing impaired people can understand speech by lip reading. However, in a group conversation, it is difficult for hearing impaired people to follow turn taking quickly and correctly even though they use hearing aids. The developed assistive device estimates the sound source direction and displays the results in real time through an LED interface. This device allows hearing impaired people to identify the speaker in a group conversation easily by just looking at the device when they lose the current speaker. In addition, visualizing sound source direction support auditory awareness of hearing impaired people. We conducted group conversation experiments in several conditions with hearing impaired participants and hearing participants. Throughout the experiments, we verified the advantage of the developed device.

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