Co-reading (when parents read aloud with their children) is an important literacy development activity for children. HCI has begun to explore how technology might support children in co-reading, but little empirical work examines how parents currently co-read, and no work examines how people with visual impairments (PWVI) co-read. PWVIs' perspectives offer unique insights into co-reading, as PWVI often read differently from their children, and (Braille) literacy holds particular cultural significance for PWVI. We observed discussions of co-reading practices in a blind parenting forum on Facebook, to establish a grounded understanding of how and why PWVI co-read. We found that PWVIs' co-reading practices were highly diverse and affected by a variety of socio-technical concerns - and visual ability was less influential than other factors like ability to read Braille, presence of social supports, and children's literacy. Our findings show that PWVI have valuable insights into co-reading, which could help technologies in this space better meet the needs of parents and children, with and without disabilities.
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This content will become publicly available on May 11, 2025
Cuddling Up With a Print-Braille Book: How Intimacy and Access Shape Parents' Reading Practices with Children
Like many parents, visually impaired parents (VIPs) read books with their children. However, research on accessible reading technologies predominantly focuses on blind adults reading alone or sighted adults reading with blind children, such that the motivations, strategies, and needs of blind parents reading with their sighted children are still largely undocumented. To address this gap, we interviewed 13 VIPs with young children. We found that VIPs (1) sought familial intimacy through reading with their child, often prioritizing intimacy over their own access needs, (2) took on many types of access labor to read with their children, and (3) desired novel assistive technologies (ATs) for reading that prioritize intimacy while reducing access labor. We contribute the notion of Intimate AT, along with a demonstrative design space, which together constitute a new design paradigm that draws attention to intimacy as a facet of both independently and collaboratively accessible ATs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2048145
- PAR ID:
- 10522061
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400703300
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 15
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Honolulu HI USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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