Mathematics and Accessibility: a Survey

In this chapter we review the state-of-the-art in non-visual accessibility of mathematics. Making mathematics accessible is a significant challenge, due to its 2dimensional, spatial nature and the inherently linear nature of speech and Braille displays. The relative arrangement of various mathematical symbols in the 2-dimensional print space is extensively exploited by standard mathematical notations to succinctly convey information to the sighted reader (e.g., square roots, exponentiations, fractions). The spatial layout implicitly encodes semantic information which is essential to the understanding of mathematical constructs, however, it poses a hurdle in making mathematics accessible in the two most traditional media adopted by visually impaired students, i.e., Braille and aural rendering. In both approaches, the information implicit in the spatial arrangements has to be made explicit, making accessing and understanding of mathematics by the visually impaired cumbersome. In this chapter, we consider various approaches proposed as well as in use for making mathematics accessible. We survey approaches based on Braille codes (e.g., the Nemeth and Marburg codes) as well as those based on aural rendering of mathematical expressions (such as AsTeR and MathGenie). We cover existing systems that are in use for making mathematics accessible, along with current research in the area.