Abstract

Over the last decades, the visually handicapped have consistently progressed in their efforts towards inclusion in the mainstream. Integration in education and professional life in particular has become possible due to computers without which it would not have been possible to the same degree. In the wake of this integration, more and more blind students are attempting CEGEP and University studies. This situation has created new problems and new needs. One of them is the need to study text and electronic documents in depth and in a reasonable time. Blind students cannot flip through the pages of a book, skim through the text or use a highlighter. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is about understanding and processing language as used by humans and includes a subdomain called Information Retrieval. In this thesis, we will describe this problem in detail and review how it has been addressed so far in the industry. We will then propose a solution in the form of an experimental prototype and show how some existing NLP techniques can profitably assist blind students in meeting their academic objectives. This thesis is a technology application and engineering of a practically usable software product