August 19, 2025 • 28 mins
You'll hear from Ian Bailey again as Sam speaks with him about his work at Berkeley in the 1980s.
Then later in the program Leslie Heagney from Braille House joins the show to tell us about the Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition, now available for submissions until 18 September, and Frances Keyland wraps up the show with a Reader Recommended.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:21):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:38):
Creative writing, you know, is is more fun. It's quite reflective. Um,
and often in writing competitions, um, you know, people who
are blind or have low vision, you know, maybe underrepresented
because of the, you know, the way the competition is
run or the requirements. And we want to make sure
that competitions like these with prizes, mind you, are as
accessible as possible because it's all about our mission.
S2 (00:59):
Welcome to the show. It's great to be back with
you all after a week off with the flu, but
we're back in action. So great to be with you.
Now this week we feature Another chat with Ian Bailey.
This time he's chatting to us all about his time
in the 80s at Berkeley. But we've also got a
(01:23):
chat with Leslie Haney from Braille House. She's here to
talk to us about the upcoming Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition,
open to all creative writers who are blind or have
low vision, including a special category open to the general public. Plus,
(01:43):
we'll be finishing off with a reader recommended from Frances Kelland.
So I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
S4 (01:55):
We made the preferential looking cards. We weren't very good
at promoting things and getting things onto the market, but
we we were more interested in improving our own capabilities.
We'd talk about them at meetings and so forth. So
we weren't trying to keep the news to ourselves, but
(02:17):
we weren't as good as we could have been in
terms of publicizing them and getting them into broader use.
And in retrospect, we should have done better, particularly the
first ten years that at Berkeley with I think we
made lots of differences in the way clinicians work with
low vision patients and how to understand the devices that
(02:43):
were being used, how prisms worked for people with visual
field loss, and just a whole lot of lot of stuff.
And it was all good fun. The other important thing
that we did during the 80s was we ran a
whole lot of courses for the American Academy of Optometry,
(03:03):
the American Academy of Optometry, um, has annual meetings, and
we ran a workshop. The workshop began with when I
was working with them, Alan Freed and Edward Mayer. Um,
and they had written, um, one of the early textbooks
(03:24):
on low vision. And in fact, they were at Berkeley,
and they had written their textbook just before I arrived there.
But anyhow, we ran a workshop, um, at one of
these meetings, and it was the first workshop that the
American Academy of Optometry had run. But the following year
(03:44):
we were asked to do to do the same course again, but, um,
do it on two occasions. And these were three these
courses were three hours. And so and we did this,
I think for four years. And this got a lot
of our new methods and, um, our new approaches and
more systematic ways of prescribing out into the clinical community
(04:08):
that were mainly optometrists at the meeting, but there'd be
a few ophthalmologists. But not not many. Ophthalmologists and optometrists
didn't get together quite as much in those days. After
around about the mid 80s, I started looking at a
few other issues, some of which were not related to
(04:30):
low vision, but some were. We started looking at vision
and looking at video display as people were starting to
use personal computers, things like that. We did some research
looking at the effect of the pixilation that you got
(04:50):
with very high levels of magnification on the video displays,
and a lot of this started when the Macintosh computer
came out because it offered some capabilities that were easy. Um,
and I became associated with a couple of colleagues, um,
Larry Boyd and his son, Wes Boyd, who later developed
(05:14):
a big company called Berkeley Systems. You might remember flying
toasters as a.
S2 (05:20):
Yes.
S4 (05:21):
There's a flying toasters. Yeah. Well, that came from, um,
Berkeley Systems. Wow.
S2 (05:27):
That's pretty cool.
S4 (05:27):
I worked I worked with those guys, and we did
did did, um, over the years, a series of experiments
that had to do with vision and computer displays. Some
of the work that we did was related to, um,
low vision and magnification issues on the computer displays. But
but a lot of the work we did was related to, um,
(05:48):
general use also became involved in vision and vision, comfort
and the lighting environment that we did some work looking
at what makes a visual discomfort. You know, when people, um,
get visual discomfort because the lighting conditions are glary or unsatisfactory,
(06:13):
they're not properly set up. Why do people get sore eyes?
Where do these these sensations come from? And we did
a lot of work. We didn't make any huge discoveries,
but we looked at whether the pupil was involved. We
looked at, um, the way the pupil changed when people
were looking at video displays, computer display screens, um, with
(06:37):
various glare sources set up, trying to identify whether or
not glare sources and lighting conditions affected both visual performance
and visual comfort, and whether there was any, um, changes
in what the pupil was doing. We also looked at
(06:58):
the effects of flicker to see whether how flicker affected
people's comfort and performance, visual efficiency when they're looking at
display screens. And I did some of that with Sam Berman,
who was a physicist and a lighting engineer. Another thing
that we became interested in, and this is in the
(07:22):
late 80s and early 90s, is giving clinical grades to
observations and measurements. At the time, people were starting to
do research, looking at cataract and grading cataracts according to
the severity. And, um, there were several schemes for um
(07:44):
saying this is a grade one cataract, a grade two cataract,
grade three or grade four cataract. And the clinicians, um,
doing such grading would usually have a specimen saying this
is what a grade one looks like. And another specimen
saying this is what a grade two looks like and
so on. And um, there was a lot of interest
(08:07):
in people saying how their system was really good or
how the training they gave their, the clinicians, um, how
it improved, how frequently they got the same answer for
test and retest. That is, they look at the same cataract,
give it a grade, and then the next day when
(08:28):
the cataract wouldn't have changed, they'll look at it again
and they would say, oh yes, we got the same
score today as we did yesterday. And we did. And
we get we do that 85% of the time. And
someone would say, ah, but we have these sort of
photographs and we get 87% of the time. And I
(08:49):
heard a lecture on this and I was sitting there,
I said, I'm never confident that I'm going to get
the same test result next time I test a person
on anything. And we ended up doing some experiments, and
we did these experiments with an English colleague, Mark Bullimore.
An American colleague, Tom rush, and an Australian colleague, Hugh
(09:11):
Taylor and Hugh Taylor had a long career as head
of ophthalmology at Melbourne University and the hospital. But we
did some work together and we showed that if you're
going to be serious about being able to tell if
a cataract has changed and by how much it's changed,
(09:31):
you cannot use a four point system. And our research
showed and and advocated that you should decimalise between the grades.
And you'd say yes, that specimen there, that photograph there
illustrates what a grade one looks like. And here's another
one that looks like a grade two. But the clinician
should look at the patient's cataract and say, oh, this
(09:54):
looks like it's somewhere between the one specimen and the
number two specimen, but it's somewhere in between. And it's
a little bit closer to the two than it is
to the one, so I, I'm inclined to call it
a 2.6 or a 2.7. And we ended up recommending
that we still would recommend that that's the way you
do things. And when you do that, you do not
(10:17):
get such high consistency, because one day you'll look at
a cataract, you'll say it's at 1.2, the next day
you look at it and say, it's a 1.4. And
the third day you might say it's a 1.3. So you, however,
you know that it's not close to two and it's
not below one. Um, you end up being much more
(10:39):
sensitive to change. If you have a four point scale,
you know, this is severity one. Severity two, severity three,
severity four. If you want to be confident that a
person's had a change in the severity of what you're
looking at, there has to be two steps along the
scale of change. That is, the person has to change
from a one to a three. You can't be confident
(11:03):
that there's been a real change if they go from
a one to a two. But just just to make
that point, if you were to look at something or other,
you make an observation and say, this looks reasonably moderately severe.
It looks like it's somewhere between a one and a two,
but it looks like it's right in the middle. I
really don't know whether to call it a 1.5 or 1.6,
(11:24):
or a 1.41.5. I think I want to go for.
And you say, well, that's what I feel. It looks
like a 1.5 to me. But if I've only got
integers to give my grading by and say, well, I'm
just going to call it a one. And the next
day you look at it at 1.51.5, what am I
going to call it? I have to call it a
(11:44):
one or a two. So I'll call it a two today.
And you go back and look at the third day
and it's back to one again. When things haven't been changing,
you're changing your score by one. And so you end
up with too much noise in your observation. You have
to make yourself less secure of the The number that
you apply every time. Or perhaps a better way of
(12:06):
describing this. You look at this cataract, you say, this
looks like it's a it's halfway between the one and
the two. I'm uncomfortable. I don't know whether to call
it a one or a two, and I'm going to
have to exercise my best judgment. And this is an
uncomfortable decision for me because it's a flip of the coin.
(12:29):
Is it a one or is it a two? Every
observation you make should have the same level of difficulty. Um,
and that's the general conclusion. And so when people are
saying we're getting the same result over and over again,
test and retest, give me the same results 85% of
the time, or 80% of the time. That's because you're
(12:51):
putting your data into big boxes and the decisions are
just most of the decisions are too easy, and you're
not exercising your your most critical analytical judgment, and that
made an important had an important impact on a lot
of clinical trials, because many, many clinical trials were using
(13:13):
the grading system where they had usually four steps on
their scale, and people had to assign a grade of
one or a two or a three or a four
and nothing else. When when we presented that at a
meeting in Florida, it had a huge impact on the
way cataracts were graded. But it extends right across, um,
(13:36):
a whole lot of measurements that are made by, um,
the medical and associated professions. So that that's something that
we're pretty pleased and proud of.
S2 (13:52):
I'm Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated stations of Disability Media Australia and
the Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation
there with Ian Bailey. If you missed any part of
that chat with Ian or you'd love to hear it again.
(14:15):
Talking vision is available on the podcast platform of your
choice or through the Vision Australia library. You can also
find the program on the Vision Australia Radio website at.
That's radio all one word.org. But now please enjoy my
(14:36):
conversation with Leslie Haney. The Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition is
back for 2025, and Braille House is very excited to
read your submission with a bunch of different categories. There's
sure to be something suitable for you or someone you
(14:56):
know to make a submission and to have a chat
with us about the competition. It's my great pleasure to
welcome Leslie Hackney from Braille House. Leslie, welcome to Talking Vision.
Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (15:12):
Hi, Sam. It's great to be here. My first time
on Talking Vision.
S2 (15:17):
Welcome. It's great to have you. Now we're here to
talk about something very important today, the Dickinson Memorial Literary
Competition for people who might not be aware. What is
the competition?
S3 (15:31):
Yeah. Great question. Um, the Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition, which
I definitely need to come up with a nickname for
because it's a long name, but there's a beautiful reason
why it's called that. Um, so we won't we won't
shorten it. Um, is a writing competition. That Braille House
is the proud custodian of its 104th year this year, um,
(15:54):
and it's an accessible, uh, and inclusive writing competition. So
it's all about celebrating the literary talents of people who
are blind or have low vision.
S2 (16:04):
Okay. And as with every year, there's a yearly theme
and this one's discovery. Tell us a bit about that.
S3 (16:13):
Yeah, absolutely. So discovery, it's a very, um, hotly discussed topic,
lots of conversations. And always try and keep it back
to the original theme, which was self-reliance. But also, you know,
the things that are happening, you know, in Braille House
or in the world at the moment, something that's still
nice and broad. Um, you know, but create encourages that
beautiful creative writing. Um, so discovery is, um, you know,
(16:38):
invites writers to explore any form of discovery, actually, whether
it's internal, uh, so something within themselves, something a bit,
you know, reflective, educational. You know, maybe it's about science, imaginative.
You can, you know, all sorts of things you can
discover with your imagination or even like geographical. You know,
it could be a travel blog, for example. Um, you know,
(16:58):
we we like to keep it really open to, to
encourage as many people to place entry as possible.
S2 (17:05):
For sure. And how many entry categories are there, Leslie,
in this year's competition, I understand there's quite a few,
and a very special one that's open to quite a
few other members of the public as well.
S3 (17:19):
Absolutely. Yep. So we've got six six all up. So
the first is, um, is just adult short story. The
second is an adult poem, song lyric or Limerick. You
don't hear many limericks these days. Um, the third is
an adult article. So this might be an opinion piece,
a self-reflection, a blog. The fourth, we move into our
(17:42):
student category. So it's senior student creative writing. So, you know,
again it's that story poem, song, lyric, Limerick blog, um,
that kind of thing. Creatively, um, the fifth is a
junior student creative Category. So same thing just for younger
younger students 12 or under. And then the final one
(18:03):
is a people's choice category. So um this one's open
to everyone, including sighted people. Um, so it's again, it's
just a broad creative writing, um, piece. So it can
be any sort of format really. Um, as, uh, as
long as it's under the 2000 word limit. And, um, yeah,
we love to encourage everyone to apply.
S2 (18:24):
Perfect. And the next question sort of goes without saying
in some respects, but why does a competition like the
Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition matter so much to the blind
and low vision community, and the positive impact it can
have on creatives from within the community?
S3 (18:46):
Yeah, absolutely. It's, um, you know, it's something that we
here at Braille House celebrate every day. Um, but realistically,
you know, Braille, um, you know, which we're obviously passionate
about is actually about literacy. Um, and, you know, literacy
doesn't just mean writing. Um, but literacy is such a
foundation for lifelong learning, independence, uh, creativity. It empowers people
(19:08):
to communicate, make informed decisions, and fully engage in their communities. So,
you know, creative writing, you know, is is more fun.
It's quite reflective. Um, and often in writing competitions, um,
you know, people who are blind or have low vision,
you know, may be underrepresented because of the, you know,
the way the competition is run or the requirements. So, um,
(19:29):
you know, we have pretty broad, um, requirements, um, intentionally
in that way for submissions. We accept Braille word documents
in Braille. You don't, you know, doesn't have to be
Braille for that exact reason. Um, and we want to
make sure that competitions like these with prizes, mind you,
are as accessible as possible because it's all about our mission.
S2 (19:46):
Okay. And in a very exciting addition to all of that,
there's cash prizes up for grabs and that's always pretty cool.
So tell us a bit about that one.
S3 (19:59):
Yeah. So every category. So that's all six. Um, have
um first and second place prizes. And the first prize
is $350 for the winning entry and $150 for the
second place.
S2 (20:14):
All right. Perfect. And in terms of the details around
how to enter, what's the closing date for people out there?
And also, is there an entry fee and how much
would that be?
S3 (20:28):
Yeah. Great question. So the competition closes on Friday the
19th of September. Um, and the entries are $10 per item.
So we try and keep it pretty low. Um, and um,
you know, that all goes back in towards the prize
money and all that kind of thing. So submissions, as
(20:48):
I said, can be submitted. Um, you know, either by, um,
jumping on our website. We've got an online form, or
you can contact us by email to submit that entry.
You can even post it in. We do have a
form that goes with it, which is all about saying,
this is my work. And you know, I haven't copied
this from the internet. Um, and, uh, you know, that
all of that kind of stuff, um, but, uh, yeah.
(21:11):
So we do accept it in, in post as well. So, um,
any version that works for you guys works for us.
S2 (21:17):
And, um, in terms of some contact details, which is
sort of briefly made mention of there. How can people
get in touch with Brielle House and find out a
little bit more, and also register if they or someone
they know would love to make a submission?
S3 (21:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So our website is, um, is one of
the great places we can share the link with you guys.
But it's, um, if you Google Braille house, um, our
Braille house website will come up. Um, and you can
Also you can find links on there to to reach us,
but if you prefer our email address you can use
(21:59):
admin which is just a d m I n. Which
stands for Queensland Braille Writing Association.
S2 (22:12):
Oh well. I've been speaking today with Lesley Heagney, fundraising
and Business Development Manager from Braille House here to chat
to me all about the 2025 Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition,
which is open until early September for submissions. So get
(22:33):
out there and make your submission. I'm sure they're very
keen to have a read. Lesley, thank you so much
for your time today. It was great to catch up
with you and chat about the competition.
S3 (22:45):
Absolutely. I hope I got the right information in there.
It's always tricky balance, isn't it, between, um, you know,
getting getting information available out in a really concise way,
but having some fun with it along the way.
S2 (22:57):
Oh, you did a great job. Thank you so much.
S3 (22:59):
Thanks. And.
S2 (23:02):
And now here's Francis Kalan with a reader recommended.
S5 (23:06):
And now on to some fiction. The first book today
is Life Sentence. This is by Judith Cutler, and it's
part one of a series. Chief Superintendent Francis Harmon has
been assigned to investigate the case of a woman beaten
into a coma. Elise has been in a coma for
two years. And if the hospital switch off her life
(23:27):
support now, her attacker will be guilty of murder. Fran
faces overload as she takes on more responsibilities her elderly parents,
as well as Elise, a child abduction, the disappearance of
her only witness, and the growing affection that she and
her long time colleague Mark Turner seemed to share for
one another. But is this all too much for one
(23:48):
woman to handle? Let's hear a sample of Life Sentence
by Judith Cutler. It's narrated by Diana Bishop.
S6 (23:56):
She jerked sharply awake. Where was she? And what was
that noise? Had she fallen asleep and crashed the car? No,
it was someone rapping on the driver's window. God knew
what time it was. She hadn't dared drive any longer.
That was it. Not without a coffee and some fresh air.
(24:16):
And before she'd done more than cut the ignition, she'd
fallen asleep. She must have dribbled and probably snored, too.
But it was the trickle of saliva that troubled her most,
an outward and visible sign that she'd not been in
control of herself while technically being in control of her vehicle.
You all right, miss? It was a traffic cop. His
(24:37):
Day-Glo jacket fluorescing in the headlights of the cars. Still
using the car park even at this hour of the morning. Yes.
It had been about midnight when she'd pulled off the
M3 into fleet services, which was where she must be now.
She heaved herself out of the Saab. I've had a
long drive, officer. Thought I'd take a break. And before
(24:59):
I got anywhere near my Kit Kat. There I was,
sending my pigs to market, nodding without sympathy or humour.
The young man. He looked about 18. Dodged back to
his Range Rover and came back, fitting a mouthpiece to
a breathalyzer. Thank goodness her parents Devon bungalow was dry.
(25:20):
Capital D she blew as if to clear the last
cobweb from her brain. And then, damn it, if she
didn't start a flush right from her belly up into
her hair, it went. The night air blessedly sliding onto
it like ice cream onto hot chocolate sauce. That seems
to be all right, he said, tacking on miss as
(25:41):
an almost insulting afterthought as he registered this symptom of
her age. I suppose this is your vehicle Without speaking.
She reached for her bag, stowed in the rear footwell,
out of sight of casual predators. She always practiced what
she preached when it came to crime prevention.
S5 (25:58):
And that was a sample of Life Sentence by Judith Cutler.
Judith is spelt Judith. Judith Cutler is q t l
e r q t l e r. And that book
goes for nine hours. And it's part one of the
Fran Harmon series of books. And she's written quite a
(26:22):
few different series, all with a female protagonist in the
lead up. There's the Josie Welford mystery series. Cold pursuit
is the second in the Fran Harmon series. So quite
a few. And there's also standalone novels as well, and
there's just a lot in the library, a lot of
her different series, as I said, always featuring, uh, a
(26:44):
woman as the primary character and lots there if you
enjoy her books.
S2 (26:49):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch any time on our email
at Vision at Australia. That's talking vision all. One word
(27:14):
at Vision Australia dot. But until next week it's Sam
saying bye for now.
S1 (27:24):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour, we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:38):
Creative writing, you know, is is more fun. It's quite reflective. Um,
and often in writing competitions, um, you know, people who
are blind or have low vision, you know, maybe underrepresented
because of the, you know, the way the competition is
run or the requirements. And we want to make sure
that competitions like these with prizes, mind you, are as
accessible as possible because it's all about our mission.
S2 (00:59):
Welcome to the show. It's great to be back with
you all after a week off with the flu, but
we're back in action. So great to be with you.
Now this week we feature Another chat with Ian Bailey.
This time he's chatting to us all about his time
in the 80s at Berkeley. But we've also got a
(01:23):
chat with Leslie Haney from Braille House. She's here to
talk to us about the upcoming Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition,
open to all creative writers who are blind or have
low vision, including a special category open to the general public. Plus,
(01:43):
we'll be finishing off with a reader recommended from Frances Kelland.
So I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
S4 (01:55):
We made the preferential looking cards. We weren't very good
at promoting things and getting things onto the market, but
we we were more interested in improving our own capabilities.
We'd talk about them at meetings and so forth. So
we weren't trying to keep the news to ourselves, but
(02:17):
we weren't as good as we could have been in
terms of publicizing them and getting them into broader use.
And in retrospect, we should have done better, particularly the
first ten years that at Berkeley with I think we
made lots of differences in the way clinicians work with
low vision patients and how to understand the devices that
(02:43):
were being used, how prisms worked for people with visual
field loss, and just a whole lot of lot of stuff.
And it was all good fun. The other important thing
that we did during the 80s was we ran a
whole lot of courses for the American Academy of Optometry,
(03:03):
the American Academy of Optometry, um, has annual meetings, and
we ran a workshop. The workshop began with when I
was working with them, Alan Freed and Edward Mayer. Um,
and they had written, um, one of the early textbooks
(03:24):
on low vision. And in fact, they were at Berkeley,
and they had written their textbook just before I arrived there.
But anyhow, we ran a workshop, um, at one of
these meetings, and it was the first workshop that the
American Academy of Optometry had run. But the following year
(03:44):
we were asked to do to do the same course again, but, um,
do it on two occasions. And these were three these
courses were three hours. And so and we did this,
I think for four years. And this got a lot
of our new methods and, um, our new approaches and
more systematic ways of prescribing out into the clinical community
(04:08):
that were mainly optometrists at the meeting, but there'd be
a few ophthalmologists. But not not many. Ophthalmologists and optometrists
didn't get together quite as much in those days. After
around about the mid 80s, I started looking at a
few other issues, some of which were not related to
(04:30):
low vision, but some were. We started looking at vision
and looking at video display as people were starting to
use personal computers, things like that. We did some research
looking at the effect of the pixilation that you got
(04:50):
with very high levels of magnification on the video displays,
and a lot of this started when the Macintosh computer
came out because it offered some capabilities that were easy. Um,
and I became associated with a couple of colleagues, um,
Larry Boyd and his son, Wes Boyd, who later developed
(05:14):
a big company called Berkeley Systems. You might remember flying
toasters as a.
S2 (05:20):
Yes.
S4 (05:21):
There's a flying toasters. Yeah. Well, that came from, um,
Berkeley Systems. Wow.
S2 (05:27):
That's pretty cool.
S4 (05:27):
I worked I worked with those guys, and we did
did did, um, over the years, a series of experiments
that had to do with vision and computer displays. Some
of the work that we did was related to, um,
low vision and magnification issues on the computer displays. But
but a lot of the work we did was related to, um,
(05:48):
general use also became involved in vision and vision, comfort
and the lighting environment that we did some work looking
at what makes a visual discomfort. You know, when people, um,
get visual discomfort because the lighting conditions are glary or unsatisfactory,
(06:13):
they're not properly set up. Why do people get sore eyes?
Where do these these sensations come from? And we did
a lot of work. We didn't make any huge discoveries,
but we looked at whether the pupil was involved. We
looked at, um, the way the pupil changed when people
were looking at video displays, computer display screens, um, with
(06:37):
various glare sources set up, trying to identify whether or
not glare sources and lighting conditions affected both visual performance
and visual comfort, and whether there was any, um, changes
in what the pupil was doing. We also looked at
(06:58):
the effects of flicker to see whether how flicker affected
people's comfort and performance, visual efficiency when they're looking at
display screens. And I did some of that with Sam Berman,
who was a physicist and a lighting engineer. Another thing
that we became interested in, and this is in the
(07:22):
late 80s and early 90s, is giving clinical grades to
observations and measurements. At the time, people were starting to
do research, looking at cataract and grading cataracts according to
the severity. And, um, there were several schemes for um
(07:44):
saying this is a grade one cataract, a grade two cataract,
grade three or grade four cataract. And the clinicians, um,
doing such grading would usually have a specimen saying this
is what a grade one looks like. And another specimen
saying this is what a grade two looks like and
so on. And um, there was a lot of interest
(08:07):
in people saying how their system was really good or
how the training they gave their, the clinicians, um, how
it improved, how frequently they got the same answer for
test and retest. That is, they look at the same cataract,
give it a grade, and then the next day when
(08:28):
the cataract wouldn't have changed, they'll look at it again
and they would say, oh yes, we got the same
score today as we did yesterday. And we did. And
we get we do that 85% of the time. And
someone would say, ah, but we have these sort of
photographs and we get 87% of the time. And I
(08:49):
heard a lecture on this and I was sitting there,
I said, I'm never confident that I'm going to get
the same test result next time I test a person
on anything. And we ended up doing some experiments, and
we did these experiments with an English colleague, Mark Bullimore.
An American colleague, Tom rush, and an Australian colleague, Hugh
(09:11):
Taylor and Hugh Taylor had a long career as head
of ophthalmology at Melbourne University and the hospital. But we
did some work together and we showed that if you're
going to be serious about being able to tell if
a cataract has changed and by how much it's changed,
(09:31):
you cannot use a four point system. And our research
showed and and advocated that you should decimalise between the grades.
And you'd say yes, that specimen there, that photograph there
illustrates what a grade one looks like. And here's another
one that looks like a grade two. But the clinician
should look at the patient's cataract and say, oh, this
(09:54):
looks like it's somewhere between the one specimen and the
number two specimen, but it's somewhere in between. And it's
a little bit closer to the two than it is
to the one, so I, I'm inclined to call it
a 2.6 or a 2.7. And we ended up recommending
that we still would recommend that that's the way you
do things. And when you do that, you do not
(10:17):
get such high consistency, because one day you'll look at
a cataract, you'll say it's at 1.2, the next day
you look at it and say, it's a 1.4. And
the third day you might say it's a 1.3. So you, however,
you know that it's not close to two and it's
not below one. Um, you end up being much more
(10:39):
sensitive to change. If you have a four point scale,
you know, this is severity one. Severity two, severity three,
severity four. If you want to be confident that a
person's had a change in the severity of what you're
looking at, there has to be two steps along the
scale of change. That is, the person has to change
from a one to a three. You can't be confident
(11:03):
that there's been a real change if they go from
a one to a two. But just just to make
that point, if you were to look at something or other,
you make an observation and say, this looks reasonably moderately severe.
It looks like it's somewhere between a one and a two,
but it looks like it's right in the middle. I
really don't know whether to call it a 1.5 or 1.6,
(11:24):
or a 1.41.5. I think I want to go for.
And you say, well, that's what I feel. It looks
like a 1.5 to me. But if I've only got
integers to give my grading by and say, well, I'm
just going to call it a one. And the next
day you look at it at 1.51.5, what am I
going to call it? I have to call it a
(11:44):
one or a two. So I'll call it a two today.
And you go back and look at the third day
and it's back to one again. When things haven't been changing,
you're changing your score by one. And so you end
up with too much noise in your observation. You have
to make yourself less secure of the The number that
you apply every time. Or perhaps a better way of
(12:06):
describing this. You look at this cataract, you say, this
looks like it's a it's halfway between the one and
the two. I'm uncomfortable. I don't know whether to call
it a one or a two, and I'm going to
have to exercise my best judgment. And this is an
uncomfortable decision for me because it's a flip of the coin.
(12:29):
Is it a one or is it a two? Every
observation you make should have the same level of difficulty. Um,
and that's the general conclusion. And so when people are
saying we're getting the same result over and over again,
test and retest, give me the same results 85% of
the time, or 80% of the time. That's because you're
(12:51):
putting your data into big boxes and the decisions are
just most of the decisions are too easy, and you're
not exercising your your most critical analytical judgment, and that
made an important had an important impact on a lot
of clinical trials, because many, many clinical trials were using
(13:13):
the grading system where they had usually four steps on
their scale, and people had to assign a grade of
one or a two or a three or a four
and nothing else. When when we presented that at a
meeting in Florida, it had a huge impact on the
way cataracts were graded. But it extends right across, um,
(13:36):
a whole lot of measurements that are made by, um,
the medical and associated professions. So that that's something that
we're pretty pleased and proud of.
S2 (13:52):
I'm Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated stations of Disability Media Australia and
the Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation
there with Ian Bailey. If you missed any part of
that chat with Ian or you'd love to hear it again.
(14:15):
Talking vision is available on the podcast platform of your
choice or through the Vision Australia library. You can also
find the program on the Vision Australia Radio website at.
That's radio all one word.org. But now please enjoy my
(14:36):
conversation with Leslie Haney. The Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition is
back for 2025, and Braille House is very excited to
read your submission with a bunch of different categories. There's
sure to be something suitable for you or someone you
(14:56):
know to make a submission and to have a chat
with us about the competition. It's my great pleasure to
welcome Leslie Hackney from Braille House. Leslie, welcome to Talking Vision.
Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (15:12):
Hi, Sam. It's great to be here. My first time
on Talking Vision.
S2 (15:17):
Welcome. It's great to have you. Now we're here to
talk about something very important today, the Dickinson Memorial Literary
Competition for people who might not be aware. What is
the competition?
S3 (15:31):
Yeah. Great question. Um, the Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition, which
I definitely need to come up with a nickname for
because it's a long name, but there's a beautiful reason
why it's called that. Um, so we won't we won't
shorten it. Um, is a writing competition. That Braille House
is the proud custodian of its 104th year this year, um,
(15:54):
and it's an accessible, uh, and inclusive writing competition. So
it's all about celebrating the literary talents of people who
are blind or have low vision.
S2 (16:04):
Okay. And as with every year, there's a yearly theme
and this one's discovery. Tell us a bit about that.
S3 (16:13):
Yeah, absolutely. So discovery, it's a very, um, hotly discussed topic,
lots of conversations. And always try and keep it back
to the original theme, which was self-reliance. But also, you know,
the things that are happening, you know, in Braille House
or in the world at the moment, something that's still
nice and broad. Um, you know, but create encourages that
beautiful creative writing. Um, so discovery is, um, you know,
(16:38):
invites writers to explore any form of discovery, actually, whether
it's internal, uh, so something within themselves, something a bit,
you know, reflective, educational. You know, maybe it's about science, imaginative.
You can, you know, all sorts of things you can
discover with your imagination or even like geographical. You know,
it could be a travel blog, for example. Um, you know,
(16:58):
we we like to keep it really open to, to
encourage as many people to place entry as possible.
S2 (17:05):
For sure. And how many entry categories are there, Leslie,
in this year's competition, I understand there's quite a few,
and a very special one that's open to quite a
few other members of the public as well.
S3 (17:19):
Absolutely. Yep. So we've got six six all up. So
the first is, um, is just adult short story. The
second is an adult poem, song lyric or Limerick. You
don't hear many limericks these days. Um, the third is
an adult article. So this might be an opinion piece,
a self-reflection, a blog. The fourth, we move into our
(17:42):
student category. So it's senior student creative writing. So, you know,
again it's that story poem, song, lyric, Limerick blog, um,
that kind of thing. Creatively, um, the fifth is a
junior student creative Category. So same thing just for younger
younger students 12 or under. And then the final one
(18:03):
is a people's choice category. So um this one's open
to everyone, including sighted people. Um, so it's again, it's
just a broad creative writing, um, piece. So it can
be any sort of format really. Um, as, uh, as
long as it's under the 2000 word limit. And, um, yeah,
we love to encourage everyone to apply.
S2 (18:24):
Perfect. And the next question sort of goes without saying
in some respects, but why does a competition like the
Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition matter so much to the blind
and low vision community, and the positive impact it can
have on creatives from within the community?
S3 (18:46):
Yeah, absolutely. It's, um, you know, it's something that we
here at Braille House celebrate every day. Um, but realistically,
you know, Braille, um, you know, which we're obviously passionate
about is actually about literacy. Um, and, you know, literacy
doesn't just mean writing. Um, but literacy is such a
foundation for lifelong learning, independence, uh, creativity. It empowers people
(19:08):
to communicate, make informed decisions, and fully engage in their communities. So,
you know, creative writing, you know, is is more fun.
It's quite reflective. Um, and often in writing competitions, um,
you know, people who are blind or have low vision,
you know, may be underrepresented because of the, you know,
the way the competition is run or the requirements. So, um,
(19:29):
you know, we have pretty broad, um, requirements, um, intentionally
in that way for submissions. We accept Braille word documents
in Braille. You don't, you know, doesn't have to be
Braille for that exact reason. Um, and we want to
make sure that competitions like these with prizes, mind you,
are as accessible as possible because it's all about our mission.
S2 (19:46):
Okay. And in a very exciting addition to all of that,
there's cash prizes up for grabs and that's always pretty cool.
So tell us a bit about that one.
S3 (19:59):
Yeah. So every category. So that's all six. Um, have
um first and second place prizes. And the first prize
is $350 for the winning entry and $150 for the
second place.
S2 (20:14):
All right. Perfect. And in terms of the details around
how to enter, what's the closing date for people out there?
And also, is there an entry fee and how much
would that be?
S3 (20:28):
Yeah. Great question. So the competition closes on Friday the
19th of September. Um, and the entries are $10 per item.
So we try and keep it pretty low. Um, and um,
you know, that all goes back in towards the prize
money and all that kind of thing. So submissions, as
(20:48):
I said, can be submitted. Um, you know, either by, um,
jumping on our website. We've got an online form, or
you can contact us by email to submit that entry.
You can even post it in. We do have a
form that goes with it, which is all about saying,
this is my work. And you know, I haven't copied
this from the internet. Um, and, uh, you know, that
all of that kind of stuff, um, but, uh, yeah.
(21:11):
So we do accept it in, in post as well. So, um,
any version that works for you guys works for us.
S2 (21:17):
And, um, in terms of some contact details, which is
sort of briefly made mention of there. How can people
get in touch with Brielle House and find out a
little bit more, and also register if they or someone
they know would love to make a submission?
S3 (21:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So our website is, um, is one of
the great places we can share the link with you guys.
But it's, um, if you Google Braille house, um, our
Braille house website will come up. Um, and you can
Also you can find links on there to to reach us,
but if you prefer our email address you can use
(21:59):
admin which is just a d m I n. Which
stands for Queensland Braille Writing Association.
S2 (22:12):
Oh well. I've been speaking today with Lesley Heagney, fundraising
and Business Development Manager from Braille House here to chat
to me all about the 2025 Dickinson Memorial Literary Competition,
which is open until early September for submissions. So get
(22:33):
out there and make your submission. I'm sure they're very
keen to have a read. Lesley, thank you so much
for your time today. It was great to catch up
with you and chat about the competition.
S3 (22:45):
Absolutely. I hope I got the right information in there.
It's always tricky balance, isn't it, between, um, you know,
getting getting information available out in a really concise way,
but having some fun with it along the way.
S2 (22:57):
Oh, you did a great job. Thank you so much.
S3 (22:59):
Thanks. And.
S2 (23:02):
And now here's Francis Kalan with a reader recommended.
S5 (23:06):
And now on to some fiction. The first book today
is Life Sentence. This is by Judith Cutler, and it's
part one of a series. Chief Superintendent Francis Harmon has
been assigned to investigate the case of a woman beaten
into a coma. Elise has been in a coma for
two years. And if the hospital switch off her life
(23:27):
support now, her attacker will be guilty of murder. Fran
faces overload as she takes on more responsibilities her elderly parents,
as well as Elise, a child abduction, the disappearance of
her only witness, and the growing affection that she and
her long time colleague Mark Turner seemed to share for
one another. But is this all too much for one
(23:48):
woman to handle? Let's hear a sample of Life Sentence
by Judith Cutler. It's narrated by Diana Bishop.
S6 (23:56):
She jerked sharply awake. Where was she? And what was
that noise? Had she fallen asleep and crashed the car? No,
it was someone rapping on the driver's window. God knew
what time it was. She hadn't dared drive any longer.
That was it. Not without a coffee and some fresh air.
(24:16):
And before she'd done more than cut the ignition, she'd
fallen asleep. She must have dribbled and probably snored, too.
But it was the trickle of saliva that troubled her most,
an outward and visible sign that she'd not been in
control of herself while technically being in control of her vehicle.
You all right, miss? It was a traffic cop. His
(24:37):
Day-Glo jacket fluorescing in the headlights of the cars. Still
using the car park even at this hour of the morning. Yes.
It had been about midnight when she'd pulled off the
M3 into fleet services, which was where she must be now.
She heaved herself out of the Saab. I've had a
long drive, officer. Thought I'd take a break. And before
(24:59):
I got anywhere near my Kit Kat. There I was,
sending my pigs to market, nodding without sympathy or humour.
The young man. He looked about 18. Dodged back to
his Range Rover and came back, fitting a mouthpiece to
a breathalyzer. Thank goodness her parents Devon bungalow was dry.
(25:20):
Capital D she blew as if to clear the last
cobweb from her brain. And then, damn it, if she
didn't start a flush right from her belly up into
her hair, it went. The night air blessedly sliding onto
it like ice cream onto hot chocolate sauce. That seems
to be all right, he said, tacking on miss as
(25:41):
an almost insulting afterthought as he registered this symptom of
her age. I suppose this is your vehicle Without speaking.
She reached for her bag, stowed in the rear footwell,
out of sight of casual predators. She always practiced what
she preached when it came to crime prevention.
S5 (25:58):
And that was a sample of Life Sentence by Judith Cutler.
Judith is spelt Judith. Judith Cutler is q t l
e r q t l e r. And that book
goes for nine hours. And it's part one of the
Fran Harmon series of books. And she's written quite a
(26:22):
few different series, all with a female protagonist in the
lead up. There's the Josie Welford mystery series. Cold pursuit
is the second in the Fran Harmon series. So quite
a few. And there's also standalone novels as well, and
there's just a lot in the library, a lot of
her different series, as I said, always featuring, uh, a
(26:44):
woman as the primary character and lots there if you
enjoy her books.
S2 (26:49):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch any time on our email
at Vision at Australia. That's talking vision all. One word
(27:14):
at Vision Australia dot. But until next week it's Sam
saying bye for now.
S1 (27:24):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
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