Mobile phone app created to help children overcome lazy eye
- Eye specialists at the University of Southampton have teamed up with mathematicians and designers to create an app to help children with “lazy eye”.
- Around one in 50 children are affected by the visual impairment called amblyopia, which can often be treated through patching therapy.
- Patching therapy works through wearing a patch over the unaffected eye to help correct vision.
- The success rate for therapy is only 50% as children often struggle to wear the patch properly and households are too busy to help.
- Using complex programming the app checks if the person playing is using their patch correctly through the device’s camera.
- A prototype of the app, called the Amblios Club is now available on Google Play Store for Android and is hopefully rolling out for iPhone devices in the coming months.
- For more, please visit the Independent’s website.
Government response to IICSA inquiry weak and at times disingenuous
- Professor Alexis Jay, chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has said that the Government’s response to the report was “weak” and ministers failed to understand the need for action.
- This comes following the Government’s response to the inquiry’s 20 recommendations.
- In their report the Government claim to accept 19 of the recommendations, however Professor Jay feels that “action will be deferred indefinitely” due to conflicting political priorities.
- For more, please visit the Yahoo News website.
Latest PSNI figures show increase in non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit and intimate images of individuals
- A freedom of information (FOI) request to the PSNI has found that there was 215 reported cases that happened in Northern Ireland between January 2021 to March 31, 2023.
- 7 of these cases include a victim who has been under the age of 18.
- From January to March this year, there have been 22 reported cases – one of which the victim was under 18.
- These offences are recorded by the PSNI as ‘Disclosing private sexual photographs and film with intent to cause distress’.
- However, in cases involving those under the age of 18 they can be recorded as an obscene publications offence.
- The police have said the distribution of sexually explicit or intimate images of individuals without their consent is an offence that is taken extremely seriously and have issued advice on what to do if you are a victim, such as keeping evidence, and reporting it.
- For more, please visit the Belfast Live’s website.
