People who are blind or visually impaired have experienced employment rates of around 30% for decades despite legislation to improve educational outcomes and ban discrimination in employment. It is imperative to study existing comprehensive programs for these students and to understand leadership roles which provide support and lead to continuous…

The work described in this report is the second phase of a project to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondary-school algebra-level math expressions in synthesized speech that is useful for students with blindness or low vision. This report describes the development and results of the second feedback study performed for our…

The current investigation examines whether visual impairment has an impact on a student's perception of the school climate. Using a large national sample of high school students, perceptions were examined for students with vision impairment relative to students with no visual impairments. Three factors were examined: self-reported level of…

Regular physical activity participation can have a positive impact on overall health. However, school-aged individuals with visual impairments tend to be less physically active than their peers without disabilities (Haegele & Porretta, 2015). Fortunately, preliminary intervention research suggests that physical activity levels of those with…

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention programme administered to blind and sighted school students. The students were given information concerning style, author and technique of three paintings from three different artistic periods, as well as guidelines to assess the overall aesthetics of each image. This programme was…

We devise and test a set of tactile symbols to represent elements frequently used in mechanics diagrams, such as vectors, ropes, pulleys, blocks and surfaces, that can be used to adapt drawings of physics situations in textbooks for blind students. We also investigate how figures are described for blind students in classroom activities and exams,…

Students with disabilities have significantly lower graduation rates in four-year postsecondary institutions than students without disabilities. Although there are many barriers associated with persistence and graduation, for students with vision loss, additional accessibility challenges exist. This paper describes a pilot study that examined the…

This paper reports on a study to determine whether blind students' conceptualizations of force and motion differ from sighted students. This is particularly concerned with the question of whether the students' visual experiences have any relation to their conceptualizations or misconceptualization about force and motion. The research was designed…

The work described in this report is the first phase of a project to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondary-school algebra-level math expressions in synthesized speech that is useful for students with blindness or low vision. This report describes the initial development, software implementation, and evaluation of the…

Introduction: This paper investigates the question of whether or not subjects who are congenitally blind experience greater difficulties mentally in resizing images of objects than those who have low vision or are adventitiously blind. Methods: Two experiments were conducted--one in which subjects were asked to mentally enlarge objects they…

This study was carried out to investigate the scope of assistive technology in learning process of students with blindness. The sample of this study included 56 students with blindness between the ages of 11-22 years from secondary level of education. These students were selected through convenient sampling from five special schools located in…

Ambiguity in speech is a possible barrier to the acquisition of knowledge for students who have print disabilities (such as blindness, visual impairments, and some specific learning disabilities) and rely on auditory input for learning. Chemistry appears to have considerable potential for being spoken ambiguously and may be a barrier to accessing…

Introduction: Many students with adventitious vision loss or progressive vision loss need to transition from print to braille as a primary literacy medium. It is important that this transition is handled efficiently so that the student can have continued access to a literacy medium and make progress in the core curriculum. For this study, we used…

This study examined the potential relationship of accessible hands-on science learning experiences to the development of positive beliefs concerning one's capacity to function in the sciences and motivation to consider science as a college major and career. Findings from Likert survey items given before and after engaging in accessible hands-on…

To determine whether a suite of audible adaptive technologies would increase the hands-on participation of high school students with blindness or low vision in chemistry and physics courses, data were examined from a multi-year field study conducted with students in mainstream classrooms at secondary schools across the United States. The students…