To take a physics course blind students must be assisted using teaching methods and aids adapted to their own perception capabilities. Touchable objects are very important for them because they have huge difficulties to visualize the third spatial dimension. However, appropriate resources and methods for blind students are not yet available. In…

The paper offers suggestions to improve today's climate for technological aids for the blind, describes some currently available aids and some future possibilities from research, and addresses the question of programed implementation. (Author/SBH)

The study involving three blind elementary school, six blind high school, and four blind college students was designed to establish oral reading rates and oral reading error rates for Ss reading conventional braille volumes and brailled materials with the Digi-cassette, an electronic braille reading and writing machine. Data suggested several…

A study was initiated with 60 blind children (kindergarten through grade 2) in order to validate the order of a sequence of tactual discrimination tasks leading to the use of braille and the Optacon. Ss were tested with tasks designed for the readiness level (discrimination of large solid geometric shapes, flat puzzle pieces, embossed dot…

Research in the United States and abroad has led to advances in rehabilitation technology that enables blind and visually impaired persons to compete with sighted persons for employment. Relatively inexpensive devices such as pocket calculators, transistor radios, cassette recorders, and digital watches have become aids for the blind; some…

Reviewed is an American Institutes for Research (AIR) study to identify predictors of Optacon success and to develop and field test appropriate Optacon training materials for use by 112 blind elementary and secondary students in 15 U.S. public and residential schools. Potential use of the Optacon (an optical to tactile conversion device that…