The right of persons with disabilities for equal access to education and educational resources is enshrined by international and country-specific anti-discrimination laws. Taking the Ethiopian context as an example, this paper sought to identify barriers of access to educational resources and explored ways for removing them. Seventeen students…

This paper focused on the challenges in educating the visually impaired and modalities for ensuring quality assurance in tertiary institutions of learning in Nigeria. It examined the global challenges in the higher educational system and made it clear that the visually impaired are those with visual problems be it partial, low vision, or total…

Rehabilitation professionals working with students with disabilities and the families of those students face unique challenges in providing inclusive services to special education student populations. There needs to be a focus on adaptive teaching methods that provide quality experience for students with varying disabilities to promote student…

Instructors of the visually impaired need efficient braille-training methods. This study conducted a preliminary evaluation of a computer-based program intended to teach the relation between braille characters and English letters using a matching-to-sample format with 4 sighted college students. Each participant mastered matching visual depictions…

This paper updates the efforts to educate blind students in higher education in the digital age and describes how to support the development of mental models in learning through tactile learning and 3D-printing technology. It cites research documenting a drop in Braille literacy along with the growth in use of digital technologies by blind…

University instructors were surveyed to determine the requirements for their literary braille courses. Twenty-one instructors provided information on the textbooks they used; how they determined errors; reading proficiency requirements; and other pertinent information, such as methods of assessing mastery of the production of braille using a…

The author discusses the large number of blind college students who cannot use braille effectively, and asserts that classroom teachers, rehabilitation counselors, and rehabilitation teachers have the obligation to ensure that students possess braille literacy before application to a college or university. (CL)

The University of South Carolina used an educational television format for an introductory braille course to reach a population of teachers scattered throughout the state. Results indicated that this format is a viable alternative to oncampus sessions. (Author)

Two experiments were conducted with 80 college students to examine factors associated with the crossmodal facilitation of learning Braille symbols when the visual modality is utilized. In Experiment 1 subjects using the haptic mode were informed of both the structure of the braille cell and the range of dot numerosity of the symbols to be…

Seventy-two sighted college students who studied the braille or Fishburne alphabet for eight minutes were tested for recall. More Fishburne than braille items were recalled, independent of item arrangement. Results suggest that visually impaired persons might use the Fishburne system for labelling personal objects or when braille learning is too…

Braille printouts create textbooks and help train blind programmers at the University of Manitoba. (Author)

The study examined modality effects in the learning of Braille through providing a variety of either study or test trials in either the visual or haptic modalities. Subjects were 144 right handed college students. Results supported previous experiments demonstrating the visual modality superior to the combined visual-haptic or the haptic modality…

Two experiments, each involving 96 sighted undergraduates, investigated the effects on braille learning of presenting information about the number of dots a symbol contains at the beginning of the study interval (prompting condition). In study 1, prompting was compared with presenting no information during the study interval. In experiment 2,…

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…

This resource paper is intended for students who are blind or visually impaired, and who wish to pursue education or vocational training beyond high school. Family members, Disability Support Services (DSS) providers, administrators, faculty, and staff will also benefit from the discussion. The paper examines the characteristics of blindness and…