Assistive Technology and Curriculum Alignment for students with visual disabilities
Last week some colleagues and I gave an informative presentation at ATIA in Orlando on the alignment of a technology curriculum with assistive technology for a PreK-12 school environment. The value of this approach is that students are taught a standard educational technology curriculum while being exposed to the concurrent assistive technology skills necessary to complete the standard educational technology curriculum.
Techno-literacy, Assistive Technology and Critical Thinking
Assistive Technology Specialists are typically tasked with assessing, designing, educating and implementing assistive technology solutions for students with visual disabilities. The numerous assistive technologies available mean that students and the Assistive Technology Specialist have a multitude of options to help students succeed. Before the student can take full advantage of the benefits of assistive technology, there are several prerequisite skills that must be successfully developed first. These prerequisite skills do not differ too much from those necessary for students without disabilities.
The Importance of the Assistive Technology Assessment for Students With Visual Disabilities
The assistive technology assessment does much more than assesses a student's need for and competency with assistive technology solutions in a K-12 educational setting. Using a set of generic criteria to decide which assistive technologies should be distributed to student's means that a percentage of students will be assessed incorrectly.
New emphasis on Braille to fight illiteracy in blind
An interesting study that focuses on the corresponding link between Braille literacy and increased successful indicators on standardized assessments. One problem when looking at the value and impact of assistive technologies on student achievement is that there have been few true academic research projects based around studying the potential impact, which is huge of student's access to assistive technologies that use Braille. In this case, the students were evaluated and their reading grade levels tracked before and after only a single year of access to a Braille notetaker. The study demonstrated a three year growth in their reading grade levels. How can this happen? Braille is no different than most acquired skills. The more a person practices the skill the faster and more efficient they become in using that skill. We have more access to more types of materials in Braille now than at other times in history. Refreshable Braille display technologies have been dropping in prices which continue to lower the price for standalone refreshable Braille displays and electronic Braille notetakers. The data in this study only highlights the huge benefit of providing an electronic Braille notetaker as early as possible. I have provided Braille notetaker training for students as young as eight years old and I have seen and read reports from the student's teacher that only validates my unwaivering support for electronic Braille notetakers. More studies need to be published so that these advanced assistive technologies are made available to more students.
"Those with command more likely to get jobs
Published: 07.10.2006, Source: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/18551.php
MARY BUSTAMANTE
Tucson Citizen
The loss of Braille skills is making blind children illiterate and deprives them of the single most vital skill to lead them to employment and more self-sufficient lives, educators of the blind say.
Recent figures from the National Braille Press indicate that a generation ago 50 percent of blind students used Braille. Now it's less than 12 percent.
Couple that with American Foundation for the Blind statistics that the U.S. blind employment rate is 32 percent, and Blindinc.org figures that say 93 percent of blind people who do have jobs read and write Braille, and the problem is clear.
"I've seen it over and over again that the students with the best literacy skills are the ones getting the good jobs," said Debbie Hartz, who teaches high school English, and British, American and multicultural literature at the Tucson-based Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.
Knowing Braille definitely improves literacy, she said. Hartz started teaching Braille to her blind daughter before she started kindergarten. Now, at 26, the daughter has a good job and is self-sufficient.
Technology is leading the way for visually impaired and blind students to think it's OK not to pursue Braille. Information is at anyone's beck and call these days through talking computers and auditory books, teachers say.
"Auditory reading (is) not primary reading. Imagine a sighted person's entire world of literacy being auditory only," said Dorinda Rife, principal at the Arizona School for the Blind, on the ASSDB campus. "It's a great backup, but students edit better when they are reading and writing Braille. They learn conventions of the English language better. They are better spellers, better writers."
Cheryl Hannan, an ASB teacher who is working on a doctorate at the University of Arizona, wants to buck the trend.
Hannan's thesis in progress focuses on showing the importance of the blind being able to read and write.
She is studying students from ASB to try to prove Braille's importance and, specifically, the importance of electronic Braille note-taking devices.
The purse-size machines, carried around on straps, allow students to read countless books and give them the opportunity to take notes in class, write and edit their work.
The work pops up on a refreshable Braille line underneath their fingertips as they type.
Students can listen to what they have written, so they can hear mistakes they've made and correct them.
ASB has found that electronic Braille note-takers, at $5,000 to $6,000 each, have allowed some children in one year to raise their Braille reading level by two to three years, Rife said.
"So we're putting them into kids' hands younger and younger," Rife adds.
The thesis could have national implications since the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires research to back up teaching practices and there is little such research in the area, Rife said.
ASB has a full-time Braille teacher at the high school and Braille is offered to all students, at all grade levels, who have a condition in which they will lose vision as they grow older.
That isn't the case across the country.
At Tucson Unified School District, which has 85 visually impaired students, including six deemed legally blind, just six use Braille, officials said.
Others use books with large print and other options for those who have some sight.
Lorraine St. Germain, executive director of Exceptional Education at Tucson Unified School District, said that the ability to read and write Braille is crucial to literacy, successful employment and independence.
"Braille is important as one of the tools to be used to assist a person with a visual impairment to obtain, store, access and communicate information. It is a method of legible writing and reading that results in literacy and independence, which is fundamental to communication with others, whether blind or sighted."
Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science, in an article in The Braille Monitor in 2004, said blind students should "have the knowledge and the ability to produce printed material with a variety of tools. Electronic Braille note-takers are one way to generate print; but just as it is important to master these devices, it is equally important for a blind person to be able to create printed material."
Hannan's hypothesis is, given the ability to edit, students will want to write more and the writing will improve because they can make changes easily.
Her pilot study this spring of three ASB students using the more advanced machines initially shows that the students' writing samples are different in the amount of editing and how the samples are edited. There is also a reduction in spelling and grammar errors.
Hannan, who has been an ASB reading specialist for two years and a English and language arts teacher for two more, has compared the electronic Braille word processor with a Perkins Braille writer, a long-used electric typewriterlike machine with no memory.
Hannan hopes that when complete results are available at the end of the month, it will be enough for companies to want to fund further studies on the subject with larger groups of students.
"There are just not enough blind students in Tucson," she said.
ASB junior Amanda Estes, 19, has some vision, but has been reading and writing Braille since she was 5 or 6.
Electronic Braille note-takers allow her to get away from the bulky Braille books at ASB, although she still reads some of them.
"I like Hardy Boys and have been reading them in Braille books, but with the note-takers (a flash card with several books on it can be inserted into them) my interests have broadened," she said. "It makes it so much easier to do homework, too."
Estes is interested in acting, writing mysteries and poetry and stand-up comedy.
She said that the doors electronic Braille note-takers are opening for her can only help.
"It's such a big advantage and it's improving my whole literacy," she said.
Hannan isn't surprised. "Eight or nine years ago, (the) Los Angeles Times said technology was going to replace Braille.... But I have seen a rejuvenation of Braille," she said. And electronic Braille note-taking devices could level the playing field in landing jobs."
Research Study: Early Braille Education Vital
If I could tell you a common set of characteristics that helped define the person who is blind's potential for employment success and subsequently their quality of life it would be most influenced by their ability to read and write Braille. I know that I write frequently about Braille literacy because Braille literacy more than any other skill translates directly in to an increased quality of life for the person who is blind. When I work with people, it is immediately apparent who has good Braille skills and how those skills are influential in building other strong skills in the expanded core curriculum. Orientation and Mobility skills are the next set of skills but even in the context of Orientation and Mobility, Braille is still an essential necessary skill. Consider how many signs are in Braille' A typical office building, university building or elevator all present signage in Braille for the person who is blind. Without the Braille skills, all the doors in a building are unmarked and the buttons in an elevator are just an unlabeled set of buttons. The person who is blind would require special training to count the buttons in the elevator or specific directional instructions to each individual room in that building without Braille skills. In an Assistive Technology context, Braille skills provide the person who is blind the opportunity to use modern technologies with a Braille display or allows that person the benefit of a Braille Notetaker. I will write more about the benefits of a Braille Notetaker in a later article. The below article continues to highlight how important early Braille education for students who are blind.
"Future Reflections Special Issue 2004
By Ruby Ryles, Ph.D.
"An exhaustive study has cast aside some erroneous stereotypes while underscoring the importance of Braille education at an early age. The study has revealed
that literacy rates of blind high school students who began their Braille education at an early age are consistent with those of their sighted peers. The
study further disclosed that legally blind children who received infrequent or no Braille training, or who began their Braille education later in life,
exhibit noticeably lower literacy rates.
The study was conducted by Ruby Ryles, Ph.D., founding coordinator of the master�s program in Orientation and Mobility at Louisiana Tech University/Louisiana
Center for the Blind. Ryles performed the study for her University of Washington doctoral dissertation in special education..."
- Currently, among the blind adults in the United States, 90 percent of those who are Braille literate are employed. Among adults who do
- not know Braille, only 33 percent is employed. ("A Boost for Braille", The Boston Globe 2008)
- Statistically, history has proven that Braille reading proficiency provides an essential skill set that allows visually impaired children not only to compete
- with their sighted peers in a school environment, but also later in life as they enter the workforce."
Importance of Braille Literacy
- AFB conducted a study in 1960 of school-aged blind children.
- 50% were Braille readers.
- In 1973 congress passed the rehabilitation act.
- This moved the majority of school-aged blind children out of schools for the blind and in to the mainstream classroom.
- Most districts do not have the funding to provide continuing Braille training for the teachers of the visually impaired who are tasked with teaching Braille "reading and writing "to the blind student.
- Because of this, Braille literacy has declined sharply.
- 27 states passed legislation mandating that children who are legally blind be given the opportunity to learn Braille equally to the non-disabled sighted student's right to be given instruction in reading and writing print and handwriting.
- In 1999, APH conducted a survey that asked for the number of Braille literate K-12 students across the United States.
- The survey results showed a Braille literacy rate of 10% for K-12 students.
- Early Braille education is crucial to literacy for a visually impaired child. A study conducted in the state of Washington found that people who learned
- Braille at an early age did just as well, if not better than their sighted peers in several areas, including vocabulary spelling and comprehension.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_literacy
Sustainable Assistive Technology
In December 2012, I provided over forty hours of volunteer Assistive Technology training and support for an institution serving the blind in Honduras. It was then that I started considering this concept of sustainable assistive technologies. So much development aid is about providing something to help those who truly suffer in the developing world. What is the result when the foreign volunteers leave or the equipment stops working? The locals do not have the expertise or the financial resources to get the item repaired and it goes unused or discarded. This problem faces every non-governmental organization or volunteer group that attempts to provide support to those in the developing world. When I finished volunteering in December, I knew I wanted to do something. I immediately thought of all the typical ways that you might consider helping, raising money for newer computers, refreshable Braille displays, licenses of JAWS, etc. Then I realized that these solutions might provide some help in the immediate short term but would not address the long term assistive technology needs of the institution. I realized that their JAWS licenses would expire, the refreshable Braille displays would stop working and the computers would become outdated or corrupted with malware and other hardware problems. I know this first-hand because I ensured that their Index Everest D V4 got repaired. I got to consider this concept of sustainable assistive technology. In my mind, this is no different than sustainable technology. I began considering what I could do to help that the technology trainer could support easily independently. Then I thought about what might make the most impact without burdening the people I'm trying to help. I put together an image that can be easily deployed to a USB thumb drive that is less than 1 GB and can be run on any PC. Most Hondurans do have access to a PC, either at home, a family members home, internet café or school. The USB thumb drive plugs in and without installing anything loads a copy of NVDA already localized in Spanish with a Spanish synthesizer. The user is then presented with a menu, again in Spanish, with firefox web browser, thunderbird E-mail client, Instantbird Instant Messenger client and OpenOffice suite. This provides the user an accessible environment to work from because all the preferences and documents are saved on the users thumb drive. This is sustainable assistive technology because thumb drives in lower capacities like 1 GB; 2 GB are affordable even in Honduras. Also the technology teacher was provided training on how to use and deploy the thumb drive image. This enables her to provide her students either donated thumb drives or to install the image on student's personal thumb drives. This sustainable assistive technology has vast potential to change many lives and because the image is based around open source, there are no licenses to renew or keep current. When the person who is blind is finished, they exit the application and remove the USB thumb drive, nothing is left on the computer they were using, now every PC they encounter will be accessible.
Volunteering In Honduras: My Experience
I just finished a five week visit to Honduras for the holiday season. As a part of that visit, I spent one week volunteering for an institution serving the blind. It was a lot of fun, even though I was suffering with some kind of flue like illness. I provided training to the technology teacher on JAWS, Duxbury and Zoomtext. We also connected a twenty-year-old refreshable Braille display that as donated but no one knew how to connect to the computer. The experience made me realize that we define assistive technology in the United States as providing the person who is blind with the right combination of hardware and software but we do not always consider how they might survive without it or consider what the backup plan is if the assistive technology isn't available. As Assistive Technology Specialists, we have to be well-versed in low tech assistive technology solutions that could allow the person who is blind to complete the tasks independently. I was surprised just how much the blind institution provides with so little resources.
The highlight of my volunteer experience was the last day when I installed a new motherboard for their Index Everest D V4. First of all, I have to thank the people at Index IRIE-AT. They sent me a new motherboard and once it arrived, we began the huge scary task of replacing it. They connected with me on video skype and we slowly walked through the entire process of replacing the motherboard. There was a lot riding on this repair. The institution received the embosser from the embassy of Japan to allow them to receive a Honduran government contract to emboss the children's basic school book for learning Spanish. If this embosser could not be repaired, the books would not get produced and they would not get the payment from the government that they badly needed to fund their programs. My hands were shaking and there was no air conditioning so I was sweating, it kept dripping down my forehead and getting in my eyes. I did not want to touch it and get any moisture on my hands so another lady was there whiping my face. The technology teacher was holding my laptop and pointing the camera so the representative at IRIE-AT could see what we were doing and we could see exactly what he was doing. The motherboard swap took over three hours. I felt like a surgeon doing a heart transplant. When we turned on that embosser and it spoke in Spanish "Index Everest D V4 ready", I have never felt so much relief and released so much anxiety. The cost of failure was so high and so many people were counting on my success. The Columbian distributor was not interested in helping here because they wouldn't get paid and the entire grant from the embassy of Japan was used for the purchase of the embosser. When looking at grants for the developing world, some percentage of the grant has to go in to the up-keep of the purchase, especially something as complicated as an embosser. I only have a few more days' in-country before returning to the United States but wanted to relate what it is like to provide vital assistive technology services like this in the developing world.
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