New Site for Adapting Curiculum for Learners with Visual Impairments

VI Curriculum is a new site from the Maryland School for the Blind focusing on adapting curriculum for learners ages birth-3 who have visual impairment. However, as you explore the site you will find that much of the content carries over into working with students of any age who have multiple disabilities including visual impairment.

Some features of the site include ideas for adapting various common thematic units like "All About Me" and "Insects", adaptations for the curriculum domains and the expanded curriculum domains (including a whole section on switch use and assistive technology), the Tips for the Trenchs Make it Take it Sections with the not to be missed 10 Low Tech Ideas For a Pool Noodle, a blog, and more.

Be sure to add this web site to your bookmarks!

Teaching Money Identification by Touch

It has been a few years since I have needed to teach money identification by touch to a student. This method of identifying bills and coins is usually taught to student who are blind or have low vision, but I have also successfully taught this method to learners with brain injury that affects visual and short term memory.

The method is like this:

Coins are identified by three characteristics:

• Size. The dime is the smallest coin, and the half-dollar is the largest.
  
  
• Edge. The penny and the nickel have a smooth edge. The dime, quarter, and half-dollar have a milled, ridged edge.
  
  
• Thickness. The nickel is thicker than the other coins.

Bills are identified by how they are folded:

• Leave $1 bills unfolded
• Fold $5 bills lengthwise ("the long way")
  
• Fold $10 bills by width ("the short way")
  
• Fold $20 bills lengthwise and then by width ("total fold")
  

Anna's Book Angel Project

Seedlings offers children who are blind the opportunity to win one free braille book a year for through the Anna's Book Angel Project. Anyone can register the child and the books are delivered through Free Matter for the Blind. Ten names are drawn per week and the a book is sent out to each winner.

Starting in 2009 children can receive two free books a year from Seedlings from a separate the 2009 Book Angel Project.

P.S. They have several tri-lingual picture book titles in Braille, English and Spanish.

Free Long White Cane to All Those Who Are Blind

Baltimore, Maryland (August 19, 2008): The National Federation of
the Blind (NFB), the nation's oldest and largest organization of
blind people, today
announced an initiative to ensure that any blind person in the United
States and Puerto Rico who needs a long white cane will have one,
regardless of ability
to pay. The NFB will provide a free cane to anyone in the fifty
states, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico who is blind or has
low vision and who
uses or desires to use a white cane in order to travel
independently. This historic initiative is the largest effort ever
of its kind to provide white
canes to individuals who are blind or have low vision.

"The white cane is both a symbol of and a tool for independence,"
said Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the
Blind. "It allows blind
individuals to travel whenever and wherever they want, leading to
self-confidence and self-sufficiency. With the initiation of this
landmark program by
the National Federation of the Blind, every blind person who wants
the freedom and mobility that a white cane provides can have it."

The long white cane provides an effective means for blind students to
get to school, blind adults to get to work, and blind seniors to
remain active.
Art Schreiber, a retired broadcaster from Albuquerque, New Mexico,
said: "As an active blind person and someone who has traveled
throughout the world,
I know the white cane means freedom for blind seniors everywhere."

Melissa Riccobono, a blind stay-at-home mom and educational
consultant said: "As the mother of an active twenty-month-old son, my
cane helps me to safely
navigate through my busy day from walking to the playground to
visiting the pediatrician."

It is estimated that 109,000 of the 1.3 million legally blind people
in the United States use a white cane. By supplying canes free of
charge, this program
provides the opportunity for all blind Americans to have a white cane
and to participate fully in society.

The National Federation of the Blind will provide a straight, light
fiberglass cane to any blind individual in the United States or
Puerto Rico who requires
the cane for personal use. Canes are available in the following
lengths: 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, or 63 inches. Individuals may only
request one free cane
in any six-month period. For more information on the use of the long
white cane and the National Federation of the Blind free cane
program, please visit

www.nfb.org.

All in One Cell Phone includes TTS

Our wonderful classroom SLP came in talking about this story from NPR yesterday and informed me that I should blog about it. She couldn't remember the name of the device, its designer or anything other than the fact that it was on NPR and that the text-to-speech was used on a bag of coffee (which it was).

(Luckily she didn't hear my comment wondering when they would come out with an instant replay cellphone for older folks with memory troubles, but since she reads this blog I am sure I will pay for that comment later.)

Turns out Kurzweil and NFB have created the worlds smallest text to speech device and installed it onto a Nokia cell phone. Tres cool! Also tres expensive. See the NPR story below:


January 29, 2008

Technology - Cell Phone Reads to the Blind
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18504117


A new cell phone offers the smallest text-to-speech reading device ever
built, a device especially useful for people with impaired vision. The
phone and software come with a $2,000 price tag.

If you have normal vision and can read, there are thousands of things
you do every day without even thinking even about it, little problems
you solve with just a glance * like knowing which coffee bag in a
hotel is caffeinated or decaf.

James Gashel is blind, but he can get his caffeine fix with help from
his cell phone.

"All you have to do is snap a picture of the bag, and it tells you," he
says.

Gashel is showing off his new phone in a hotel ballroom filled with
people who have come to check it out. Many are holding white canes, and
there's a guide dog resting by the wall. Everyone listens to the small
silver phone as Gashel holds it a few inches above a green rectangle.

"Taking picture ... detecting orientation," a digitized voice from the
phone says. "Processing U.S. currency image, please wait * $20."

The phone is loaded up with software developed by the company Gashel
works for * K-NFB Reading Technology, a joint venture between Kurzweil
Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind.

Besides reading labels and telling a $20 from a $10, the phone can read
pages of printed text.

Reading machines have been around for decades * this company already
makes a hand-held device. But this reader is the smallest yet * just 4
ounces and a few inches long. And it's in a high-end Nokia phone with
features like an MP3 player, high-speed data connection and a GPS
navigation system.

That's appealing to people like Mike Hanson, from Minnesota. He uses a
desktop reading machine for all kinds of things, including books, mail
and bills.

"I'm a lawyer, so I'll use it to read material related to cases I'm
working on," Hanson says.

But he never wanted a handheld reader before; he saw it as just one
more gadget to lug around. This multifunctional cell phone, though, is a
different story.

"It's next on my list of technology items to seriously consider," he says.

Sensory Impairment (blind/visually impaired, Deaf/hard of hearing, Deafblind)

An assortment of links releated to blindness and low vision, Deafness and hearing loss and Deafblindness.

• AI Squared (vision products)
• American Association of Deaf Blind
• American Hearing Aid Association
• American Publishing House for the Blind
• Association for the Education of the Blind and Visually Impaired
• Canadian National Institute for the Blind
• Cochlear Implants Overview
• DB-Link (Deafblind)
• Deaf Children with Multiple Disabilities
• Deaf Education Virtual Library
• Deafblind International
• Freedom Scientific Company (vision)
• Gear for Ears
• Hear More Company
• Lighthouse Organization (vision)
• Low Vision Online
• National Family Association for Deaf Blind
• Perkins School for the Blind
• Royal Association for Deaf People
• Royal Blind Society
• Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind
• Sensory Playthings Company
• Telesensory Company (vision)
• Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (vision, deafblind)
• V.I. Guide
• Vision Australia

My Tactile Books

I have created some tactile books in Power Point. They are below in Slideshare format and can be downloaded and printed. I recommend printing them in portrait layout instead of landscape, if you can, so you have more room for the tactile/object symbol. All you need to do is laminate or put into page protectors, attach object/tactile symbols and bind.