Future Reflections

Volume 44, Number 2         Special Issue on Technology

A magazine for parents and teachers of blind children published by
the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in partnership
with the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children.

Deborah Kent Stein, Editor

ISSN-0883-3419

Copyright © 2025 American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults

For more information about blindness and children contact:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230 • 410-659-9314
https://nfb.org/nopbc • [email protected] • [email protected]

Convention Bulletin 2025

The 2025 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, this summer. Start planning your trip now.

Tuesday, July 8 through Sunday, July 13
The Marriott New Orleans and the Sheraton New Orleans

As our headquarters hotel, the Marriott will host convention breakouts, general sessions, and the banquet. Right across Canal Street, the Sheraton serves as our overflow hotel and will be home to the Exhibit Hall and Independence Market.

If this will be your first convention, or if you need a refresher, check out our First Timer’s Guide at https://nfb.org/get-involved/national-convention/first-timers-guide.

Book Your Hotel

Reserve your room by calling 888-236-2427 for the Marriott or 855-516-1090 for the Sheraton New Orleans. Ask for the “National Federation of the Blind 2025 Convention” block. Here are important things to know about the rates and booking the room:

Rates and Taxes

The nightly rate for both the Marriott and the Sheraton is $119 for singles and doubles, while triples and quads can be booked for $129 per night. You should also anticipate the combined sales tax and tourism support rate of 16.2 percent and note there is a hotel occupancy fee of $3.00 per night.

Deposit and Cancellation

At the time you make a reservation, a deposit of the first night’s stay is required for each room reserved. If you use a credit card, the deposit will be charged against your card immediately, just as would be the case with a check. If a reservation is cancelled before Sunday, June 1, 2025, half of the deposit will be returned. Otherwise, refunds will not be made.

Registration

Registration for convention will open in March. Registration will be $25 per person plus $80 per banquet ticket. Register early because prices go up if you register onsite in New Orleans. Registration includes the biggest event of the year, access to the event app, and communications on the latest news and events.

Convention Schedule

The 2025 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will be a truly exciting and memorable event, with an unparalleled program and rededication to the goals and work of our movement.

A wide range of seminars for parents of blind children, technology enthusiasts, job seekers, and other groups will kick the week off on Tuesday, July 8. Convention registration and registration packet pick-up will also open on Tuesday.

Breakout sessions continue on Wednesday, July 9, along with committee meetings.

Thursday, July 10, will kick off with the annual meeting, open to all, of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind. National division meetings will follow the board meeting that afternoon and evening.

General convention sessions will begin on Friday, July 11, and continue through the afternoon of Sunday, July 13.

Convention ends on a high note with the banquet on Sunday evening, so be sure to pack your fancy clothes. The fall of the gavel at the close of banquet will signal convention’s adjournment. Make plans now to be a part of it all!

Contents

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Stepping into the Future
by Deborah Kent Stein

FEATURE

Beyond the Buzz: What Really Prepares Blind Students for the Tech of Tomorrow
by Brett Boyer

GETTING STARTED

Early Exposure
by Anne Westbrook

The Knowledge of the Past, the Promise of the Future: Integrating Assistive and Mainstream Technologies into the Classroom Setting
by Isaac Raske

Passing It On: Learning and Teaching with Access Technology
by Chuy Vaca

Training Is the Key, an Interview with Raúl and Stacie Gallegos
by Deborah Kent Stein

CHALLENGES AND CHOICES

High Tech, Low Tech: Everything Serves a Purpose
by Ameenah Ghoston

Monarch: Shaping the Future of Tactile Literacy
by Sarah Gauer

EXPLORING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI and Our Blind Children: The Potential and the Pitfalls
by Jonathan Mosen

Today's Artificial Intelligence: Our Future for Reading and Writing STEM?
by Al Maneki

How Artificial Intelligence Can Improve Education for Blind Students
by Justin Salisbury

ADVOCACY

IEPs in the Twenty-first Century: How to Get the Technology Your Child Needs
by Sanho Steele-Louchart and Ather Jammoa

RECREATION

Accessibility in Gaming for the Deafblind
by Daniel Hawkins

Video Gaming Accessibility, from National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled

REVIEW

Connecting Dots: A Blind Life
by Joshua A. Miele with Wendell Jamieson
Reviewed by Deborah Kendrick

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Letter to the US Secretary of the Department of Education
by Mark A. Riccobono

2025 NFB BELL® Academy

Bringing Books to Life: How Share Braille Connects Readers across the Nation

Congratulations! The 2025 Braille Readers Are Leaders Winners
by Lisamaria Martinez

Announcements

Why Join the NOPBC?

Are you the parent of a blind/low-vision child? Don’t know where to turn? Have you ever wondered what your child will be capable of when he or she grows up? Are you concerned that your child’s future will be limited by blindness or low vision? Do you have questions about how to parent a blind child? We are here for you.

What is the NOPBC?

Founded in 1983, the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC), a proud division of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), is a membership organization of families, friends, and educators of blind children. We have thousands of members in all fifty states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

Who is the NOPBC for?

We have a very inclusive definition of blindness which includes children who have some usable vision. Instead of focusing on what the child can or cannot see, we focus on the child and what she or he wants to be.

NOPBC is for families, educators, and friends of blind children, including those who have some usable vision. We welcome all families of blind children, and many of our children have both blindness and other disabilities.

We help families and blind children themselves maximize the child’s abilities and opportunities; we hold high expectations for all of our children, regardless of any additional disabilities they may have.

Why is the NOPBC a part of the National Federation of the Blind?

As a division of the NFB, the largest and most influential organization of blind people in the world, the NOPBC is well informed about the societal, legislative, and technological issues that affect blind people. We enjoy the resources, support, and expertise of fifty thousand blind people who can serve as mentors and role models for us and our children. When we as parents join the NOPBC, our children belong to the Federation family.

What is our mission?

The NOPBC:

Most states have an NOPBC affiliate chapter. You can find your state chapter at http://www.nopbc.org. If your state does not have a chapter and you would like to start one, please contact us. We may be able to offer training and other assistance to start a state NOPBC chapter.

Why Join the NOPBC?

We have been where you are, and we want to support you and your blind child. We know that blindness does not define your child's future. We can connect you with other families and blind adults who can serve as positive mentors and role models. They can teach you the attitudes and techniques that will enable your child to become independent and to succeed in life.  

The NOPBC offers hope, encouragement, information, and resources for parents, families, and educators of blind children. NOPBC provides:

We offer a wide variety of programs, activities, and training to families, children, and youth. One of our most exciting activities is our annual conference. Every year since it was established, the NOPBC has conducted an annual conference for parents and teachers of blind children as part of the national convention of the NFB. This conference has grown to include five exciting days of workshops, training sessions, activities for all family members, including sighted siblings, and countless opportunities to meet blind adults and other families and children from around the country.

Programs, activities, publications, and resources of the NFB and NOPBC

Contact Us:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
[email protected]
www.nopbc.org

Stepping into the Future

by Deborah Kent Stein

In 2012 Future Reflections published a special issue on technology. Mark Riccobono wrote about “The Promise of Accessible Technology: Challenges and Opportunities.” Gary Wunder contributed his ideas about “The Dream of the Past, the Hope for the Future,” and Amy Mason shared her thoughts on “Mainstream Access to Ebooks: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What Is Still Unclear.” While George Kerscher wrote “The Future of Digital Publishing: An Optimist's View,” and Betsy Burgess and Valerie Chernek celebrated “Breaking Down the Barriers” with a decade of digital access through Bookshare, the excitement about technology was tempered with caution. There were lots of great ideas out there, lots of dazzling prototypes, but for the blind community it was still a matter of “Wait and see.”

That was thirteen years ago.

Today, as Future Reflections revisits the technological revolution in another special issue, the world continues on its dizzying rush into a digital wonderland. Today our age-old concerns over access to print text have nearly disappeared, thanks to Audible.com, Kindle with VoiceOver, Bookshare, and a host of other resources. Apps on the smartphones we carry in our pockets can help us read our mail, connect with like-minded people from around the world, and find our way to our gate at the airport. Artificial intelligence can troll the web to unearth obscure facts and figures in seconds flat. How many of us dared to imagine such possibilities back in 2012?

While technology has opened almost inconceivable opportunities for the blind community and for the world at large, blind people still face barriers. As changes in technology accelerate at an ever-faster pace, accessibility is too often left behind. In a world where education, the workplace, and even recreation depend more and more upon digital access, we in the blind community run what feels like a never-ending race to catch up.

We have come a tremendous distance, but many contributors to this new special issue temper their excitement with a dash of warning. Brett Boyer states, “Access technology isn’t magic. It’s a set of tools, and tools are only as powerful as the person using them.” Jonathan Mosen writes about “AI and Our Blind Children: The Potential and the Pitfalls,” and Ameenah Ghoston emphasizes the importance of time-honored tools such as the slate and stylus in “High Tech, Low Tech.”

Most contributors to this special issue of Future Reflections share their genuine enthusiasm for cutting-edge developments. Anne Westbrook describes how her initial skepticism faded when she discovered how much technology helped her blind daughter learn and connect with others. Isaac Raske, a high school student, describes how technology benefited him throughout his schooling and suggests ways for teachers to help blind students develop their tech skills. Chuy Vaca and Raúl and Stacie Gallegos share their experiences and strategies teaching access technology.

Technology has transformed life for all of us, including those of us who are blind or have low vision. The contributors to this issue of Future Reflections celebrate the opportunities technology has opened for us all. Nevertheless, we must continue to value and nurture the blindness skills that have served us well in the past. Building upon this foundation we can master new technologies that will widen our prospects for the future.

Beyond the Buzz: What Really Prepares Blind Students for the Tech of Tomorrow

by Brett Boyer

From the Editor: Brett Boyer joined the NFB when he was a twelve-year-old student from New Jersey. He has worked in customer service, radio, and voice acting. Today he is a technology instructor at the Colorado Center for the Blind, and he serves as president of the NFB’s Assistive Technology Trainers Division. He advocates for high expectations, self-reliance, and problem-solving skills in blind students of all ages.

When I was invited to write about access technology for this magazine, the request sounded simple enough. I would share information about the latest tech tools that parents and teachers of blind children should understand. There are plenty of tools to write about—smart canes, AI vests, wearable cameras, and next-gen recording tools such as Notta, Otter.ai, the Plaud NotePin, the Humane AI Pin, and the Meta smart glasses. All of these tools promise blind students greater independence than ever before.

But I’ll be honest. It’s hard to sit here and say with confidence what’s “the best” when it comes to tools. Instead, I want to offer something more meaningful—especially if you’re a parent new to this journey or an educator looking to support your student in deeper ways. As someone who has spent more than a decade teaching access technology, I’d be missing the point if I only handed you a list of gadgets. Here’s the truth: access technology isn’t magic. It’s a set of tools, and tools are only as powerful as the person using them.

The Tech Has Changed—The Goal Has Not

When taught with purpose, high expectations, and a clear strategy, access technology absolutely can unlock full participation and independence for blind and low-vision students. Too often, however, the tech itself gets treated as the final solution. A student is handed a notetaker or an iPad with VoiceOver, and everyone feels relieved. But access tech is not self-explanatory—it requires real instruction and exploration.

If we want students to succeed, we have to shift the focus from what we’re giving them to how we’re teaching them. That’s where Structured Discovery comes in.

So yes, I’ll introduce some tried-and-true tools and some exciting new tech that’s worth knowing about. More importantly, I’ll show you how to think about access technology in a way that sets students up for long-term success.

A Big-Picture Look at Assistive Technology

The term assistive technology encompasses a wide range of tools and platforms. If you are new to this world, here is a quick look at the major categories and how each of them can support a blind student’s journey.

Screen Access Tools

These tools include screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, and Narrator for Windows; VoiceOver for Apple products; and ChromeVox for Google platforms. Screen magnifiers and visual enhancements such as high contrast modes also fall into this category. These tools help students access computers and mobile devices nonvisually or with visual support.

Text-to-Speech and Reading Support

These tools help students tackle inaccessible or cumbersome documents, books, or web pages. Popular apps such as Voice Dream Reader, Speech Central, and others are great for reading PDFs, eBooks, and HTML documents. Many also can pull text from websites and read it aloud. They are especially helpful for long-form reading or offline studying. While they don’t replace screen readers, they can be a valuable part of a student’s toolkit.

Braille Technology

Braille displays are an incredible asset—especially for visual learners and students developing literacy skills. These devices work with phones, tablets, and computers, allowing students to read and write tactilely.

Notetakers are Braille displays with expanded functionality, often including built-in apps for file management, email, or math and music support. Used properly, they can give students greater independence and open up learning opportunities.

While three main companies currently dominate the market, newer players such as Dream Vision Group, Bristol Braille, and Orbit Research are bringing innovative options to the table.
One exciting development is the Monarch Braille Display, a multiline Braille device that makes it possible for users to access tactile graphics and spatial layouts. This is a major leap forward for accessible STEM education and one to keep an eye on.

Getting the Picture: Print Access and AI Tools

An explosion of apps now provides text recognition, photo description, and scene analysis. Some are brand new; others are trusted staples with upgraded features.

Apps such as Be My AI (within the Be My Eyes platform), PiccyBot, and ChatGPT Vision can describe images, documents, and even videos by using AI. Longtime favorites such as Seeing AI, Lookout by Google, and Voice Dream Scanner are still excellent for reading printed materials or inaccessible files.

One newer standout is Scribe Me, an AI-powered app that extracts text from tricky formats such as PowerPoint slides and image-based PDFs—great for classroom use.

Some of these tools now pair with wearable devices such as Meta smart glasses, offering real-time environmental descriptions. Devices such as the Humane AI Pin and Plaud NotePin go a step farther, combining AI-driven transcription, note capture, and image recognition into a single, portable tool. These all-in-one tools can be great for students on the go, but like all tech, they’re only effective when introduced with purpose and strategy.

If used too early or relied on as shortcuts, even the most impressive AI tools can reinforce dependence. Blind students should never feel that they need to rely on sighted feedback—human or artificial—for everything.

Orientation and Wayfinding Tools

Apps such as GoodMaps, VoiceVista, and Lazarillo provide audio-based navigation and guides to points of interest, indoors and outdoors. They’re great for route planning and orientation, but again, they should support exploration—not replace it.

Mainstream Tech with Built-In Accessibility

Do not underestimate what is already in a student’s backpack! The iPhone Voice Memos app now transcribes audio recordings, which students can feed into AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini to generate study guides or summaries. That kind of integration—blending built-in features with advanced tools—can be a major game-changer for independent learning.

Google Gemini is now part of Google Assistant as well, giving you unprecedented control over your Gmail and other Google products.

iPads, Chromebooks, and Windows laptops also come with built-in screen readers and magnifiers. These systems evolve constantly, and students who understand how to use the entire operating system—not just its accessibility features—can do a lot more with confidence.

Avoiding Closed Systems and Tech Traps

Too many students spend years relying solely on notetakers or apps that limit exposure to broader systems. When they reach college or enter the workforce, they find themselves behind—lacking skills in basic file management, word processing, or collaboration platforms such as Zoom, Teams, or Google.

Blind students need access to mainstream systems. They should be able to write papers, organize documents, and explore new tools with confidence. This kind of tech fluency builds independence—not dependency.

Why Structured Discovery Still Matters

Structured Discovery is more than a teaching method—it is a mindset. It is about helping students explore, make mistakes, recover, and grow. Instead of memorizing keystrokes, they learn how systems work and how to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. Even kindergarteners can start building this kind of confidence.

Parents: Don’t step in too quickly. Give your child space to try, fail, and try again, especially outside of technology.

Teachers: When a student gets stuck, don’t grab the mouse. Resist the urge to fix it—whatever it may be. Coach your student instead. That is how real skills—and real confidence—are built.

Takeaways for Parents and Educators

Choose tools based on your student’s goals—not trends or hype. Prioritize systems that teach full platforms, such as Windows or iOS—not just closed ecosystems. Introduce Braille early—especially for low-vision students. Large print isn’t always sustainable. Don’t over-rely on AI or remote assistance. Build self-reliance. Involve blind adults and IEP advocates in tech decisions whenever possible.

Most importantly, play, explore, and check out all the latest and greatest stuff that is out there.

Final Thought

Technology changes fast—but the foundation doesn’t.

Students who know how to explore, adapt, and problem solve will be ready for whatever comes next. We have a saying at our center: “Take charge with confidence.” When a student can do that, they can take on anything!

Additional Resources

While writing this article, I came across a few gems that I thought were worth sharing:

Desmos Graphing Calculator
https://www.desmos.com/#;bcg-main-content-region-
A surprisingly accessible tool for students who need audio or visual alternatives to traditional math tools.

Creating a Safe Space for Learning Technology
https://www.perkins.org/resource/creating-a-safe-space-for-learning-technology-cultivating-a-growth-mindset
A great read on how growth mindset intersects with tech instruction.

What I Wish I’d Learned About Assistive Technology before Starting College
https://www.perkins.org/resource/what-i-wished-i-had-learned-about-starting-college-video/
Honest reflections from blind students that hit home, especially around tech readiness.

FS Companion AI
https://fscompanion.freedomscientific.com

An experimental AI assistant from Freedom Scientific, designed to provide screen reader and application support.

Early Exposure

by Anne Westbrook

From the Editor: Whether a child is sighted or blind, many parents feel uncomfortable with the early introduction of electronic gadgetry. In this article, Anne Westbrook admits her initial reservations and explains how some simple electronic devices have enriched life for her blind daughter, Lizzy.

“Alexa, what’s the weather in Chicago today?” “Siri, send a text message to Patti.” “Hey Google, add bread and apples to my shopping list.” “I scanned the QR code to read the menu on my phone.”

These are phrases heard around our home every day. Within our multigenerational household, three of the four family members are blind or have progressive eye conditions that eventually could lead to blindness. Accessible technology is woven into our daily rhythms and routines.

Ten years ago, however, it was a very different story. From the moment I learned that my daughter, Lizzy, was blind, I understood that Braille would be her primary modality for reading and writing. But during Lizzy’s infancy, I didn’t think much about accessible technology. In fact, I was drawn to educational and parenting philosophies such as Montessori, Resources for Infant Educarers®, Waldorf, and trust-based, relational, intentional, and conscious parenting. Many of these pedagogies limit or thoroughly discourage the use of computers, tablets, and smartphones during early childhood. As a result, I did not seek out battery-operated toys or gadgets with flashing lights, beeps and buzzers, or apps.

When early intervention teams started to visit our home each week, they often walked in the door with tote bags full of cause-and-effect toys that beeped and booped with a cacophony of sounds. They introduced Lizzy to a tablet with accessible apps that were simple enough for her to engage with through basic gestures. They also brought more adult-led options that played real animal sound effects or musical instruments. I was resistant at first, but the early-intervention team taught me about the importance of building Lizzy’s skills with accessible technology. I began to find ways to integrate small doses of technology into our daily lives.

During the 2017 NFB National Convention, Lizzy and I participated in a raffle sponsored by the NOPBC (National Organization of Parents of Blind Children), and Lizzy won an Amazon Echo Dot. At the time, the Echo had only been available for about a year. Lizzy was only three years old, and I didn’t know how much she would use her prize. I asked some of the other parents of blind children and the blind parents I met how they used the Echo at home. I was surprised by the many ways it could be used to access information, including NFB-NEWSLINE®. It could play music and assist with daily tasks. We took the Echo home and set it up.

At first, we only used the Echo Dot to play music and set timers. Quickly, though, Lizzy learned to request her own music or sound effects options. It was nice to have a device that afforded her greater independence as she played.

Within a year, we added a second Amazon Echo device to our household. Somehow Lizzy learned to drop in from one device to another, creating an echo of whatever she said. As an only child, she found this endlessly entertaining. She could pretend she was talking to other kids while she played by herself.

Over the next several years, we expanded our skills using the Echo devices, which piqued Lizzy’s interest in more advanced technology. When Lizzy was eight years old, she picked up her grandmother’s phone and said, “Siri, call Uncle David.” The phone began to ring, and when her uncle answered, Lizzy was delighted with her success. She happily chatted with her uncle on the first phone call she had ever made on her own.

Now, at the age of ten, Lizzy seeks out accessible technology to meet her needs. Using the Amazon Echo linked to AnyList, Lizzy is our family’s primary keeper of the grocery list, and she is delighted to manage her birthday wish list, too. She accesses audiobooks on an iPod or Victor Reader Stream. Her grandparents use magnification apps on their phones to read text that is in a small font. We navigate our TVs with voice features and enjoy audio description on family movie night. Our pharmacy adds RFID stickers to our prescription bottles so the instructions can be read aloud using a ScripTalk device.

In our community and on family vacations, we also have found accessible technology to be a helpful tool for engaging with resources. It has fostered a sense of independence, freedom, and self-advocacy that has bolstered Lizzy’s confidence. At local restaurants that have touchscreen kiosks, Lizzy is learning to ask for a headset so she can use the audio description to navigate through the menu. She used audio description headphones at Disneyland to hear a description of the storybook rides as we moved along the tracks. We also discovered that the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum has a sensory bag, audio description for exhibits, and interactive sports activities, including a virtual goalball game visitors can play.
 
As technology evolves, it is exciting to see the many ways we are able to integrate accessible technology into our daily lives. More and more businesses are integrating options into their shops, devices, and websites, opening doors of opportunity that were never available before. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the value technology adds to our lives and the ways it empowers Lizzy to engage with the world.

The Knowledge of the Past and the Promise of the Future: Integrating Assistive and Mainstream Technologies into the Classroom Setting

by Isaac Raske

From the Editor: Isaac Raske is a high school senior from Wheaton, Illinois. In the fall he will be a freshman at Purdue University Polytechnic Institute, where he plans to major in cyber security. In this article he reflects upon his experiences with technology in the classroom and suggests ways for teachers to help blind and low-vision students develop their skills in order to flourish now and in the future.
 
My experiences using assistive technology in and out of the classroom have been positive overall. I have had a steady support system through my itinerant TVI (teacher of the visually impaired) and my orientation and mobility specialist. They have always been at the forefront of technological advances, allowing me to experience and try out several solutions for productivity, leisure, and independent navigation. I am really into assistive technology, and I would not be so excited about this field without the enthusiasm of my support team.

Special Tech in a Low-Vision Setting

Until fourth grade I attended a program for blind and low-vision students within a larger public school. I learned to read and write Braille and to use a standard laptop for basic word processing. In the third grade, I was introduced to the world of assistive technology with the BrailleNote Apex. I found it fascinating to use the electronic Braille display and keyboard, and I used the device for everything. I completed homework on it, recorded notes on it, and, best of all, played text-based adventure games such as Colossal Caves Adventure.

This revolutionary device helped me improve my Braille reading and writing skills, and I had access to everything I needed. Best of all, if something went wrong, I could always rely on my teachers to help me. They were trained in BrailleNote operations, and they usually knew how to troubleshoot. The Apex was my first exposure to technologies made by and for blind people, and it forever changed the way I view the world.

One major issue I had to put up with, though, was that my teachers in elementary school did not encourage me to explore on my own. I was always terrified to touch the mysterious Utilities Menu, Internet Explorer, Terminal for Screen Reader, and several other basic functions. At the time it made sense for the teachers to show me only specific functions. For many students it can be overwhelming when teachers demonstrate everything a device for the blind can do. However, looking back, I wish I had been pushed to be curious and to teach myself how best to use the technologies I had access to. Had I been given this opportunity, I believe I would have felt more confident on my technological journey.

Some Tips for Tech Teachers

While it is important to offer a student guidance, especially with a new device, it is also imperative to let students find out by themselves how things work. Even if they do not become tech-obsessed learners like I did, the ability to learn independently is and will be an important skill for a student’s future.

Tech Teacher Tip Number 1: Let students explore and learn on their own. Put limitations where they are appropriate, but keep in mind that self-guided learning boosts confidence and competence with technology usage.

A Change in the Winds

In fourth grade I transferred from the program for visually-impaired students to my local elementary school in search of higher-level math and science content. It was a struggle for me to fit in, and I had difficulty meeting and socializing with other students. Nobody else was blind, and I had to adjust to a classroom with up to twenty-five students instead of five or six. With this change, I left behind everything and everyone I knew at my old school.

One thing that I did not leave behind was my trusty old Apex. I was still able to do everything I needed to do in class, and I was still able to play those all-important games. However, this state of perfection was quickly shattered. The Apex started to run out of power more quickly. It began slowing down, and it would freeze at random times. Now I was the outlier in the class, along with my alien technology. My poor general education teacher was stumped every time I tried to show my homework when I ran into a technical issue. By the end of fourth grade, my Apex was barely holding onto life. It was obvious I needed a new solution if I were going to prosper in a mainstream setting.

Around that time, my itinerant TVI started training me to use JAWS, a text-to-speech program, on a computer. I had already had some exposure to the JAWS program, but this was the first time I had used it seriously. My TVI also introduced me to Bookshare, a website with a vast library of downloadable books in accessible formats. She also showed me the wide variety of accessibility features on the iPad. Thanks to my school iPad I learned digital responsibility and online safety.

This training in mainstream technology turned out to be a lifesaver. It was as though my TVI could tell what was to come.

Teacher Tip 2: Do not be afraid to help students get out of their comfort zones. If they have found something that works for them, stick with it, but always be ready to adapt. Furthermore, do not be afraid to conduct your own research. Learning modern technology should be a collaborative effort involving the student, parent/guardian, and teacher.

A Touchy Subject

In the fifth grade, I got the all-new BrailleNote Touch. This device was amazing! It allowed me to collaborate with my peers in real time on Google Docs, print worksheets, and plant the seeds of my internet presence. After the honeymoon phase was over, however, I noticed some minor issues. The BrailleNote Touch was complex to use, and a simple task such as embossing a document was much more involved than it was on the Apex. Furthermore, the device would overheat, draining the battery, and it would take more than two minutes just to turn on. Despite these difficulties, I was extremely pleased to have the BrailleNote Touch, as it allowed me to connect with my fellow students in a more organic way.

In addition to the Braille display, I was learning to use Apple devices more efficiently. I learned to surf the web and edit documents with JAWS, and I began to rely more on digital resources for research and learning. By the time I started sixth grade, I mostly had switched over to using JAWS on a Windows laptop, relying on my BrailleNote Touch exclusively for doing math homework. Through my laptop I finally had the exact same access to online resources as my fellow students. It was exhilarating for me to be able to complete and contribute to assignments at the same speed as my peers or even faster. In the sixth and seventh grades my academic performance began to skyrocket. In part this improvement was due to my newfound confidence in the mainstream school setting. It also was due to my excellent support system and my rapidly growing tech skills.

In middle school I got a BrailleNote Touch Plus and my first smartphone. I also acquired the text-to-speech program NVDA, which quickly became my preferred screen reading software.

These changes came just in time for COVID to sweep through the world, uprooting the education of students everywhere. Now my laptop skills became essential for success, and the ripple effect of COVID still benefits me today. Specifically, the switch to mostly online classroom materials meant that I no longer had difficulty accessing assignments, since everyone else was using a computer, too. To quote High School Musical, “We’re all in this together.”

Teacher Tip 3: Stay open-minded. It is important for students and teachers to stay flexible with the technologies they use. Dedicated assistive technologies have their place, especially when it is to enhancing Braille literacy. However, it is also important to expose students to mainstream technology that others use, such as a laptop or tablet. Exposure can reinforce the student’s adaptability, since mainstream technology always changes at a faster rate than assistive technology designed for blind users. From the Apple II to the latest iPhone, and from the Braille ‘n Speak to the Monarch, adaptability is key to successful usage.

A Balancing Act

Throughout my last few years of school, I have learned to rely on certain technologies for certain tasks, and I have continued to learn new ways of working and studying more efficiently. My education has involved using a Braille notetaker exclusively as a Braille terminal. I have also adopted the use of a talking graphing calculator, but only as a complement to an online graphing calculator service with built-in accessibility options. Finally, I have started to complement my phone’s GPS system with a resolute GPS and book reader, allowing me to have the benefits of both a smart device and an accessible book reading and navigation environment. This combination of specialized and accessible mainstream technology has finally allowed me to thrive. At last I have unparallelled access to information and tools beyond anything that seemed possible even five years ago. At the same time, I have learned to value the simplicity and reliability of dedicated devices for the blind.

Conclusions?

Overall, my journey with assistive technology can be described as unexpected. I went from using nothing but a Perkins Braillewriter with the help of trained Braille readers to informing my TVI about robotic cane alternatives, multiline Braille displays, and countless other fancy solutions to common blindness-related problems. Technology evolves quickly, and fortunately, I have been able to grow along with it. I should not take any of this for granted, as I know from firsthand experience how hard it can be to adapt. In addition, new assistive technologies are overly expensive, so blind people still face more barriers to information, technological tools, and skill sets than sighted people do. I believe educators and parents/guardians should expose blind students to as many technological solutions as possible. Though it may be overwhelming at times, having practice with all kinds of tools can help boost creativity and critical thinking skills. Finding a system that works is an ongoing process, but equipping students from the get-go with many options for success will ensure that they are able to tackle any challenge that arises, technological or otherwise.
Technology for the blind and for the sighted is always changing. The next big breakthrough in technology will always promise to revolutionize our lives. That is why these conclusions are endlessly subject to change. Like technology itself, we as individuals and as a community must continue to be open to the new while we hold space to remember where we came from. To keep up with technology, we must be guided by the knowledge of the past and the promise of the future.

Passing It On: Learning and Teaching Access Technology

by Chuy Vaca

From the Editor: Chuy Vaca is an instructor at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (LCB) in Ruston, Louisiana. In this article he recounts his journey with access technology. He explains how his ever-growing knowledge serves him in his life as a teacher and parent. As a bonus, he introduces readers to some basic commands for accessing Windows, the iPhone, and the Mac computer.

My love of teaching didn’t start when I became an assistive technology instructor at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. It began more than two decades earlier with my love of music. The possibility of creating multitrack music using an electronic keyboard, JAWS for Windows, some specialized JAWS scripts, and a computer sparked my interest in technology. I was excited that previously inaccessible software was now within my reach, and I could create music whenever I wanted.

Eventually I found myself teaching other blind students to use specialized music software. I discovered that I enjoyed teaching, but I didn’t consider it as a possible career path. Then, in 2010, access technology took on a dual purpose in my life.

I had always used technology when I was a blind student. Then, working at summer youth programs at the Louisiana Center for the Blind, I got a second glimpse into the rewarding aspects of teaching. Eventually, I worked for an assistive technology distributor and pursued further studies in access technology, which strengthened my love for teaching. Today I still use and teach technology, but now life has added yet another dimension to my experience, as I have come to be a blind parent.

Learning to use a device doesn’t have to be complicated, as long as you take the learning process one step at a time. Before you rush out to buy a new piece of equipment, try using the technology you have at your disposal to accomplish the task at hand. In my case, I used two different technologies to get the job done in two different scenarios.

My first need for technology as a blind parent occurred at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our oldest daughter was finishing kindergarten, and suddenly she needed to turn in her assignments virtually. She was five years old at the time, and she was still learning to read. Suddenly everything had shifted to remote learning. As a tech guy and as a parent, I took it upon myself to figure out how she could turn in her assignments along with the rest of her classmates. I ended up using my screen reader, an old flatbed scanner, and the Windows photo app to convert her homework from hard copy into digital form.

Fast forward five years. Recently my daughter, now a fifth grader, asked me to help her study for an upcoming social studies test. After thinking about it for a moment, I proceeded to use the VoiceOver screen reader on my iPhone, along with an app called VDScan, to convert the text on her worksheet into digital form. My goal was to listen to the questions on the study guide, using the VoiceOver screen reader, so I could help her review the material.

I put the paper on the table and took a picture, using my iPhone. Fortunately, the questions were typed, which made it easier for me to read the information. In a matter of seconds, I was able to read the study guide, using VoiceOver to navigate through the file. Without a hitch I was able to help my daughter with her studying.

I like using the VDScan app, (formally VoiceDream Scanner), for Apple devices. It is affordable, it only requires a one-time payment, and it works offline. Most importantly, it produces a fairly accurate representation of the text. Note that all scans that result from hard copy paper, on occasion, may contain some inaccurate characters, such as replacing the letter l for an I or the number 1. This problem occurs rather infrequently, and you can always take another scan to improve accuracy.

You don’t have to be an expert in technology to help your child or student. I would like to give you some tips on using the technology that you may have readily available to get you started.

The two most common pieces of technology are a Windows computer and an Apple iPhone, but I will also mention the Mac computer. I am omitting the use of Braille displays and Android devices for the sake of brevity. Before I get into specifics, I will share the three steps that I encourage my students to perform when learning to use any new piece of technology.

Accessing a Windows Computer

Press CTRL+WINDOWS+ENTER to turn on the built-in Windows Narrator screen reader. Press Tab and Shift Tab to move forward and backward through the options. Press the Spacebar to check and uncheck boxes or to activate buttons. You can also press INSERT+F1 to find a description of keys without performing the action. Use CTRL+WINDOWS+ENTER to turn off the screen reader. Windows Narrator works much like other Windows-based screen readers, and it is a good tool for getting you started using a screen reader with a Windows computer.

Other helpful commands for Windows are INSERT+H for screen reader help (this works for Windows Narrator, NVDA, and JAWS). INSERT+W works when using JAWS for Windows, providing a list of Windows commands.

Accessing a Mac Computer

Press COMMAND+F5 to turn on the VoiceOver screen reader. Press CONTROL+OPTION+LEFT ARROW and CONTROL+OPTION+RIGHT ARROW to move forward and backward through different options on the screen. Press CONTROL+OPTION+SPACE to activate checkboxes and buttons. You can also press CONTROL+OPTION+H to bring up a list of help commands that can be activated once you find what you are looking for.

Using an iPhone with the VoiceOver Screen Reader

Use Siri to turn on the VoiceOver screen reader when accessing an iPhone for the first time. Activate Siri, then say, “Turn on VoiceOver.” Tap the screen twice with one finger to access the on-screen buttons. Tap the screen once with two fingers, as if making bunny ears on the screen, to stop VoiceOver from speaking. Move your finger around the screen to explore the icons by touch.

You can also use four fingers and tap the screen twice to enter and exit VoiceOver Help mode. VoiceOver Help mode allows you to practice swiping gestures such as moving your finger from left to right, up or down, and tapping the screen once with one, two, three, or four fingers. Similarly, tapping the screen one, two, three, or four times with each finger combination will produce different results.

Although this may sound complicated, try a couple of gestures at a time, using VoiceOver Help. Then practice those gestures with VoiceOver Help turned off. VoiceOver Help mode provides a description for the gesture that is being done, and it provides an environment where you can explore gestures without executing them.

For the time being, use Siri again if you wish to turn VoiceOver off. Just activate Siri and say, “Turn off VoiceOver.”

Make the learning process fun. Use the technology at your disposal to accomplish the task at hand before you look for another technology solution to resolve your issue. You might already have the solution in front of you and not even know it. On the other hand, if the technology isn’t meeting your child’s or student’s needs, it is time to consider other options. Make a list of three or four needs or considerations that are important, then start researching and comparing products that fulfill most of the qualifications and considerations on your priority list.

Remember that we are learning together as parents and educators. We have technology as a tool at our disposal, and we have each other as a resource.

Training Is the Key: An Interview with Raúl and Stacie Gallegos

by Deborah Kent Stein

From the Editor: Raúl Gallegos has been active in the NFB since the 1990s, when he joined the Colorado affiliate. Today he serves as first vice president of the NFB of Texas and president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU). A native of Texas, Stacie Gallegos is president of the NFB of Texas Houston Chapter and serves as NAGDU secretary. Raúl and Stacie both teach access technology to blind and deafblind clients. They shared their ideas and experiences in an interview for Future Reflections.

DEBORAH KENT STEIN: Tell me about your teaching. Who do you serve, and what training do you offer?

RAÚL GALLEGOS: Stacie and I run a small business called RGA Tech Solutions. We provide consultation and training in access technology for private clients. We also do technology training for a program called ICanConnect (ICC).

DKS: How did you get started in this work?

RG: I started training blind people to use access technology in 2005. I worked for GW Micro, providing training and tech support for a text-to-speech program called WindowEyes. I got involved with ICC in 2016.

DKS: What exactly is ICanConnect? How does the program work?

RG: ICC is a program run by the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC. It teaches deafblind individuals to use communication tools such as smartphones, Braille displays, and computers. In Texas, the program is managed through Perkins School for the Blind.

STACIE GALLEGOS: We almost always work face-to-face with our ICC students. Depending on their mode of expressive and receptive communication skills, we will often communicate verbally, through a sign language interpreter, or through written communication. There are times when we will communicate by typing while the student communicates back to us verbally. If the student knows Braille, this mode of communication is also used. Because the ICC program is specifically designed for distance communication needs, we are limited in what we can teach. For example, we can teach a person how to use email and social media, but we cannot teach them how to write a résumé. The purpose of the program is to make sure deafblind people can use the relay systems for telecommunication that were created under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

RG: We’re not allowed to teach Braille or any other technology through ICC. If someone needs other kinds of training, they have to get approval through their rehabilitation counselor.

SG: I’ve learned how to coach parents so they can write to Vocational Rehabilitation for approval. Usually, it’s pretty straightforward.

RG: When the parent of a deafblind or blind student reaches out to us, we do an assessment to find out how much the child knows and what their needs are. We also find out what the parents know about IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) and IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). We try to get the school district to hire us to do training, so the parents don’t have to pay out of pocket. Sometimes we contract directly with the school district.

DKS: Do you visit the child in school, or do you work with them remotely?

SG: Mostly we work with students remotely. We do Zoom sessions with the student and the teacher, and sometimes with a parent, too.

RG: Mostly we work with the student, and the teacher observes and takes notes. Sometimes we just work directly with the teachers, and they formulate their own lesson plans. That’s especially true with younger kids. You can’t do a full lesson on tech with kids five and six years old. They just haven’t got the attention span yet.

SG: With older students it’s easier to have longer sessions and really cover a lot of material.

RG: After a lesson I follow up by writing a training report for the teacher and the school district, showing the work we did. I also encourage teachers and parents to record the call so they can listen again later on. Usually people take notes during the session, and I also send them notes about the things we covered.
DKS: How did the COVID lockdown affect your work?

RG: I remember before the pandemic I was working face-to-face with a twelve-year-old student. Then we switched to working remotely when the lockdown happened. The student had a Braille device with JAWS. I felt that the training was pretty successful, but I never had a chance to connect with the teacher. I think that would have helped reinforce what the student learned.

DKS: Do any other experiences with students stand out for you?

RG: I remember working with a high school student who was really a natural with technology. The kid’s mother was very, very overbearing. She was extremely protective toward her kid, and she’d get explosively angry with the teachers when she felt they weren’t doing the right thing. When I worked with this kid, Mom was always hovering in the background. I tried to be very careful, laying out my goals and giving her detailed notes.
I’ve worked with students of all ages, from five to eighty-five. About half of my adult students are employed.
DKS: Is there anything in particular that you want parents and teachers to know?
SG: I want them to recognize the importance of Braille, even for students who have some vision. Using Braille limits eye fatigue; a lot of students get terrible headaches from straining to read print. Sure, there’s a learning curve with Braille, but it can make life and work much more efficient in the long run.

RG: Students need to learn there are always alternative ways to do things. What do you do if your Braille display fails? How will you get your work done? I try to hammer in the importance of problem solving.
SG: Another thing: I want parents to learn that it’s okay for students to fail at times. They don’t always have to get everything right. The same holds true for sighted kids. They make mistakes, and they can learn from that experience. Don’t give kids a free pass just because they’re blind.

RG: Sometimes I share stories about my own struggles and the things my teachers did to help me. For instance, I might mention how in high school I had only five minutes to get from one class to the next, but my teachers wouldn’t allow me to leave class early. They showed me I could get through the halls like everybody else. I don’t ask parents whether their own child is leaving class early. I just show them that there are other options. I might even expand the conversation and mention that you can’t expect special concessions from employers. When I get to know the parents, they usually receive that message pretty well.
SG: When it comes to technology, no two blind people will use all of the same programs and devices. Everyone learns differently. Some consumers think they need the exact same Braille display their friend uses, but it might not work for them. I do an assessment, and I find out they don’t know how to type. That eliminates a bunch of options!

RG: Technology has evolved tremendously, and it really helps level the playing field for blind people. Now we have AI, and that opens possibilities that didn’t exist before.

SG: But it doesn’t mean we should forget about our low-tech options. Some people think the Perkins Braillewriter is obsolete. I say it’s still a great tool for notetaking and labeling things. There will never be anything better!

RG: Parents of blind kids need to learn the basics of screen readers and other equipment. Really, it’s no different from working with their sighted children and learning about the equipment they use. I love working with parents who take notes and use cheat sheets. It shows that they want to learn and help their child. The more they know, the more they can help their kids when the teacher isn’t around.
You can reach Raúl Gallegos at [email protected]. Stacie can be reached at [email protected].

High Tech, Low Tech: Everything Serves a Purpose

by Ameenah Ghoston

From the Editor: Originally from Chicago, Ameenah Ghoston has been involved with the NFB for more than thirty years. Currently she serves as treasurer of the Fairfax Chapter of the NFB of Virginia. She is a mentor for the Project RISE program and a facilitator for the Virginia affiliate’s Journeys Through Blindness Program. She holds a BA from the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign and a Master’s of Biblical and Theological Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. She oversees the management and implementation of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act for the Defense Health Agency. The first blind person to complete the Federal Chief Information Officer Certification at the National Defense University, she is the 2019 recipient of the Department of Defense’s Disability Award.

Between my personal life and my professional life, I use a lot of assistive technology. I have two iPhones, two laptops, and a variety of Braille displays, including two notetaking devices. Depending on what I need to accomplish, I frequently switch between these devices throughout my day. For example, before my workday begins, I may check the weather, read my email, read the news, and review my personal schedule. Then I might communicate with friends and family and look up the transit schedule for my commute to work. I perform all of these tasks and operations using either my laptop with JAWS or my personal cellphone with VoiceOver enabled. VoiceOver provides nonvisual access to the Apple iOS family of devices, and the JAWS program provides nonvisual access to Windows.

Yet, even with an array of technology solutions at my fingertips, I regularly use low-tech tools to perform a myriad of tasks at home, in the workplace, or in academic settings.

I believe there are four essential skills that blind students and professionals should master, in the event that their technology is for any reason unavailable to them or is not adequate for the task at hand. These low-tech skills are knowing how to use a slate and stylus, how to work with a human reader, how to type on a qwerty keyboard, and how to use memorization techniques.

The slate and stylus is equivalent to pen and paper for a print reader, but it is used for writing Braille. No matter where I go, I always carry a slate and stylus with me. I learned to use a slate and stylus when I was in elementary school. While I was in high school and college in the 1990s, I used this tool extensively for taking notes. At that time Braille notetaking devices were limited in what they could do, and they did not connect with standard computing devices—that development didn’t come until the early 2000s. Furthermore, laptops were not widely used by students, and nearly everyone used pen and paper for taking notes.

The ability to use a slate and stylus has served me well throughout the course of my career. For example, when I prepare for a public-speaking engagement, I create my speaking notes using a slate and stylus to write on five- by seven-inch notecards. If I’m giving a PowerPoint slide deck presentation, each card corresponds to a particular slide. When I flip from one card to the next, I nonverbally communicate to my human reader/assistant that it’s time to advance to the next slide.

I find that there are many benefits to reading a presentation from notecards instead of using a computing device. Reading from Braille notecards allows me to be present and engaged with my audience, considered “best practices” for effective public speaking and communications. When I’m not depending on a laptop or some other electronic device, I can look in the direction of my audience, use gestures, and move freely around the meeting space.

Knowing how to work with a human reader is another skill that a blind person should hone.
A human reader or visual interpreter is someone who provides assistance with completing tasks when technology is inaccessible or when it is more efficient to work with a person rather than with a machine. Like any other professional, readers should be compensated for their services. Just because someone has vision, that does not automatically qualify them to serve as a human reader/visual interpreter. As we work together, I train my readers to find the material I need, skip extraneous details, spell unfamiliar names, and explain charts and graphs.

I began to rely on readers extensively when I attended college in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I used readers for reading textbooks that weren’t available from Learning Ally, and readers assisted me with researching and proofreading papers. At that time textbooks for blind students were recorded on cassette tapes or compact discs, and they were not available in an electronic format. If I needed a book for a class, my options were either to perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning myself or to work with a human reader, who would literally read the book for me, either live in person or onto a cassette tape.

In the workplace today, I use a human reader when I need to create presentations. A reader can ensure that my presentations are visually appealing and conform to organizational branding standards. I also use a reader in situations where a document  or application is inaccessible. A human reader allows me to complete tasks efficiently; I don’t waste time struggling to get something done when applications are inaccessible. While there is legal recourse for filing digital accessibility complaints under the Americans with Disabilities Act, one has to weigh the pros and cons of doing so. Regardless of the option pursued, the work still needs to get done. Working with a reader is one method for achieving that goal. It is important that a blind student cultivates strategies for working with a human reader for academic and professional success.
Another critical skill for blind students and professionals is memorization.

Memorization is a learned skill that must be developed intentionally. I began learning how to memorize things early in my childhood, starting with learning the Braille code. I have fond memories of learning each Braille symbol with my mother through flashcards or by reading aloud to her using Twin Vision books. I also memorized music selections for my piano lessons. I learned to memorize words through poetry recitation. I would memorize the layout of physical spaces that I frequented: the school building, my classroom, a relative’s home. When I became a teenager, my parents permitted me to travel independently to and from school so I could participate in extracurricular activities. I memorized the names of major streets in Chicago, how to travel to my home by car and public transit—something my orientation and mobility (O&M) instructor had encouraged me to do.

Around that same time I was introduced to the Braille ‘n Speak, one of the earliest models of a Braille notetaking device. Learning to use it entailed memorizing the sequence of keys and steps for navigating the device and inputting information. But while the Braille ‘n Speak did make notetaking convenient, I still preferred reading Braille and taking notes with my slate and stylus rather than listening to a machine read to me. I never used the device for submitting homework. For homework assignments I would work with a reader who usually was my TVI (teacher of the visually impaired.) Sometimes I would type out homework assignments myself from the notes I had recorded in Braille or on my Braille ‘n Speak. The memorization that I had learned through the Braille ‘n Speak prepared me for learning how to use screen reading technology. Specifically, JAWS for Windows and the computer. But what made transitioning to the computer easier for me was that I already knew how to touch type on a qwerty keyboard.

My teachers taught me to type when I was ten years old—not on an electric typewriter, but on a manual one. For an hour each day we students were introduced to the letters and numbers of the typewriter keyboard. Once we became comfortable with typing individual letters and numbers, we were introduced to typing words and sentences. Finally, we worked on increasing our speed and typing without errors. By the time I entered sixth grade, I was required to type all of my language arts assignments for final submission to my instructors. And so, while most students today learn how to type in conjunction with learning how to use a computer and screen reader, I learned how to type apart from those technologies—a skill that has served me well.

As a society today we are growing accustomed to the convenience of dictation, and many blind students use dictation for capturing information on their cellphones. However, dictation currently is not allowed in the workplace. Therefore, blind students should be comfortable typing on a qwerty keyboard and should have a high level of proficiency.

It is important that students can switch to low-tech solutions for completing tasks. Typing on a qwerty keyboard, memorization, working with a human reader, and using a slate and stylus—learning and developing proficiency with these low-tech approaches prepares blind students for those times when their standard array of technologies is unavailable to them or is inefficient for the task at hand.

Blind students today have access to an amazing array of technology—voice dictation, cellphones, and Bluetooth-connected devices. They can store information in the cloud, access web-based applications, and call upon generative AI. However, many academic and workplace organizations limit the use of such technologies by all employees. I for one have worked, and still do work in these restrictive environments. Furthermore, reasonable accommodation requests to access or use these technologies are typically denied.

Blind students should have the skills to learn new technologies in order to adapt and advance in their academic studies and eventual careers. However, there are instances when our technology fails us all, sighted and blind alike. While it is impossible to prepare for every situation, I believe that it is essential that blind students know how to use alternative techniques for when their arsenal of technology isn’t the answer.

Monarch: Shaping the Future of Tactile Literacy

by Sarah Gauer

From the Editor: The Monarch is one of the most exciting new developments in the world of access technology for the blind. In this article Sarah Gauer introduces a pilot program that has put the Monarch in the hands of a group of blind high school students across the country. Sarah Gauer serves as project manager for the Monarch Student Program at the American Printing House for the Blind (APH).

For students who read Braille, falling behind often has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with waiting. For decades, blind and low-vision students have relied on embossed Braille and tactile graphics to read textbooks, explore diagrams, and engage with classroom visuals. While hard copy Braille and graphics have opened doors for many, they come with significant limitations. Materials must be ordered weeks or months in advance, updates are nearly impossible, and staying in step with fast-paced lessons can be a challenge. A math teacher can draw a graph on the board in seconds. For a student who is blind, that same graph might arrive days later, embossed on bulky paper and offering the student limited ability to make changes.

Meet the Monarch Student Pilot Project

Monarch aims to change the status quo for tactile literacy. The first of its kind, Monarch is a dynamic tactile device that offers multiline Braille and tactile graphics, all on a single display. Developed in partnership by the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) and HumanWare, Monarch is transforming how Braille readers of all ages can read, work, and organize information in a digital world.

Monarch’s ten-line, thirty-two-cell Braille display goes far beyond traditional Braille technology devices. Users can skim through paragraphs, review math problems or computer code across multiple lines, and explore tactile graphics—all on the same device. Instead of switching between bulky volumes of a book or juggling multiple tools, users can move between text and graphics in a single, continuous flow, making it easier to take in information, stay focused, and work independently.

Thanks to the Monarch Student Pilot Project (MSPP), students and educators across the country are exploring the possibilities of Monarch in real classrooms today. The project, which was launched in the fall of 2024, is structured as a long-term loan program for students who are blind or have low vision. Students in grades six through eleven are nominated by their educators and selected to represent communities across the United States in a variety of instructional settings that include public, private, residential, and home school. Each student receives a Monarch to use through their graduation from high school. In return, students and their educators provide regular feedback about their experiences, helping to shape classroom strategies, training materials, and future improvements to Monarch.

The project is grounded in three key goals: first, to provide students with consistent, year-round access to refreshable Braille and tactile graphics—something many have never had before; second, to gather feedback from students and educators about what’s working well and where improvements are needed; and third, to identify resources, training, and support systems that will help both students and teachers make the most of Monarch. Because Monarch represents such a leap forward, it’s difficult to anticipate every way it will be used or the support that might be needed. MSPP is not only helping us understand how Monarch fits into daily instruction, but also helping us prepare for the unexpected possibilities that emerge along the way.

Early Classroom Moments with Monarch

In classrooms across the country, students and educators are discovering just how much Monarch can shift the rhythm of learning. Several students pointed to how Monarch has changed their experience with assignments, especially when lessons change on short notice. “My teachers often plan at the last minute or change plans right before class,” said an eighth grader from Washington. “Having the Monarch has helped with that because they just save it to the thumb drive, and I can do my assignments.” What once might have meant waiting days for an updated worksheet can now happen in real time—something small but powerful.

Others are noticing changes in how they read and process information. A ninth grader from Vermont shared that Monarch helped increase their reading speed and gave them a boost in Braille proficiency they didn’t expect to see so quickly. In subjects such as math and science, students are finding new independence. An eighth grader from New Mexico said, “It made me feel like I could be more independent in the future.”

These classroom moments may seem simple at first glance, but taken together, they reveal something much bigger. Monarch is helping students keep pace, build skills, and take greater ownership of their learning. In a fast-moving world, that kind of shift can make all the difference.

Monarch Outside the Classroom

As Monarch becomes part of students’ daily lives, its influence extends well beyond academics. For many, Monarch has opened the door to spontaneous leisure reading and personal growth. One student shared that Monarch gave them access to thousands of books, transforming reading from a school task into something they could truly enjoy. Another described how the Monarch allowed them to read aloud with their family, each person following along in their own format: print for some, Braille for others. A student in Oklahoma shared that they’ve been journaling daily since receiving Monarch, a habit that quickly became a meaningful part of their routine.

Monarch is also helping students experience the world in new tactile ways. After viewing a tactile graphic of a bowling alley, an eighth grader recounted, “I have bowled many times, but it made me feel more aware of how the pins were set up. It was cool.”

These early moments reflect the wide-ranging role Monarch is already playing in students’ lives. Whether reading for fun, journaling, exploring a tactile diagram, or connecting with loved ones, students are making the device their own—not just using it to learn, but to experience, reflect, and grow.

Educator Perspectives

Educators are seeing firsthand how Monarch is sparking excitement and changing students’ relationship with learning in the classroom and beyond. Its versatility and ease of use have made it a preferred tool for many students, even when other technologies are available. As one educator put it, “This is his chosen tech. He would rather use the Monarch than any other tech we have.”

That preference goes beyond functionality. Monarch is helping students rethink what learning can look like for them. By putting tactile literacy and digital flexibility into one unified experience, it empowers students to explore subjects in more dynamic, immediate ways. One teacher noted how possibility itself has become a motivating force: “The possibilities of the device are a huge factor in my student’s enthusiasm for learning.”

For students who once imagined limited futures, Monarch is shifting the horizon. One educator shared a particularly powerful reflection. “This student is hopeful that this technology will allow him to be successful in college. He has been reluctant to explore the idea of attending higher education... and he can now see that it is a possibility with the Monarch. He would be the first in his family to attend college.”

Monarch’s impact also reaches into students’ home lives. In one case, a student who had struggled with homework now works collaboratively with a parent. “Her mom has not learned Braille, and with the external monitor, she is able to help with homework. They read together now.... It has been fantastic for their relationship.”

These stories show Monarch as more than a device. It’s a catalyst for building confidence, connection, and new possibilities.

Building for the Future

While Monarch has already made a powerful impact in classrooms and beyond, it remains an evolving technology, constantly shaped by the real‑world experiences of its users. Early feedback from students, educators, and families has highlighted several key areas for refinement, and we’re moving quickly to turn suggestions into solutions.

A great example of this is the protective membrane covering the Braille cells. While the membrane has proven to be highly effective at keeping the Braille cells safe—even surviving a soda spill—many students initially dislike the feel of it. To address this, we’re collaborating with the manufacturer on a next‑generation membrane that’s thinner and more comfortable to touch without compromising on protection.

Students have shared that they want to take their Monarch with them more easily from the classroom to home, between classes, and beyond. To support that kind of portability, we’re exploring options such as carrying straps and other accessories. Such accessories can make Monarch more portable and more easily integrated into daily routines, just like any other essential learning tool.

Several educators have expressed a common wish: a simple way to create quick, on-the-fly tactile graphics for lessons that include bar graphs or pie charts, or for teaching orientation and mobility concepts. The need for fast, flexible graphic creation was anticipated early in Monarch’s development. That’s why APH has been working on Wing It, a new app designed to let users create tactile graphics on the spot, using an iPhone or iPad, and instantly send them to their Monarchs. Whether it’s drawing a quick map of a hallway or introducing the concept of bar graphs, educators will soon be able to generate dynamic graphics for a Monarch in real time.

What’s Next: Welcoming Our Fall 2025 Cohort

As the first year of MSPP draws to a close, the wealth of insights we’ve gathered is already fueling smarter hardware, richer software, and more robust support systems for Monarch. But the journey is just beginning. This fall, a new cohort of students will begin the journey with Monarch. Their real‑world experiences will be integral to refining both the device and the ecosystem around it. We look forward to partnering with these students and their educators as together we sharpen Monarch’s features, expand our support materials, and ensure that the device continues to meet the genuine needs of Braille readers in every setting.

AI and Our Blind Children: The Potential and the Pitfalls

by Jonathan Mosen

From the Editor: Jonathan Mosen serves as executive director for the Center for Accessibility Excellence of the National Federation of the Blind. Formerly host of the international podcast Living Blindfully, he now hosts the NFB’s weekly podcast Access On.

I am old enough to remember when the pocket calculator was a new and controversial piece of equipment. While some parents and educators expressed the view that students shouldn’t use calculators at all, others took a more nuanced perspective. They wisely observed that pocket calculators were here to stay. While people would always need to understand mathematical principles and know how to solve problems, banning pocket calculators would not promote problem-solving skills.

I have similar feelings about artificial intelligence (AI)—technology that is increasingly capable and transformative. When used prudently, AI can greatly assist us as blind persons. It can help us conduct research, enhance our writing, even explain visual concepts. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle. AI is here to stay.

In this article, I will cover some mainstream principles surrounding the ethical use of AI. I also will discuss some compelling uses for AI that are specific to blindness. Blind people now can use many accessible AI tools in their academic and personal lives. People are increasingly using services like Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard), and Microsoft Copilot to assist with tasks such as summarizing reading material, brainstorming ideas, generating outlines, and even producing full essays. Most of these services offer a free, basic version with limited functionality. You may want to subscribe to at least one of these services to unleash its full functionality and harness AI’s full potential. Premium access typically starts at around twenty dollars per month.

Gemini, ChatGPT and other AI services now offer “deep research” features. These features allow users to explore complex topics by collating multiple sources, offering layered perspectives on a single subject. If used correctly, this feature can be a gold mine for blind students conducting research for school projects, significantly reducing the need to navigate inaccessible websites.

Gemini has an exciting new audio summary feature that turns documents into podcast-style audio discussions. Blind learners who process information more effectively through audio, or those who feel text-to-speech is monotonous, may find this new way of engaging with content to be empowering. It allows students to absorb information in a conversational and engaging format, helping them retain and understand the material.

A free service from Google, NotebookLM, offers similar audio functionality. It allows a student to upload a large number of documents and have a podcast-style summary produced. For example, I uploaded every Presidential Report delivered by the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, Mark Riccobono, and the service produced a thought-provoking discussion about the Federation’s work.

However, AI has a downside that justifiably causes some parents to be wary. While these tools are powerful, they must be used wisely. Increasingly, schools are adopting tools that detect when students use AI to generate significant portions of assignments or even full essays. AI detectors such as GPTZero and Turnitin’s AI detection module are designed to spot work that lacks students’ unique voices or work that exhibits telltale signs of AI-generated writing. If students submit AI-written papers, they are likely to incur academic penalties. Students who use AI tools as academic shortcuts are unable to develop valuable skills that would undoubtedly benefit them professionally, beyond school.

Blind students face an additional risk. Because AI tools are often more accessible than other academic resources such as websites, blind students may be strongly tempted to use them exclusively. Here parental guidance can play a critical role. Parents should discourage students from using AI to replace critical reading, independent research, and expressive writing skills. These are not just academic abilities; they are life skills that blind people must develop in order to live the lives they want.

Experts agree that the best approach to using AI in education is guided, transparent, and supplemental. They suggest that parents encourage children to use AI as a brainstorming partner, not a ghostwriter. Here are a few suggestions:

Beyond academics, AI is facilitating the roll-out of a new generation of accessibility tools with the potential to add immense value to blind people’s lives. Services such as Be My AI (from Be My Eyes) and Aira’s Access AI use Large Language Models (LLMs) to describe photos and visual scenes. These tools allow blind users to explore their environment independently, read printed materials, and understand visual content without needing to connect with a live agent.

JAWS PictureSmart, another AI-powered feature, enables users to get descriptions of images from within the JAWS screen reader. Graphs in textbooks, family photos, memes posted by classmates, and descriptions of people taking part in online meetings are all accessible because of artificial intelligence. These and similar tools can help blind children participate more fully in both academic and social contexts.

ChatGPT’s voice mode with video features also opens new possibilities. Blind students no longer have to wait for software to process pictures. Now, blind learners can hold math worksheets or science diagrams in front of the screen and ask the AI to describe them. The combination of conversational interaction and real-time visual analysis can transform the way blind children engage with visual learning. These innovations make tasks easier and promote curiosity. They allow blind children to ask, “What does this look like” and to explore the world more independently and confidently. As parents and educators, we should nurture students’ curiosity, help them learn how to ask good questions, and teach them to evaluate the answers they receive.

You can further appreciate the elements of the world that drive your child’s curiosity by allowing them to use AI tools alongside you. This strategy creates opportunities for discussion, learning, and bonding.
As AI becomes more embedded in our lives, digital literacy must include developing an understanding of how these tools work, their limitations, and their ethical implications. It’s crucial for blind children to grow up using AI and think about it critically.

It is a priority of the National Federation of the Blind Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility (CENA) to equip blind people with the knowledge they need to use AI tools effectively. Recently we presented a webinar that focused on prompt engineering—the art of crafting effective instructions for AI tools. You can find a summary of that discussion on our Access On podcast. We encourage families and educators to explore this resource and incorporate the insights into their learning routines.

Prompt engineering is especially powerful for blind users. Knowing how to ask the right questions can help students tailor AI’s output to meet their specific needs, whether they want summaries of news articles, visual descriptions of paintings, or help rewording tricky sentences in essays.

Ultimately, the goal is to raise children who are competent, thoughtful, ethical users of AI. AI is a remarkable tool, but it must not prevent children from developing their own voices, their own ways of understanding the world, and their own methods of communication.

For blind children in particular, AI has the power to level the playing field and to open doors that were previously shut or hard to access. It can help students learn faster, explore more freely, and participate more fully in school and in life. Like the calculator, AI can be a valuable tool, depending on how people choose to use it.

By guiding your child in responsible AI use, you’re helping them build a future in which they can think critically, act ethically, and communicate powerfully. In the end, that is what education is all about.

Today’s Artificial Intelligence: Our Future for Reading and Writing STEM?

by Al Maneki

From the Editor: Al Maneki is a mathematician who worked for thirty-three years with the US Department of Defense. Since his retirement in 2007 he has dedicated his time and energy to making math more fully accessible for blind students and professionals. In this article he shares his enthusiasm for the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to make written math more accessible than ever before.

Author’s Note: The author acknowledges the valuable contributions of David Austin, Rob Beezer, Michael Cantino, David Farmer, Karen Herstein, Alexei Kolesnikov, Martha Siegel, and Volker Sorge to this article. They have read several drafts, including the final version, and they have offered many valuable comments and suggestions for improvements. As always, the author assumes all responsibility for errors and oversights.

Introduction

Much bandwidth has been allotted in the public media lately to the growing uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on our daily lives. We have heard from the boosters who claim that AI will dramatically reduce the drudgery of human existence by eliminating the most boring tasks. We have also heard from the naysayers, who warn that this development is potentially harmful and tell us, “Let’s not go there.” They worry that AI will eliminate so many jobs, even those requiring intellectual abilities, that our livelihoods will go to ruin, leaving us with little purpose in life. These pessimists maintain that the job growth stimulated by AI will not be sufficient to compensate for the job losses it creates. On all of these predictions the jury is still out.

Along with the benefits that AI has already produced, we have seen some of its abuses. For example, we have seen the production of videos, for nefarious purposes, showing perfect replicas of prominent persons espousing points of view that are contrary to their value systems.

AI has been around for many years. I took a course in AI more than thirty years ago. The textbook for this course was Artificial Intelligence by Patrick Henry Winston, now available as a free PDF download from https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.034f/ai3/rest.pdf. The AI of today is much more robust than the AI of thirty years ago. Computing hardware today is cheaper, faster, and smaller. Advances in AI’s computing hardware are a prime example of Moore’s Law, which futurist Ray Kurzweil has discussed with us in any number of speeches before our annual NFB conventions. Moore’s Law states that “the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years with minimal rise in cost.”

Since I studied from Winston’s book, AI has benefited from further advances in machine learning. For example, Alexei Kolesnikov, one of the collaborators on automated Nemeth Code translation for Braille mathematics, used Google’s NotebookLM to produce a podcast based on an earlier draft of this article. It is available at https://wp.towson.edu/akolesni/files/2024/10/Podcast-about-Al.wav, using only the draft’s Word file and no input from humans. Advances in AI have also been stimulated by spectacular advances in neural networks, or models inspired by the structure and function of biological neural networks in animal brains. According to the popular science writer David Berlinski in his book The Advent of the Algorithm (Library of Congress Braille edition, BR 13263), the concept of the algorithm, an essential component of AI, has its humble beginnings in the ancient Greek writings of Aristotle.

In the remainder of this article, I will use the terms “AI,” “AI algorithm,” and “AI device” interchangeably. I also want to familiarize readers of NFB publications with some of AI’s terminology and how AI works generally. Then, based on my limited experiences with AI, I present my views on AI’s possible impact on how we, as blind people, can benefit from it in the areas of learning and doing STEM.

A Bit of Background

Although the term “AI” has only recently appeared in the public discourse, the NFB has been involved in AI research long before this term came into vogue. In 1975 I attended my first national convention in Chicago. During one of the general sessions, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan introduced us to Ray Kurzweil, who talked about his remarkable reading machine. Dr. Jernigan opined that Kurzweil’s machine would expand the availability of reading materials for us. The first Kurzweil reader was a floor model console, too heavy to be moved by one person. Unfortunately, Dr. Jernigan did not live long enough to see the day when the KNFB Reader, much more powerful than the first Kurzweil reading machine, was tiny enough to be loaded as an app onto our smartphones.

In more recent history, the NFB sponsored the Blind Driver Challenge, the initiative to develop a vehicle that a blind driver could operate independently. In 2009 Mark Riccobono independently drove a prototype through an obstacle course on the Daytona International Speedway. This test vehicle was developed by an engineering team from Virginia Tech University. It should be noted here that obstacles on the course were laid down after Mark began to drive the vehicle. These two examples now fit neatly into a branch of AI known as machine vision.

It is easy to imagine other ways in which machine vision can help blind people. For example, if we are in an unfamiliar building, an AI could, using a floor map, direct us to a specific location. If we must get to a certain floor in that building, the AI could direct us to the elevators, or even direct our hands to the key panel to call for that elevator. Applications of machine vision to serve as visual aids may already be under development. However, this is not the area of AI I want to discuss.

Let us remind ourselves again that many technologies have previously been oversold to us. AI will be no different. Regardless of the technology, there will always be tasks and functions we can perform most efficiently with our time-tested alternative techniques. As technology changes, however, we may have to adapt some of these techniques to work with new devices and new modes of thinking. While it is difficult to see exactly what impact AI will have on our lives, we should always examine the offerings of AI carefully. We should not hesitate to call out its flimflams when the promoters claim that what they have to offer is the next wonder drug or the greatest invention since sliced bread. At the same time, we must also recognize the benefits of AI when truly innovative ideas are brought before us for consideration. As in the past, we, the organized blind, will work closely with the innovators and inventors who best understand our needs.

AI and STEM

STEM activities may be broken down into two parts: learning it by reading textbooks, lecture notes, and research papers; and disseminating our work in Braille or print. In this article, I will pay special attention to the uses of AI for the translation of spoken mathematics into Nemeth Braille. There will be an obvious spillover into other STEM subjects because math is virtually involved in every aspect of STEM.

With funding from the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults (AAF), the work I have been conducting with my academic colleagues has been involved in the automated translation of PreTeXt-specified math into Nemeth Braille or synthetic speech. An additional grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) has allowed us to make improvements in the automated process of translating graphics from print to tactile form.

Moving in the reverse direction, given a document in Nemeth Braille, we may wish to have it produced in a printed format, enabling us to communicate our ideas and results with sighted readers. To date, no research has been done in this direction of information flow. This is where I think AI comes into the picture. More on this later. There is also the challenge of converting a verbal description of a mathematical diagram into embossed or printed formats. This poses an even greater challenge, but if you believe the pronouncements of AI’s most enthusiastic advocates, all things are possible with AI.

The two essential components of AI are the algorithm, a mechanical procedure for arriving at the most probable conclusions or deductions based on a given set of data, and the computing hardware that is necessary to make the calculations required by the AI’s algorithms. In order to arrive at correct conclusions, i.e., the actions taken by human subjects given that set of data, the best algorithms require enormous quantities of data/response pairs that have been accumulated. We may think that it is an easy task to recognize the voice of a specific individual or to identify the face of a particular person in a huge crowd.

However, our brains perform an enormous quantity of work to make these correct judgments. To duplicate these human mental tasks electronically calls for an enormous amount of computer power. Today, our best computers can barely approach human mental capacity. However, with the development of modern microchips, i.e., the integrated circuits that are packed into minute pieces of silicon, we are better able to process these massive quantities of data/response pairs. We may think of these integrated circuits as direct translations of lines of computer code specified by the AI algorithms. Thus, the millions of calculations required by these algorithms can be computed in microseconds.

But What Can It Do for Us?

When I think of what AI could do for us in STEM, I think of my experiences using human readers. My entire math career has involved the use of readers in one way or another. I’ve had many readers over the years, some better than others. The best readers were with me for longer periods of time. Without uttering every symbol (comma, dot, left parenthesis, left bracket, etc.), the transmission from written to spoken math or vice versa can be extremely time-consuming and thoroughly boring. Given time and experience, however, the rapport that developed between me and my reader usually enabled us to dispense with all of this mathematical verbiage and communicate the exact context entirely from spoken intonations. For the most part, we tend to speak quite consistently in terms of pauses and inflections of voice. The direction of speaking went both ways. When a textbook or research article was being read, I was the listener. When I was dictating a homework assignment, course or seminar lecture, or a research paper, my reader was the listener. Regardless of who was speaking, AI deduced the exact mathematical context from the consistent manner in which the pauses and inflections were employed.

As an example of inexact verbiage, the phrase “a slash b plus c” could be interpreted either as a/(b+c) or (a/b)+c. With experience, I could understand which was meant, depending on how my reader read it. Similarly, my reader could understand the phrase, depending on how I said it. There are numerous examples of this type of ambiguity in spoken math. With enough samples of how an individual speaks math compared with the correct written expressions of those spoken samples, an AI algorithm could “learn” how to interpret an individual’s spoken math.

In some cases, a spoken expression bears absolutely no resemblance to what is written. The instance that immediately comes to my mind is that of the binomial coefficient, a staple in many required undergraduate courses. The binomial coefficient is represented by a column of two positive integer variables, n and k, with k less than n, in which n is written above k with elongated parentheses surrounding the column formed by these two variables. Here, the binomial coefficient is defined as n!/((n-k)! k!), where n! represents the product of integers from 1 to n, (n-k)! represents the product of integers from 1 to n-k, and k! represents the product of integers from 1 to k. When we refer to the binomial coefficient of n and k in speech, we could say “the binomial coefficient of n and k” or “n choose k” or “n C k.” (The use of the word “choose” here refers to the fact that there are exactly “n choose k” ways in which a subset of k objects can be chosen from a set of n objects.) The AI algorithm should contain instructions to recognize either of these three spoken forms as the column of n and k described above.

Word processors and software editors are equipped with compilers that enable them to recognize spelling and syntax errors. When a compiler detects such an error, it offers the user a range of choices. It also enables the user to instruct the compiler to ignore the error in this case. In a similar vein, a UEB (Unified English Braille) or Nemeth code compiler could be developed and installed on refreshable Braille displays to aid users with suggestions for correct code usage.

AI software is not needed if we only want a tool that aids the user in typing correct UEB/Nemeth code. In this case the UEB/Nemeth compiler is sufficient. However, AI will come into the picture if we are ever to produce UEB/Nemeth code on our Braille displays directly from speech. In this case, a UEB/Nemeth compiler is an absolute prerequisite if an AI algorithm is to be written for UEB/Nemeth code from human speech. If the produced Braille code is not consistent with what the speaker wants, the compiler will be the means through which the user communicates the corrected code. A UEB/Nemeth compiler could serve as the conduit through which an AI algorithm “learns” the correct AI interpretation of spoken text.

The typical math document that I, or anyone else, dictates to an AI will consist of a mixture of UEB and Nemeth output. It would be most desirable if the AI were smart enough to know when UEB was to be used and when Nemeth Braille was to be used. Short of this capability, we should have a switch on our Braille displays to set the AI in UEB mode or in Nemeth mode, depending on which is needed.

Just as a word processor still requires the user to have a knowledge of the rules of English grammar, an AI algorithm would still require its users to have a command of UEB and the Nemeth code. Without this knowledge a user is totally dependent on what the AI recommends, a most unsatisfactory situation!

When I was doing mathematics in graduate school and at my job, in the interest of saving time, I developed my own shorthand Nemeth, ignoring the rules for exact usage according to context. After all, I knew what I was writing about, so the context was always clear to me. Then I would dictate a math document to my human reader, who would transform my spoken material into perfect printed notation. It seems to me that the ideal Nemeth AI algorithm would work in the same way. As I read from my Braille notes, the algorithm would translate my speech into perfect Nemeth Braille code. Since the rules of UEB and Nemeth Braille are precise, and since the printed math notations are precise as well, AI should not be required to translate from Braille to print, or vice versa. As far as I know, we still do not have software for reverse Braille to print translation.

If you have taken a number of math courses, you probably have endured the professor who has lectured by speaking and writing minimally. He would often say something, then point to this or that item on his blackboard, and simultaneously say something such as, “from this" (pointing) “and that” (pointing), “we conclude that …”, or he would write a conclusion that seemed to have no resemblance to what he had previously written or said. Oftentimes such antics would leave even the sighted members of the class befuddled. An AI, possibly installed on our smartphones, could combine spoken and blackboard materials into a more comprehensible form that would benefit everyone.

Taking Exams

Think of the ways in which a math AI could assist us in test taking. Suppose there wasn’t sufficient time to produce a test in Braille, large print, or spoken form. University accessibility support services hesitate to let blind students use their own readers, but the readers they provide don’t always know how to read math content. How much simpler would it be for us and for the DSS offices if there were a math AI to read test questions to us and take dictation of our answers?

Perchance to Dream …

The problem with reading math or building OCR software for math is that math is not consistently read in a linear fashion. There are times when, within a line, you must read vertically (think of subscripts and superscripts, limits of integration, or binomial coefficients). In our work on automated Nemeth translation, we have evaded this problem by extending the PreTeXt authoring language to specify items for Nemeth translation and UEB. It may be possible to build a neural network capable of parsing a page of printed math and reconstructing it for tactile or spoken formats.

Even if the math AI that I have suggested were to be built, I hope that such an AI would never dispense with our need for human readers. The value of personal contact and working relations should never be discounted. The reason I was so successful in getting classmates to read was that our work afforded us time to study together, learn by asking questions of each other, and sharing what we had learned. The use of readers gave me experiences that have carried over into my daily and professional activities. I developed the confidence to sell myself to potential readers by explaining how beneficial our work would be for both of us. I learned how to schedule my study time efficiently, how to adjust to the schedules of others, and how to plan the work I needed my readers to do within a limited amount of time.

Given the state of AI algorithms and hardware today, the AI that I have described for translation from human speech to Braille or print is achievable. However, it is unreasonable to expect commercial adaptive technology vendors to undertake the massive research and development efforts that are needed to put this kind of AI application together. The number of Nemeth readers is just a small fraction of UEB readers. What is needed here is a massive collaborative effort between the organized blind movement, the universities, the science and math organizations, and the adaptive technology developers. Before we can begin this collaborative effort, we, the organized blind, must have a clear and unified understanding of the AI products that we want. This article is just the first step in coming to this understanding. Others will have different ideas that need to be considered. Once we know exactly what we want, we will be in a strong position to promote our ideas, recruit the talent that is needed, and secure the necessary funding. This effort will require much more than the generous funding that the American Action Fund has previously given us. Obviously, the talent we have gathered around us for automated Nemeth translation will not be sufficient. Professionals with other skill sets will have to be recruited. However, we are off to a strong start with the team we currently have in place. We have established strong working relationships with the academic and governmental sectors. We need to extend these relationships.

I don’t have the foresight possessed by futurists on the order of Ray Kurzweil. But I remain convinced that, given the language recognition possessed by today’s smartphones and smart speakers, what we want is well within the realm of possibility. I’m not suggesting that my ideas for the future of AI in STEM are entirely correct, but I hope that this article will stimulate others to think about what AI could do for us and bring their ideas to the table. Perhaps the brighter souls among us could even take part in writing the code for some of these AI applications.

After sixty years of learning and doing math and watching all of the technological developments that have taken place, I find myself on the side of the boosters, at least in the area of AI applications to help us with STEM. The broad goals we set now may only be accomplished incrementally, but let us never lose sight of what we are after. Let the future of AI for us begin, now!

For comments and questions, please email me: [email protected].

How Artificial Intelligence Can Improve Education for Blind Students

by Justin Salisbury

From the Editor: Justin Salisbury is a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. He has taught cane travel, Braille, home management, and classes on NFB philosophy at residential and nonresidential training centers for the blind. He works to bring the knowledge of the National Federation of the Blind into research, policy, and university training spaces.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often perceived as a threat to the integrity of education, but it also can be our friend in educational settings. In this piece I hope to show that AI can be used positively to generate ideas and do a lot of our cumbersome searching and sifting.

When teachers need ideas, we sometimes talk to classmates and colleagues throughout our networks. These exchanges extend our team and enrich the soil where we can grow and harvest ideas. AI can expand our networks to include many more people than we, as individuals, could ever get to know. We cannot search through millions of books and articles, but AI can do so in seconds. AI can draw ideas from countless sources. I do not claim that AI is the same as human creativity, but it can help us gather information and ideas for our creative endeavors.

I cannot claim that I alone generated all of the ideas I include in this article. Some of them came from fellow teachers I met as classmates, instructors, and alumni from Louisiana Tech University, where I earned my teaching credentials for the blindness field. Louisiana Tech gave me a strong foundation in the ways of thinking that led me to write this article.

Being a teacher can be challenging. We are often spread thin, with many things going on at once. Some of us are better than others at handling our workload. I am often in awe when I see that some teachers can juggle a lot more than I can and still manage to stay focused. Yet I know I can be a good teacher, even though I cannot juggle my entire workload as well as some others can. We all have different things on our plates, and sometimes a teacher can benefit from a little help. Seeking help is not cheating or cutting corners. It is simply a matter of using technology to help us become more productive.

I believe that AI can be used to enhance instruction in many subject areas, but I will focus on Braille instruction first. When students are learning to read, it is essential that they feel joy when they are reading. AI can help us generate stories that our students can read about topics that bring them joy. We ask AI to tell us a story about a certain topic and set a word length. We can also tell AI the reading level we want for the story.

Making sure to match the story to the student’s reading level can be very helpful. We can tell AI, “Give me a story about women’s professional basketball. Make it about three hundred words long and at a fifth-grade reading level.”

Perhaps our student does not know the entire Braille code yet. We can look through the text of the story that AI generated and check for contractions that the student doesn’t know. Then we can tell the AI system to revise the story so that it no longer includes the unfamiliar contractions. We also could go the other way; if there is a symbol that the student is about to learn, we may want to create a story that uses that symbol many times. Some teachers are creative and artistic enough to make up such stories themselves on the spot. For the rest of us who are not Walt Disney, AI can be a great tool to expand the possibilities of what we can do when we teach.

In home economics or home management classes, we could use AI to help us create ideas for meal preparation, based on dietary restrictions or limited ingredients. We could ask AI to tell us what dishes we could make with the ingredients we have on our shelves. There is still a human process involved in verifying whether we have the right amounts of each ingredient and whether the ingredients are in good condition. There is still an opportunity to choose which dishes we want to prepare. That choice can be informed by any number of wants, needs, or outside conditions. If we just had pizza yesterday, we may not want it again today, even if AI points out that it is an option. If we want to prepare a meal for a group of people, and we gather a list of everyone’s dietary restrictions, we could use AI to help us generate ideas for a meal that does not violate anyone’s allergies or ethical and religious requirements.

AI can also enhance instruction in access technology. Consider a student who is simultaneously working on their skills for editing Word documents and learning about résumé preparation. We could ask AI to generate a document with errors for the student to find. For example: we might tell AI, “Create me a résumé in a Word document that contains X, Y, and Z errors.” Have the student find those errors. It is even better when you ask AI to create errors that spell check won’t find. For example, you can ask AI to include words such as choose that you can change to chose to create an editing error. Make the résumé specific to the career field that the student plans to enter.

For a class or discussion on NFB philosophy, consider telling AI to generate a motivational speech for a blind person to deliver. You could narrow your request to a subset of blind people, such as blind students of the same age as your students. Listen to or read the speech together and pick apart the ideas that AI expressed. Why did it think we would need to hear Point A or Point B? Is AI’s reasoning actually inspirational?

The President of the National Federation of the Blind, Mark Riccobono, recently created a system called Mark AI. Mark AI allows people to engage with an AI system to learn about the stories and collective lived experience of the organized blind. It may be able to share stories about specific types of situations that blind people have shared, and these could become great conversation starters. If a blind student wants to be an electrician, maybe we could have the student ask Mark AI for stories of blind people who have become electricians, including the challenges that they have faced and the strategies that have helped them succeed. I do not know whether Mark AI is there yet, but the concept is certainly realistic for AI in the near future.

We can and should teach students to use AI as well. When students need to learn to advocate for themselves, they could use AI to generate arguments for or against their position. Interacting with AI could help them practice and prepare for an important self-advocacy negotiation. For example, we could give AI the following prompts:

I relate to the common fears about the changes AI can bring to our society. I think many of those fears are legitimate. AI may displace workers from their jobs, and it can be misused by students who want a shortcut to complete assignments. But since AI is here, I am doing my best to learn how to approach it, to see how we can make it work for us. In the National Federation of the Blind, we are doing our best to ensure that AI is working for us. We can use AI to process the kinds of information that it can handle, and then we can focus on bringing our humanity and our understanding of blindness to do the rest.

We still need humans to deliver the holistic educational services that empower blind students, but we can delegate certain tasks to AI. Teachers, students, friends, and families all can benefit from AI, and AI can help make instruction for blind students even better.

IEPs In the Twenty-First Century: How to Get the Technology Your Child Needs

by Sanho Steele-Louchart and Ather Jammoa

From the Editor: Sanho Steele-Louchart is a Legal Program Coordinator at the National Federation of the Blind. Ather Jammoa is an assistive technology trainer and a graduate of the NFB’s IEP Advocacy Academy. He contracts with the Departments of Education and vocational rehabilitation agencies to teach blind students of all ages.

Today a well-written and enforceable Individualized Education Program (IEP) is more important than ever before. As accountability for school districts diminishes, the success of blind children depends upon specialized instruction, materials, and technologies that are advancing every day. Regrettably, practical constraints often combine with attitudinal barriers, resulting in districts that are content to give blind students tools that are decades behind those of their sighted peers—and sometimes no tools at all.

The National Federation of the Blind hears regularly from families of blind children that their local school districts fail to provide accessible technology or the services required to ensure that a student can use that technology effectively. Section 300.105(a) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEIA) states: “Each public agency must ensure that assistive technology devices or assistive technology services, or both . . . are made available to a child with a disability if required as a part of the child’s (1) Special education plan . . . (2) Related services . . . or (3) Supplementary aids and services.” The Act also states, “the use of school-purchased assistive technology devices in a child’s home or in other settings is required if the child’s IEP team determines that the child needs access to those devices in order to receive [a free and appropriate public education] FAPE.” This means that a district may not implement a practice, policy, or procedure barring blind students from learning and using accessible technology at home and in the classroom as needed. Parents of blind public-school students cannot be forced to pay for their blind children’s accessible technology, hire teachers to train them on that technology, or to leave it at school if the child needs to use it at home.

Section 300.5 of IDEA defines assistive technology as “any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.” Importantly, this means that anything from a cane or tactile graph paper to a laptop or Braille notetaker falls neatly within the definition of assistive technology. School districts may not withhold these materials or the training to use these materials from the students who need them.

Ather Jammoa with a cohort from the 2024 IEP workshop at the NFB Jernigan Institute.

The other complaint we receive most often from parents is that the district will not or cannot teach their child to read and write Braille. Here again, the Act mandates: “The IEP Team must ... in the case of a child who is blind or visually impaired, provide for instruction in Braille and the use of Braille unless the IEP team determines, after an evaluation of the child’s reading and writing skills, needs, and appropriate reading and writing media (including an evaluation of the child’s future needs for instruction in Braille or the use of Braille), that instruction in Braille or the use of Braille is not appropriate for the child.” We argue successfully that this is an extremely high bar to clear. It is the rare district indeed that is willing to commit in writing that a blind student will never need Braille in the future, regardless of how much residual sight that student has currently. It is also the case that the advent of Braille displays, Braille notetakers, and Braille screen input have made Braille more ubiquitous than ever. Far from obsolete, Braille input and output are now go-to methods for using everything from cell phones to e-readers.

It’s one thing to recite the law. It’s another thing entirely to get the school district to follow it. We appreciate that age- and stage-appropriate Braille, technology, and orientation and mobility skills are usually the most contentious issues at a child’s IEP meeting. Unless the family intends to move, they will be working with that district for years to come. This is why, no matter how well versed in the law someone is, we recommend bringing an advocate or ally to a difficult IEP meeting whenever possible. This person is best situated to read the room, remain calm, and remind everyone of their legal obligations while remembering to center discussion around the child.

When we examine a proposed IEP, we ask several key questions.

A district will sometimes claim that, because their teacher of the visually impaired (“TVI”) doesn’t know how to teach Braille or access technology, the district doesn’t have to provide instruction in these areas. This argument is incorrect. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 both contain clear requirements that someone with a disability has the right to receive government communications in an accessible format, while the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 stipulate that the school district must provide the services for a student to access that effective communication. Areas without teachers of blind students aren’t exempt. Instead, such districts are expected to contract out, in-person or online, to ensure that blind students have the instruction they need. The availability of remote instruction in 2025 means that no student should go without.

Once evaluations are done, present levels established, and services promised, the IEP team must create goals and benchmarks that are legally binding. These goals must be relevant, measurable, and valid. A new teacher must be able to read the IEP, know which goals the child is working toward, know when the child has reached each goal, and recognize the conditions under which they should be able to do it again. The structure of a goal should read in this way: “Student will do A in B out of C trials with D or fewer E as measured by F.” Once age- and stage-appropriate goals and benchmarks are created, the team must assign sufficient monthly service minutes to meet those goals. Students who have been denied appropriate services may receive compensatory education (“comp ed”) before, during, or after the school day to help make up for lost time. Students needing additional services beyond the typical school year may benefit from an extended school year (ESY).

Finally, we know that many instructors and administrators sincerely don’t know where to start. Professionals seeking Braille fluency may contact Louisiana Tech University to inquire about Braille classes specifically for practicing teachers and paraprofessionals. Instructors wondering which technology skills students of different age ranges will need can review lists maintained by the NFB’s Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility, the Perkins School for the Blind, and other organizations. Anyone wondering how to teach those technologies may contact the device manufacturers directly, download user manuals, and watch training videos online.

For more information, teachers and school administrators may contact Karen Anderson, Education Program Coordinator, at [email protected]. Families seeking advocacy assistance may contact Sanho Steele-Louchart, Legal Program Coordinator, at [email protected] or Ather Jammoa at [email protected].

Accessibility In Gaming for the Deafblind

by Daniel Hawkins

Reprinted with Permission from AccessWorld, Winter 2024

You may be familiar with the game Forza Motorsports, which received the award for Innovation in Accessibility at the 2023 Gaming Awards. Hearing about the release of a video game made accessible for blind players was very exciting to me. However, I found out I was unable to play it due to the combination of my blindness and hearing loss. In searching the web for any information on accessible games for those who are deafblind, I was not able to find anything. There are many games accessible for people who are deaf or people who are blind, but not for those who are both deaf and blind.

Maybe that seems to make sense at first. You might think that switching between visual cues and audio cues is all it takes to make a game accessible to either party. So what would a game for the deafblind even look like?

Let’s dive into what deafblindness is, and what is required to make games accessible. Then let us investigate suggestions and examples of accessible video games.

What Is Deafblindness?

Deafblindness is a disability with dual sensory loss. Both vision and hearing loss affect how a person interacts with their surroundings. Many people believe that you can take the skills and resources of blind individuals and deaf individuals and combine them, and you get deafblindness. Yes, but no. Deafblindness is much more than that.

There are many skills and resources that a deafblind individual can utilize from both the blind community and the deaf community. Often, however, changes are needed to better accommodate the deafblind. For example, think about a phone call. A blind person can hear the person on the phone just fine. A deaf person can use text or a TTY, or they can sign over a video call. A deafblind person cannot hear a voice call and cannot read print to text; they must use Braille and Braille only.

But hearing and vision are also spectrums. To understand how to create a fully accessible experience, we must know the different types of deafblindness and what features and adjustments deafblind people may benefit from.

Total Vision Loss with Some Hearing Loss

As the writer of this article, I am in this particular category. I have total vision loss with profound hearing loss. This means as a player I will not be able to see the game, but I can hear some of it. I only have one good ear that uses a hearing aid. Individuals with this vision and hearing loss combination may use most resources and skills utilized by the blind.

An example of accessible technology is using a screen reader where the voices can be adjusted for speech rate, pitch change, and volume. With limited hearing, some users may still hear sounds, but special sounds in a game such as sound effects, background music, spatial sounds, etc., will not be helpful. If the game is utilizing text to speech to convey useful information, background music or decorative sounds may interfere with gameplay. Braille display support will also be helpful in gameplay, but may also slow down reading text, which means games that have a timer or require quick responses will not be accessible.

Helpful Design Suggestions

Total Hearing Loss with Low Vision

Individuals with total hearing loss and low vision may see some of the game but will not hear it. Games that rely on sound for gameplay will not be accessible. If the game does not have good color contrast or large print, or if it has quick action motion, users may not be able to play. Low-vision users may need the ability to have all text displayed in large print with high color contrast.

Helpful Design Suggestions

Total Hearing and Vision Loss

Individuals with both total hearing and vision loss, as might seem evident, cannot see or hear. They may rely on American Sign Language in tactile format, or when interacting with technology, they may use Braille displays. If there is no screen reader support that also supports Braille displays, there is no way for the totally deafblind individual to interact with a video game. Games that rely on sound will not be useful due to the user’s hearing loss. Games that require quick turnaround and fast action may not be feasible, due to the slower reading speed of many Braille readers.

Helpful Design Suggestions

Accessible Game Ideas for the DeafBlind

It can be overwhelming to come up with a fully accessible video game that can be played by everyone. Granted, not all video games will ever be fully accessible, due to specific concepts or the nature and sheer variety of games. However, there are many out there right now that can be made accessible with some thought and feature fixes. Below are a few video game examples that can be made accessible.

Checkers or Chess

Checkers or Chess is a great example of a turn-based video game that can be made accessible and enjoyed by everyone. Since this is a turn-based game, it gives each player time and control to read what is on the board, decide what to do, and then make a move. To make it accessible for deafblind players, all aspects of the game must be fully accessible with a screen reader that is also translated to Braille. Since both Checkers and Chess are laid out in a grid-like pattern, a screen reader can navigate a grid very easily. If there are labels for rows and columns calling out moves, any player will know which position is which. A deafblind player also can have a physical board next to them so they can feel physically the position of each game piece. There should be status messages that announce when a player moves a piece and the outcome of said move. With these accessibility considerations in mind, the deafblind can easily play Checkers or Chess online.

Turn-based Games

Any turn-based game that can output to a Braille display has the possibility of being fully accessible. This requires that other aspects of the game aren’t inaccessible; for example, most traditional role-playing games have turn-based combat, but also require that the player navigate the game world in real time, where audio cues would most likely be necessary for full access. Even with this taken into account, many turn-based games are candidates for accessibility. Most traditional games would be accessible if Braille support were included. This could be anything from traditional card games to board games such as chess and Monopoly.

Considering that the player must read all game information in Braille, games that limit a player’s turn based on time may make games less accessible. For example, the game Hearthstone, discussed in past issues of AccessWorld for its accessibility for those who are blind or have low vision, would be accessible in regard to game output, but may be difficult for some due to the limited time available to take turns.

Racing Games

Racing games can be difficult for a deafblind person to play, and tricky to make accessible. It is a good example of how substituting visual and auditory cues can make something accessible for the blind or for the deaf. For this situation to be made accessible for deafblind users, information must be conveyed in another format. Messages can be displayed on Braille displays, but haptic feedback can be used for different vibrations on the left or right side of a controller, for example. Since this is not a turn-based game, it relies on hand-to-eye coordination. In this case, it would be physical feedback-to-hand coordination for deafblind users.

Text-based Games

Before video games came to be as we know them, basic computers would have text-based games. In these games, all game information was provided through text, and the player would type commands to interact with the game environment. There are (modern) text-based games today, and they can easily be made fully accessible for everyone. Make sure proper systematic structure and headings are in place, that proper focus order is followed, and everything appears to a screen reader and Braille display, and the game should be fully accessible in the majority of cases. In this case, no timing or quick action is required. No accessibility features need to be created, since those standards already exist and are commonplace.

Conclusion

With these considerations in mind, we can start thinking of more all-inclusive video games that everyone can play. Granted, there may be some limitations on how the game is played, creativity might be needed to make accessible adjustments. The tradeoff is that everyone can play! Something made more accessible to some makes it more usable to all, regardless of whether they have vision or hearing loss.

Feel free to reach out to your local deafblind community and meet individuals who have various degrees of vision and hearing loss. Learn how they interact with video games!

Video Gaming Accessibility: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled

From the Editor: This article is taken from a page on the website of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), https://www.loc.gov/nls/services-and-resources/informational-publications/video-gaming-accessibility/. The site also lists videos and articles that pertain to blind gaming and gamers.

Playing video games can boost creativity, improve problem-solving skills, and cultivate teamwork. People with disabilities, however, have limited opportunities to enjoy video games: those with visual challenges may not be able to participate in games that are rich in graphics, and those with mobility challenges may not be able to use a standard game controller.

Still, many resources are available for gamers with disabilities. Individuals and organizations have taken up the challenge of adapting or modifying controllers for people with disabilities. Computer programmers have developed audio games (or audio adaptations of games) that can be played by people who are blind or visually impaired. In addition, there are video game experts who publish accessibility reviews of new games.
Listed here are some of those resources. This list is not comprehensive. Articles in the bibliography are available through the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled Information Services Section. Please email [email protected] for more information.

Resources

Ability Powered

Features product reviews, articles, videos, and links to other resources for people with an interest in accessible gaming. Posts accessibility reviews of games before they are released to the public. www.abilitypowered.com

AbleGamers

Modifies and adapts controllers for gamers with disabilities and raises awareness of the importance of accessibility within the gaming community. Publishes articles on trends in accessible gaming and presents at gaming conferences. A nonprofit organization that does not charge for its services. www.ablegamers.org

Accessible Games

Provides standards from the AbleGamers Foundation for making games accessible to people with visual, physical, auditory, and cognitive disabilities. https://accessible.games  

AppleVis

Publishes accessibility reviews of iOS applications, including more than four hundred games, submitted by Apple users who are blind or visually impaired. www.applevis.com  

AudioGames.net

Lists games that are accessible to people with visual impairments. https://audiogames.net  

Ben Heck

Modifies Xbox controllers so they can be used with one hand. www.benheck.com/single-handed-controllers

Blind Gamers

Shares nearly forty games for people with visual disabilities, developed by a retired Australian computer programmer who’s been creating accessible games since 2004. https://blindgamers.com

BrandonCole.net

Reviews the accessibility of games for people with visual disabilities. Offers sound demonstrations of games and links to gaming resources for people with disabilities. www.brandoncole.net

The Controller Project

Modifies game controllers to fit the unique needs of people with physical disabilities. http://thecontrollerproject.com

Disabled Gamers

Offers help with controls, mechanics, or just general discussion for gamers with disabilities. www.reddit.com/r/disabledgamers

Disabled Gaming Reviews

Reviews games for their accessibility. https://disabledgame.blogspot.com

Game Accessibility

Reviews the accessibility of new video and computer games for users with specific disabilities. Informs game developers about the importance of making their games accessible. http://game-accessibility.com

Game Accessibility Guidelines

Offers examples and advice on how to structure video games for people with disabilities. Developed by gaming studios and academics. www.gameaccessibilityguidelines.com

Game Box Controllers

Adapts PlayStation and Xbox game controllers and switches for people with severe disabilities who cannot operate a standard handheld device. www.rjcooper.com

Geeky Gimp

Reviews games and game controllers for their accessibility. Published by a woman with muscular dystrophy. http://geekygimp.com/about

GMA Games

Designs and sells Windows-based computer games for people with visual disabilities. Offers some games for free. www.gmagames.com  

Help Kidz Learn

Lists games for people with mobility and learning disabilities, including games specifically for use with the EyeGaze adaptive technology. www.helpkidzlearn.com  

Ian Hamilton

Helps studios avoid excluding gamers with disabilities. Author collaborated with NLS to add and expand on resources in this publication. www.ian-hamilton.com

Illegally Sighted

Reviews video games on YouTube for people with visual impairments. Provides hardware reviews, tutorials on how to use assistive technology, and product demos. www.youtube.com/user/IllegallySighted/videos

International Game Developers Association: Game Accessibility Special Interest Group

Brings together developers with an interest in game accessibility, acts as a resource for them, and educates and collaborates with them to make more video games accessible. https://igda-gasig.org 

OneSwitch

Offers ideas on ways to use adaptive switches to make gaming consoles more accessible. www.oneswitch.org.uk  

PCS Games

Lists and reviews iOS, PC, and online games for people with visual impairments. www.pcsgames.net

7-128 Software

Reviews and rates the accessibility of games for people with visual disabilities and mobility impairments. www.7128.com

SightlessKombat

Reviews the accessibility of video games for people with visual disabilities as part of a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. www.sightlesskombat.com

Smash Clay

Audio engineer advises people who want to add audio to their games to make them accessible. http://smashclay.com

SpecialEffect

Matches players with disabilities with adaptive gaming consoles. www.specialeffect.org.uk  

Titan One

Produces software that allows users—including those with limited functions in their extremities—to convert their game controllers into fully compatible game consoles without violating the warranty of the original controller. www.consoletuner.com/products/titan-one

Warfighter Engaged

Volunteer-operated organization modifies devices, including video game controllers, to meet the specific needs of military service members with disabilities. www.warfighterengaged.org

Connecting Dots: A Blind Life

by Joshua A. Miele with Wendell Jamieson
Reviewed by Deborah Kendrick

From the Editor: Deborah Kendrick is a nationally recognized columnist, and the author of several books related to blindness and disability. Her most recent title is When Your Ears Can’t Help You See, published by National Braille Press.

Connecting Dots: A Blind Life
by Joshua A. Miele with Wendell Jamieson
Grand Central Publishing/Hachette
304 pages
ISBN: 978-0306832789
Available from Bookshare and from National Library Service as DB127356

It borders on schmaltz to put this into writing, but this book is a glorious opportunity to celebrate one of our own. Joshua Miele is the genuine article, the real deal, a blind person’s blind person. He’s not just okay with being blind; he’s proud of it! His life’s mission is to share his every notion for making the blind life better with every blind person who will listen. If you are blind or if you have a blind child, your experiences will not be the same as Joshua Miele’s. Yet this MacArthur genius is so comfortable in his own skin that chord after chord will ring true as you turn the pages. He is one of us; we are all connected.

An outsider might comment that to say Miele is “comfortable in his own skin” is the irony of ironies. His skin is far from ordinary. In the book’s opening pages Miele recounts the horrific crime that turned the world of an ordinary middle-class Brooklyn family on its head and became a cautionary tale for children far and wide. The story was so compelling that, forty years later, it prompted a New York Times reporter to track down that little kid who was burned and blinded in an instant and write a follow-up story.

On an ordinary day in 1973 a four-year-old child opened a gate to a known neighbor and was blinded and severely burned in an instant. The reader is pulled into the moment. With his mother, we see the child’s face smoking. We hear the screams, feel the pain, and grow weary of the smells and sounds of the hospital, right along with four-year-old Josh, who will never look the same or see the same again.

Dr. Joshua Miele’s life has been fast-paced, frenetic, and brilliant, and his book whisks the reader from one dramatic phase to the next. He grows from a precocious, often reckless small child to a briefly drug-addicted teen. We celebrate with him as he falls in love for the first time, forms a band, and learns about the mystical, amazing award called a MacArthur Fellowship. We applaud him as he learns to dismantle a transistor radio and roller-skates through his neighborhood by capitalizing on the echoes his metal skates produce on the pavement. He finds ways to manipulate situations and relationships for more adventure with his personal magic wand, the landline telephone.

When he heads off to UC Berkeley, he finally meets his “tribe,” a cohort of other smart, curious blind people. His story will trigger a resounding aha moment for many blind readers, who will recall times when they owned or disowned their fellow travelers with disabilities.

Entertaining and enlightening by turns, Connecting Dots is a book to read straight through for the sheer pleasure. A tone of amused irreverence permeates many of the moments Miele recounts, from his story of using bad words that shocked his kindergarten teacher to the accidental fate of a prosthetic eye, now drifting somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Joshua Miele is someone who is perfectly comfortable being himself.

From the time a family friend was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, Joshua Miele became intrigued by the MacArthur Foundation. His fascination was reignited when he received a call from a MacArthur representative, expressing interest in him in 2014. We celebrate with him when he is actually awarded the coveted prize in 2021.

To people on the streets of Berkeley, or anywhere else where he has been introduced, Dr. Joshua Miele is that blind guy with a burned face and a white cane. In reality, he is a thinker, a scientist, an accessibility researcher, a husband and father and the recipient of a MacArthur Award. Whether you know Josh Miele or not, you will enjoy reading this book. For parents of blind children, his story can serve as a roadmap for how a blind child can come to embrace the blind life. Josh Miele embraces that life. Enmeshed in that life, he has found countless paths to ideas that benefit blind people everywhere. He concludes that he is lucky. After reading this book, we know we are all lucky to have him in this world.

Letter To the US Secretary of Education

by Mark Riccobono

From the Editor: The National Federation of the Blind is strictly a nonpartisan organization. At times, however, the NFB finds itself compelled to take a stand when governmental actions or policies have an impact on the lives of blind people. Recent government policies led NFB President Mark Riccobono to send the following letter to Linda McMahon, Secretary of the US Department of Education.

Letter to the Secretary of Education Regarding the Executive Order to Close the Department of Education

March 25, 2025

The Honorable Linda McMahon
Secretary
United States Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary McMahon:

The National Federation of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans, is deeply troubled by the recent executive order regarding the directive to close the United States Department of Education. The programs outlined below are essential to promote education, independence, and economic opportunity for millions of American citizens. Without clear plans for how these statutorily established programs will be maintained, blind Americans and their families have no transparency into future plans, no clear lines of advocacy for due process, and an abundance of uncertainty regarding their current educational and rehabilitation services.

Within the Department of Education is the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services that houses the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) providing essential resources for blind people to obtain education and employment. These divisions are responsible for the enforcement and oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), the American Printing House for the Blind’s (APH) federal quota program (20 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.), vocational rehabilitation services (29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.), the Randolph-Sheppard program (20 U.S.C. § 107 et seq.), and the Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who Are Blind (OIB) program (29 U.S.C. 796j-796l). Additionally, the loss of the Office for Civil Rights, including its Digital Accessibility Team, will mean schools can discriminate against blind and other disabled students without recourse. We are gravely concerned that the drastic reduction in workforce, and the ultimate closure of the Department of Education, will result in diminished service for millions of students, employees, entrepreneurs, and older Americans with disabilities across the country who utilize the above programs.
According to the OSEP webpage, it is “dedicated to improving results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21 by providing leadership and financial support to assist states and local districts.”

This office ensures that blind students have the right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment available as outlined under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The IDEA provides federal funding to states to provide required “special education” services for public school students with disabilities. While states provide most of the special education funding, the federal government provides about 15 billion dollars. This serves some 7.5 million students. Special education services for the blind include Braille instruction, access technologies, and specialized teachers of the blind. This instruction is important for blind people to learn so we may be able to use the skills to find employment in our chosen fields. Any reduction in services and funding to enforce these laws will leave blind and disabled students vulnerable to civil rights violations and loss of services.

The OSEP also plays an essential role in supporting the APH’s Federal Quota Program, which was established by Congress in 1879, nearly 150 years ago. According to the APH website, the Federal Quota Program determines “the per-student funding allocation for purchasing educational materials from the American Printing House . . . Educators and parents can use these funds to obtain specialized educational products and materials for students who are blind or low vision.” Without this statutorily required federal funding, blind and low-vision students will lose access to these critical products and materials, which will in turn create a new barrier to our education.

The RSA oversees vocational rehabilitation services that provide formula grants to State agencies assisting blind people in finding employment opportunities after we have concluded our educational endeavors. Specifically, these grants provide vocational rehabilitation programs to help people with disabilities become employed. The federal government provides about 79 percent of the funding, with states providing the rest. Vocational rehabilitation programs serve over 800,000 individuals each year. A reduction in this funding will lead to service cuts in these programs, leaving blind people who want to work, travel independently, or learn Braille and technology unable to find the support they need.

In addition, the specialized employment program governed by the Randolph-Sheppard Act, one of our nation’s oldest programs specifically intended to promote the entrepreneurial spirit of blind business owners, receives assistance from the RSA helping blind people be a productive driving force in the American economy. The Randolph-Sheppard Act provides blind vendors a priority to operate on federal properties like military bases, government buildings, and highway rest stops. This priority has existed in federal law for nearly ninety years, and the program is currently administered by the Department of Education. The closure of the Department may leave blind vendors vulnerable to being shut out of these facilities.

The Independent Living Services for Older Individuals who are Blind program provides grants to states to support services for blind individuals aged fifty-five and older in order to help these Americans adjust to their blindness by increasing their ability to care for their individual needs. This often comes in the form of specialized blindness mobility training and learning how to use various pieces of access technology. The OIB program is currently under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education, and the closure of the department could lead to increased dependency upon other governmental programs for these Americans who simply want to live a dignified and independent life.

While we are sympathetic and understanding of the need to reduce overall federal spending, we also believe that these programs are essential to promote education, independence, and economic opportunity for all American citizens, particularly those who are blind or have other disabilities. We urge you to maintain the personnel and capability to administer these four programs to their fullest and most beneficial extent to serve blind and other disabled Americans.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind

2025 NFB BELL® Academy

https://nfb.org/programs-services/nfb-bell-academy
Contact: 410-659-9314, extension 2418
[email protected]

“My child had an enjoyable time, and her confidence has grown. My favorite thing that has come out of this camp: you remove the fear and anxiety she had about going blind! She now knows she will be okay and will have the skills to succeed. I think that alone is worth everything!”

The NFB Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning® Academy is a nationwide summer program that prepares blind and visually impaired children to grow into competent and independent blind people who live the lives they want.

Who Should Attend

Blind and low-vision children, ages four through twelve who:

“To be honest, as a mother with a low-vision child, I was very uneducated about the word blind, and I didn’t think he could attend a program like this. A friend who was taking her son told me we should try, and we did. The first day was like a whole new world of possibilities and knowledge opened up for me.”

NFB BELL Academy In-Person Programs

NFB BELL Academy in-person programs provide activities in a day program or residential setting, depending on location. In addition to Braille, crafts, games, and other engaging projects, children learn vital independent living skills, interact with blind adult mentors, and enjoy field trips to sites related to the NFB BELL Academy curriculum. Day programs typically run Monday through Friday for six hours each day for two weeks. Residential programs usually run for one week.

Thank you to the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults and the Beulah Reimer Legacy for their generous support of the NFB BELL Academy.

Bringing Books to Life: How Share Braille Connects Readers across the Nation

For blind and low-vision readers, finding accessible books can often feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Braille books are expensive to produce, bulky to store, and hard to come by. But what if there were a way to share them that was easy, safe, and free?

That’s exactly what the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults (AAF), in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), set out to achieve with Share Braille, a free online exchange platform that connects Braille readers across the country.

Imagine a national library where the shelves stretch between thousands of homes. With Share Braille, users can list Braille books they no longer need and offer them to others. There are no postage costs or hidden fees, just the joy of giving and receiving. Because it’s run by the American Action Fund and the NFB, Share Braille is designed by and for blind users, with accessibility built in from the ground up.

The parent of a blind child who uses the Share Braille program wrote, “Share Braille gives our Braille books new life. Not only can we donate and pass on the books we no longer use because our son is growing up, but we can exchange them for Braille books that are on his reading level. It allows our child to have a wide range of books that are both accessible to him as a blind student and accessible to us financially.”

Signing up for Share Braille is simple. Users browse the growing catalog of available books and request any titles they’d like to receive. Once a request is made, the owner ships the book directly to the new reader for free. The variety is impressive: children’s books, classics, cookbooks, textbooks, mysteries, and more. The user-driven listings ensure that the inventory is ever-changing and evolving.

Share Braille is more than a book exchange; it’s a community. “It feels like a little Braille book club spread across the country,” one user commented. “I’ve received novels I’ve been wanting to read for years. And I love being able to pass along books that meant something to me.”

Share Braille is proof that innovation doesn’t always require high-tech solutions. Thanks to supporters and community members like you, every blind reader has the opportunity to access Braille books for themselves. To learn more about Share Braille and how you can contribute to this program, visit https://sharebraille.org/.

Contribute Today

Your support helps keep our resources free for blind children and adults. You can contribute to the Action Fund in three easy ways.

Join Our Legacy Society

Often the simplest and most significant way to make a charitable contribution is to plan a legacy gift. Creating a lasting impact is easier than you might think. Choose an option that works best for your circumstances.

You can plan to give all or part of a bank account, insurance proceeds, investment assets, real estate, or a retirement account. You can even give a required minimum distribution from your IRA directly to charity and avoid taxes on the distribution. After taking care of your loved ones, you could bequeath a specific dollar amount or a percentage of your estate to an organization whose mission is important to you.
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Legacy Society recognizes and honors the generosity of friends of the Action Fund who have chosen to leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option.

If you wish to give part or all of an account, simply fill out a POD (payable on death) or TOD (transfer on death) form. For pensions and insurance assets, simply designate a charity as a beneficiary. If you would like to leave a legacy to the Action Fund in your will, simply include the following language:

I give, devise, and bequeath unto the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, 1800 Johnson Street, Suite 100, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a Maryland nonprofit corporation, the sum of $______________ (or) _________ “percent of my net estate” or “the following stocks and bonds”: ____________________, to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of blind persons.

If you have questions or would like more information, please reach out to Patti Chang at 410-659-9315 or [email protected]. If you have included the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in your will or have made some other provision for a future gift, please contact Patti so we can recognize you as a member of our Legacy Society.

Legacy gifts carry the values and ideals that have been important to you throughout your lifetime and provide for generations of blind children and adults. Please consider the American Action Fund in your future plans.

Congratulations to the 2025 Braille Readers Are Leaders Winners!

by Lisamaria Martinez

Braille-tastic Readers, Hip-Hip Hooray!
From cities and towns both near and far,
Braille readers gathered, setting the bar.
Their fingers danced through tales of delight,
Exploring great stories by day and by night.
The Braille Readers Are Leaders contest began,
In 2024-2025, with a wonderful plan.
Tracking their minutes, their stories, and more,
They read with passion, eager to explore.
The American Action Fund took a stand,
Promoting Braille across the land.
“Braille is a right,” they proudly state,
“Ensuring access for all is totally great!”
Here’s the tally, crisp and clear,
Of dedicated readers far and near.

Participants Logging Minutes: 224
Youth: 77
Adult Novice: 37
Adult Intermediate: 48
Adult Expert: 42
Teachers: 20
Total Minutes Read: 495,595
 
Now for the top readers,
Who are fast becoming leaders:
 

Youth Contest

Grades K-1

1st place: Sawyer 
1st place: Zachary 
2nd place: Charity 
3rd place: Sophia 
 

Grades 2-3

1st place: Luise 
2nd place: Juniper
3rd place: Mila
 

Grades 4-5

1st place: Mila
2nd place: Promise
3rd place: Lucy
 

Grades 6-8

1st place: Narjis
2nd place: Princess Eleanor
3rd place: Hailey
 

Grades 9-12

1st place: Amare
2nd place: Meredith
3rd place: Nadiya
 

Adult Contest

Novice

1st place: Naima Leigh
2nd place: Alfonso Simental
3rd place: Donna Casteen
 

Adult Intermediate

1st place: BJ Snyder
2nd place: Michelle Mills
3rd place: Alexis Payne
 

Adult Expert

1st place: Cassandra Xavier
2nd place: Anna Trotman
3rd place: Shane Popplestone
 

Teachers

1st place: Alyson Romine
2nd place: Sarah Savell
3rd place: Krystal Guillory

Keep reading in Braille, let your fingers roam,
For every good book is a place to call home.

Announcements

Technology Resources

Access On Podcast

https://nfb.org/resources/publications-and-media/access-on-podcast

Access On is the National Federation of the Blind’s podcast devoted to technology. It is hosted by Jonathan Mosen, the NFB’s Executive Director for Accessibility Excellence. Whether you’re a technology expert or just trying to make sense of it all, Access On has something for you. It taps into extensive networks in the tech sector, of NFB’s Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility, and the experiences of listeners to bring technology news, reviews, and interviews. Subscribe and listen on your podcast client.

Blind Help Project

https://blindhelp.net

Blind Help Project is a community forum that allows users to connect with a global community of blind and low-vision users who can offer personalized support, comprehensive technical resources, and the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences.

The Facebook group has over eight thousand members. Find resources on everything from advocacy to technology.

AppleVis

https://www.applevis.com

AppleVis is the go-to resource for blind, deafblind, and low-vision users of Apple technologies. AppleVis’s mission is to empower people who are blind, deafblind, or who have low vision to get the most from Apple products and services. With an active, engaged user base and a vast, collective understanding of vision accessibility on Apple’s platforms, members of this community support each other in accessing the maximum potential of Apple hardware, software, and services.

Books On Technology

National Braille Press

nbp.org

National Braille Press has long been committed to providing the blind community with resources on technology. Here are a few of their recent offers, available in downloadable MS Word or in hardcopy Braille:

Microsoft Excel 2025 Keystroke Compendium
Microsoft Word 2025 Keystroke Compendium
iOS Basics for the Beginning User
Online Safety for Blind Computer Users
iOS 18 Reference Card

Children’s Books

Braille Tales

https://www.aph.org/braille-tales/apply-for-braille-tales

American Printing House for the Blind (APH) partnered with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to offer free Braille books to children under six years old. Braille Tales provides access to books that include both print and Braille. One Spanish/English title is included annually. Books are shipped throughout the United States and to Samoa and Puerto Rico.

APH/Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Audiobooks offers Braille Tales audiobooks using playback equipment available through the National Library Service (NLS).

CVI Book Hook

https://www.cvibooks.com-home  
Contact: [email protected]

CVI Book Hook creates materials for students with cortical visual impairment (CVI) or low vision. They offer downloadable PowerPoints of book pages that parents or teachers can customize to meet a child’s unique needs. You can add specific photos and change the background, font size, or color. CVI Book Hook features a titled What’s Your Story? that enables you to create a book about your child or student, including a page that highlights the child’s strengths, hobbies, achievements, and dreams, as well as a page for information about the child’s eye condition. This book is excellent for preparing new teachers or sharing at an IEP meeting. Other books focus on letters, numbers, seasons, calendars, animals, foods, and nursery rhymes. Other books cover concepts such as stop/go, hot/cold, fast/slow, above/below, left/right, and more.

Laptime and Lullabies

https://www.aph.org/blog/events/laptime-and-lullabies-sharing-the-joys-of-literacy-with-very-young-children-who-are-blind-or-have-low-vision-part-i/

The Laptime and Lullabies course helps parents learn how to make literacy a natural part of their child’s daily life. The course shows families that literacy goes beyond reading to include music, tactile play, and daily interactions. It teaches parents to adapt activities with tactile materials, auditory cues, and hand-under-hand guidance for children who are blind or have low vision. Everyday routines can become extraordinary learning experiences.

Coloring Books

View Plus

https://viewplus.com-product-category-coloring-books

View Plus offers tactile coloring books and crayons labeled in Braille.

Games

64 Ounce Braille

https://64ouncebraille.com

64 Ounce Braille is an online store dedicated to providing resources for learning and teaching Braille. Products include games, tools, and 3D models designed to enhance Braille literacy.

Unicorn Soda Design

Contact: 801-556-6649
[email protected]

Unicorn Design offers a variety of accessible games and accessories. Products include magnetic backgammon, Braille dice in Nemeth Code, Braille-o-Grams, and Gem Quest Game.

Surveys

Ablism as a Mechanism of Physical and Mental Health Inequities among Children with Visual Impairment

https://www.youthviewresearch.org
Contact: Dannielle Schutz: 806-834-5316
[email protected]

Children who are blind or visually impaired experience high rates of physical and mental health disorders, which may be driven by ablism. Ablism harms people with disabilities by excluding them from full participation in society, but the specific impact of ablism on the physical and mental health of blind and low-vision children has not been examined. This virtual study conducted across the United States seeks to identify the role of ablism in driving physical and mental health inequities to reveal how ablism gets under the skin and results in poor health outcomes for these vulnerable children. Total time for each participant will be about 3-4 hours. During the testing session, participants will complete a variety of self-report survey instruments, psychological tests of intellectual ability/academic skills/cognitive functions, and clinical interviews related to mental health symptoms. Caregivers and youth will complete self-report and interview measures simultaneously with two members of the research team. Each participant will be awarded $150 in gift cards.

Educational Technology Survey

https://nfb.org/legal/surveys

The NFB is gathering information regarding the accessibility of educational technology used in our nation’s schools (kindergarten through graduate level). If you are a student, parent, teacher, or administrator who uses screen access software or other accommodations to participate nonvisually in educational programs or services, or if you are the parent, teacher, or administrator of someone who does, please complete the Education Technology Survey once a semester and contribute to this important research.

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