Voice of the Nation's Blind Blog

The members of the National Federation of the Blind work on a daily basis to demonstrate that blindness is not the characteristic that defines us or our future. Every day we work to raise expectations for blind people because we experience daily the harmful impacts of low expectations on our lives.

What is the purpose of your upcoming meeting? What has been going well? What needs to change? These are three questions you should ask yourself before each IEP meeting for your child.

Dear Friends and Family Members:

Members and leaders of the National Federation of the Blind from across the nation do a fantastic job of countering low expectations, misconceptions, and stereotypes about blindness.

To start, it's important to know some terminology. A "selfie" is a self-portrait typically taken while holding a smartphone. Most smartphones have two cameras: a front camera and back camera. The front camera is the one located just above the screen, next to the speaker. The back camera is typically in the top left corner on the back of the phone.

Recently I heard about a new social media campaign where people are posting videos of themselves doing things blindfolded. This wasn’t the first time I had seen sighted people blindfold themselves in hopes of understanding blindness. I was born blind, and as I was growing up, some of my friends would borrow my cane and walk around with their eyes shut.

Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings can feel overwhelming. Seated around the table are members of the team—a teacher of blind students, the classroom teacher, and the IEP team chair person.

In my banquet address at this year’s national convention, I talked about fear and how “if we resolve ourselves to face our fears, respect the power within those fears, and turn that power into action, we can take control of our own destiny, diminish the negative fears of others, a

Last week the Maryland Board of Elections took a new and important step in ensuring that all blind Maryland voters can exercise our right to cast our ballots privately and independently.

In order to craft appropriate goals for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), the team needs recent, high quality data. This data needs to cover the child’s current skills, strengths, and FACTOR IN future success. Here are some things to keep in mind when assessments are administered to, and interpreted for, children who are blind or low vision.