Over the last decade, many innovations have significantly changed the classroom. As a result, the authors believe the roles of vision professionals, primarily teachers of students with visual impairments, orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists, and braille transcribers, have likewise changed drastically in that time period. Although the…

Five cues were evaluated with respect to their usefulness in directing the headings of pedestrians who were blind during street crossings. The study was conducted at a simulated crosswalk, with the angle of the crosswalk varied relative to the approach and direction of the slope of the ramp. Three cues worked well over the distance equivalent to…

This study compared the drop-off detection performance with the two-point touch and constant contact cane techniques using a repeated-measures design with a convenience sample of 15 cane users with visual impairments. The constant contact technique was superior to the two-point touch technique in the drop-off detection rate and the 50% detection…

Persons who are deaf-blind represent a heterogeneous, low-incidence population of children and adults who, at some point in life, regardless of the presence of additional disabilities, may benefit from formal orientation and mobility (O&M) instruction. Current national policies, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasize that…

Electronic travel devices are used to transform information about the environment that would normally be perceived through the visual sense into a form that can be perceived by people who are blind or have low vision through another sense (Blasch, Long, & Griffin-Shirley, 1989). They are divided into two broad categories: primary devices and…

Children learn about their environment as they move through it--about people and objects, sizes, shapes, and distances. For typically developing children the senses of sight and hearing provide the greatest motivation for exploration. These children will use their vision and hearing to gather information about their surroundings while growing in…