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The following information was prepared by the AFB Solutions Forum's Communication and Collaboration Work Group. It appears on the AFB Solutions Forum web pages and is used with permission.
NASDSE and COSB collaborated on statewide training to address the publication called Blind and Visually Impaired Students: Educational Service Guidelines. This component focused on textbooks and instructional materials which are in the appropriate media and delivered on time.
Access to information is profoundly critical in determining the quality of one's life. Textbooks and related instructional materials are essential tools in all educational settings. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a public school classroom in which students would be expected to achieve academically without the benefit of textbooks directly related to the subjects being studied. However, for students who are blind or have low vision, that often is not the case. Despite everyone's best efforts and advancements in access technology, many visually impaired students do not receive textbooks in braille, large print, audio or other needed special media at the same time as their sighted classmates.
The authors of the National Agenda for the Education of Children and Youths with Visual Impairments, Including those with Multiple Disabilities identified the importance of timely provision of instructional materials in appropriate media as one of the eight most critical national issues affecting the education of students with visual impairments. Based upon input received via a national survey of teachers, administrators and others, the National Agenda: Report to the Nation, recently published by AFB Press, includes the following observation:
"The Goal 7 survey revealed very few surprises to individuals currently providing specialized materials to students with visual impairments. It is apparent that instructional materials can (be) and are offered to our students in specialized formats, but these instructional materials certainly are not provided at the same time as those for their sighted peers."
The challenge confronting students who are blind or visually impaired is one of keeping up with their sighted peers, but without the benefit of equal and timely access to textbooks or instructional materials. The barriers and potential solutions to having the right book in the right medium at the right time center around five key areas: electronic files/research and development, legislative/policy-making, production, training, and communication and collaboration.
Listed below are five critical issues that a school administrator needs to be familiar with concerning the requirements of IDEA and access to the general curriculum for children with visual impairments.
In all schools around the country, when children enter the classroom on the first day of school, their textbooks are waiting for them. For the sighted child, there is no sharing or waiting for textbooks; therefore, learning can begin immediately. For the child who is blind or has low vision, all of the needed books are identified prior to the end of the previous school year and ordered in a timely manner. The complete texts are available in braille, large print or audio text on the first day of school. The child who is blind is given the same access to education as his/her sighted classmates.
Children with print disabilities have historically been disenfranchised from the mainstream of learning and future employment because of a lack of access to published information. Approximately 29 states are considered open territory states for adoption of school textbooks. Because they do not go through a state adoption process, individual school districts may select different textbooks. Typically when states (or local school districts) do not have a system in place for choosing books sufficiently early or a system for producing textbooks, a scenario such as the following is all too common. A student's IEP has identified algebra for next year, but all of the algebra teachers in this school are allowed to use different textbooks than their colleagues, even within the same school. The teacher of students with visual impairments must determine who will teach Jody algebra and which textbook should be ordered. However two weeks before the end of school, Ms. Turner finds that the proposed class schedule won't work for Jody, so a different algebra teacher and textbook must be identified. The school system is adopting a new series of English textbooks, and the school will not decide until May 15 which books they will be ordering for the next school year. The English department encourages teachers to use the same textbook, but to supplement the lessons with literature from the library. The science teacher is being progressive and has decided to use multimedia presentations of materials. This year a new social studies series replaced the old series that had been around for quite a while and included lots of maps showing countries that no longer exist.
Textbooks for mathematics, algebra, science and social studies often contain many graphics which require careful consideration when adapting them to braille or auditory format. Special braille codes which are a component of this type of text require specialized transcriber skills. In addition, producing large print copies is not a simple, straightforward process. Many textbooks depend on color to make the lessons effective, and most enlarged copies do not include color. Print size and font are also important features that must be considered when producing large print textbooks.
One might think an older version of the text in braille would be adequate. However, the information might be outdated (as in the social studies text), which would hinder educational advancement for the child with visual impairments.
In the long run, if it is a heavy year for complicated texts in science and math or if classroom teacher assignments are delayed, visually impaired children will receive their books late, only in chapters, or not at all. When the textbooks and instructional materials arrive late, the student is not fully engaged in the general education curriculum and learning is delayed.
Although the production of braille textbooks is complicated, technology has improved the process. People assume that if states have a braille law or merely ask for electronic files from the publishers, any file can be used by braille producers in preparing the translation into braille.
Technology has helped improve the process, but the production of braille textbooks is highly technical and requires a well-designed system. In the not too distant past, braille textbooks were transcribed by retyping books from the beginning. Scanning a book for brailling was the next step. Now with various braille laws, more and more states are asking publishers to supply the adopted textbooks in an electronic file format. However, most people do not realize that all electronic files from publishers are not equal.
The structural elements of an electronic file of a book's contents are tagged with codes that map the book's actual intellectual structure, e.g. chapters, sections, footnotes, sidebars, etc. These tag sets help to streamline the process for producing a braille book. Without a structure, the process used by braille producers to translate electronic files into braille becomes more cumbersome and labor intensive to retype or scan information. The end results are delayed production and delivery of textbooks to children.
At this time, many publishers are asked to deliver electronic files in ASCII, which will never provide the coding available in HTML and especially XML (the language of the web) that is needed for easy conversion into braille. ASCII cannot provide proportional font or characters for foreign languages, nor can it indicate bold and italic text or provide codes that indicate the structure of the document such as chapter and section headings. All this information must be added into an ASCII file by hand in order to produce good braille books.
ASCII files are also comparatively difficult to read with speech synthesis. On the other hand, the new Digital Talking Book, which is debuting this year, supports all that ASCII provides, plus all structural and character markings. It also supports multimedia presentations, including moving picture videos, and facilitates synchronizing a refreshable braille display with an audio recording of the text. This is an exciting standard with a future.
What is needed is a single file format. An electronic file format that is well-organized and structured.
Long-range planning for textbook purchases is not a necessity, because publishers will identify a delivery schedule that ensures all the textbooks will be available on the first day of school.
In the United States, textbooks are either state adopted or locally adopted (the latter called open territory adoption). As of now there are 20 state adoption states (see www.afb.org/solutionsforum/adoption.html and attached resource page). These states present an opportunity to develop a better system for ordering and delivering textbooks. Publishers must work within the constraints of the state and/or local adoption cycle as well as with their production processes to provide the regular print version of a textbook. More time is needed by both the publisher and the agency to create a specially formatted text and ensure that the student who is visually impaired has the textbook on the first day of school along with his/her peers.
Most children are in classrooms that offer exciting, multimedia opportunities for learning. Children who are blind or with low vision have equal access to this exciting trend.
Imagine the following scenarios and consider how a blind child would access the information:
More and more states are adding multimedia textbook requirements to their adoption list. Often these highly visual technological improvements for the sighted child do not provide equal access for the child who is blind. There are no audio descriptions for videos on CD-ROM or on the web. Without new technology adapted for multimedia presentations, the child with visual impairments cannot access the curricula.
WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), an AFB Solutions Forum partner, is a research and development facility that endeavors to make media accessible to people with sensory disabilities. Their research on the accessibility of CD-ROMs, the web, digital television, and other new technologies is critical for accessible textbooks. They focus on the accessibility of multimedia in all of these efforts.
The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) standard, from the industry standard-making group of the World Wide Web Consortium, is defining how textual information can be synchronized with digitally recorded human speech through SMIL. Since SMIL is an important part of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), the DAISY/NISO standards work on electronic books; this technology can be directly integrated into multimedia textbooks using those standards.
By creating educational software, including multimedia textbooks, that can be used by blind students alongside their sighted peers, we can reduce the need for creating separate braille editions of textbooks and eliminate the duplication of effort when schools and districts must create their own accessible materials. The end goal, set forth in the AFB Textbooks and Instructional Materials Solutions Forum and in NCAM's research, is to ensure that all students get their educational materials at the same time and in a format appropriate for them.
In response to the issues raised above, in October 1998, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) initiated a national campaign called the AFB Textbooks and Instructional Materials Solutions Forum. The Forum is a collaborative national effort of agencies and organizations that produce and distribute textbooks and other instructional materials to ensure equal access for students who are blind or visually impaired. The AFB Solutions Forum participants include textbook publishers, educators, access technology specialists, producers of braille, large print and recorded textbooks, parents of children who are blind or visually impaired, and adults who are blind or visually impaired.
"The AFB Solutions Forum is a critical step toward the elimination of the inequities faced by people who are blind or visually impaired," said AFB president Carl R. Augusto. "In making school materials accessible, it will help level the playing field for blind and visually impaired students so that they have the same opportunities to learn and succeed as their sighted classmates."
Consider the following:
Relevant sections from this document include:
Issue IV (page 25)
"Educators must know that students who are blind or visually impaired have the right to participate in all areas of general school curriculum and activities."
Issue IX (page 32)
"Educators should be knowledgeable about various types of instructional technologies and their impact on the educational opportunities for students who are blind or visually impaired, including those with multiple disabilities."
Issue VI (page 46)
"State and Local Education Agencies should ensure that visually impaired and blind students receive adequate resources and appropriate reading media on a timely basis, on schedule with their sighted peers."
Issue IX (page 73)
"Educators must provide equal access to materials and resources to ensure equal educational opportunities for students with visual impairment."
To purchase this book, contact Perkins School for the Blind at (617) 924-3434.
To purchase AFB Press Books, contact AFB at 800-232-3044 or www.afb.org.
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