Challenges to accessing information faced by students who are visually impaired and strategies available for meeting those challenges:
Computer Access
- Images on the screen cannot be seen clearly
- Screen magnification software
- Enlarged pointer and insertion point
- Glare screen
- Adjustment of color schemes
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Colored filters to decrease glare and increase contrast
- Output to the monitor cannot be seen at all
- Screen reader software with sound card
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Refreshable Braille display
- Keyboard characters cannot be seen clearly
- Keycaps
- Large print key labels
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Locator dots
- Keys cannot be seen at all
- Locator dots
- Braille labels
Printed Material
- Printed materials cannot be seen clearly
- Closed circuit TV to magnify printed materials
- Produce larger print material
- Enlarge printed materials using a copy machine
- Obtain electronic version of printed material and print copies with larger print
- Audio cassettes for listening to printed material
- Obtain electronic version of printed material (e.g., through scanning) and
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Access printed material on computer with appropriate accommodations (e.g., listen to text and view text with appropriate visual adjustments
- Printed material cannot be seen at all
- Use scanner, optical character recognition software, and screen reader
- Obtain electronic version of printed material and listen to material on a computer with a screen reader
- Obtain electronic version of printed material, translate to Braille, and print to a Braille printer
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Listen to audio cassettes of printed material
Recent California state legislation [AB422/January, 2000] requires publishers of textbooks used in public community colleges to make available the electronic files to qualified students with disabilities. As of now, the specific methods for distribution to individual students have not yet been implemented.