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Significance: Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the promise to be an alternative transportation solution for those with vision loss. However, the impact of vision loss on the perceptions and concerns of AVs is unknown. This study therefore examined whether AVs are perceived differently by blind, visually impaired (VI), and normally sighted people., Purpose: This study compared the perceptions of AVs among the blind, VI, and normally sighted., Methods: Participants' opinions on four perception measures (general opinion, trust, impact on quality of life, and intention to use AVs) and nine concerns regarding AVs were measured. The survey was administered to 51 normally sighted, 68 VI, and 65 blind participants. Analyses of covariance assessed whether the four perception measures and nine concerns varied by vision status (normal vision, VI, blind) and driving status (driver, nondriver). Univariate correlations and multiple regression analyses identified associations and predictors of AV perceptions and concerns from demographic, mood, cognition, travel behavior, and vision measures, which included visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual field., Results: The blind (p<0.001), VI (p<0.001), and nondrivers (p<0.001) showed a greater intention to use AVs compared with those with normal vision and drivers. Similar findings were found for the other perception measures. As visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual field extent declined, positivity toward AVs increased (p<0.001). Visual field extent best predicted general opinion and trust in AVs, whereas driving measures were the best predictors of impact on quality of life and intention to use AVs. Concerns about AVs showed no differences based on vision (p=0.94) or driving (p=0.63) status., Conclusions: Individuals with vision loss expressed more acceptance of AVs despite their concerns. How positive someone is toward AVs appears to be dependent on their visual field extent and driving status., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest Disclosure: None of the authors have reported a financial conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 American Academy of Optometry.)

This article positions braille as a writing system worthy of study in its own right and on its own terms. We begin with a discussion of the role of braille in the lives of those who read and write it and a call for more attention to braille in the reading sciences. We then give an overview of the history and development of braille, focusing on its formal characteristics as a writing system, in order to acquaint sighted print readers with the basics of braille and to spark further interest among reading researchers. We then explore how print-centric assumptions and sight-centric motivations have potentially negative consequences, not only for braille users but also for the types of questions researchers think to pursue. We conclude with recommendations for conducting responsible and informed research about braille. We affirm that blindness is most equitably understood as but one of the many diverse ways humans experience the world. Researching braille literacy from an equity and diversity perspective provides positive, fruitful insights into perception and cognition, contributes to the typologically oriented work on the world's writing systems, and contributes to equity by centering the perspectives and literacy of the people who read and write braille. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The blind and visually disabled people form a predominant group in the disabled society and hence, need greater attention. Most of the rehabilitation therapists, especially occupational therapists, do not focus on this group. Thus, the aim of the study is to shed light on the issue of negligent attitude of rehabilitation therapists, especially occupational therapists, toward blind and visually-impaired people. Methods:To perform this study, a systematic, evidence-based process (Duffy 2005) was used. Data for the study was gathered from the following sources: Electronic databases: Medline PubMed, CINAHL, OVID Medline, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Cochrane Databases of Systematic Reviews, ProQuest, UpToDate, Web of Science, OT Search, OTDirect, PEDro, SID, Magiran, IRAN MEDEX, MEDLIB, and IRANDOC. Results: From accessible databases, 112 articles related to blind and people with low vision in Iran were found; of these, only 17 articles have been included in this study. Discussion: Proper assessment of the visually disabled is required to implement the appropriate intervention technique. Occupational therapists need to pay special attention to the visually disabled people.

A systematic review did not show any usability evaluation tool specifically developed for blind people. This paper reports an empirical study, investigating the similarity between usability evaluation tools for people with visual impairment. A total of 87 blind people from both genders, equally distributed, from 18 to 75 years old, with congenital blindness were reached. The hypothesis is that a tool using onomatopoeia could be similar to another tool that uses human expressions. Thus, this research compared the Circumplex Model of Affect emotions list and an onomatopoeic prototype using Chi[superscript 2]. The results show a similarity between the two tools. Therefore, the findings suggest that the prototype based on onomatopoeia allows blind people to evaluate product usability. In addition, this paper presents a process to build similar tools for people with visual impairment.

Online learning has long been essential in universities, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became obligatory for all students. This new circumstance entailed advantages and disadvantages for online learners. As disabled students have their own needs, and as each disability is related to specific kinds of needs, in this paper, we focus on online learning experiences for visually impaired students. We conducted online interviews with eight university and college students from several regions in Saudi Arabia to explore their perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages of online learning. We also asked them for suggestions on how to improve their online learning experiences. Based on a thematic analysis of the results conducted using NVivo, we found that students' attitudes towards online learning are positive, as they are related to increased autonomy. However, their experiences with teaching forums and methods of online teaching and assessment involved many obstacles. They attributed most of these obstacles to a lack of technical support and some lecturers' lack of awareness regarding their needs. The students suggested the continuous development of platforms for compatibility with screen readers, as well as continuous training and technical support.

Today, higher education (HE) faces new challenges, such as incorporating consideration of diversity and inclusion into its operations. Such challenges, many of which are part of strategic institutional plans, offer teachers an opportunity to introduce new practices in the classroom. In this paper, we look at introducing language students to the task of audio description (AD) -- that is, making visual content available to blind and visually impaired people by verbal means. We first present a framework for evaluating the learning that might derive from such an activity in the context of FL study, and then use this framework to evaluate a sequence of five tasks undertaken with Irish learners of Spanish. The tasks provided opportunities for the students to reflect on the communication needs of blind and visually impaired people and to understand how these could be addressed effectively in AD. The students practised AD in various contexts: both "improvised" or "spontaneous" AD as well as more carefully prepared AD, and undertaking AD in both the L1 (English) and the FL (Spanish). The pedagogic approach investigated here was inherently multidisciplinary and aimed to help learners become self-reflecting agents and mediators in their L1 and FL.

Late-blind people, who adventitiously became blind in their adulthood, are a special group of the blind. Each of them has his/her own characteristics when returning to work. In this paper, methods on how late-blind teachers can effectively lecture sighted students are presented based on experience of authors with blindness. For late-blind teachers, only having the basic teaching skills as the sighted teachers is insufficient to lecture sighted students. They shall fully explore the knowledge and skills they acquired before their blindness. Much to be important, they have to take advantage of their physiological advantages (e.g., good sense of hearing and touching) and modern teaching tools (e.g., PowerPoint slides with voice navigation and screen reading software). With the accessible technology, the paper provides a specific case to describe the personalized teaching process in the rear of it. Through introducing an instance of micro-course about braille teaching (digit and part of English letter), the case takes a true reproduction that basically covers the entire teaching procedure. In fact, only in this way can the teaching tasks like lecturing and Q&A be accomplished smoothly.

Chemistry laboratories ordinarily involve a number of visual observations and require qualitative and quantitative explanations of these observations. A student with blindness at Truman State University successfully completed the laboratory portion of the non-majors liberal arts chemistry course with the assistance of a senior undergraduate chemistry education major, the guidance of a chemistry professor with blindness, and a variety of alternative laboratory methods. Volumes were measured using a notched syringe or the graduated cylinder pipet technique. Changes in color were measured by a Color Analysis Laboratory Sensor (CALS) and a Submersible Audio Light Sensor (SALS). Balance and Vernier probe measurements were recorded using Vernier data acquisition software (Logger Pro 3.6) and Job Access with Speech (JAWS) screen review software. This paper reports the impact of these alternative methods on the level of participation of the student with blindness for the following experiments: Density Determination, Flame Emissions Tests, Simulation of the Measurement of Hemoglobin in the Blood Using Spectrophotometry, the Investigation of Hydrates, the Study of Chemical Reactions in Everyday Life, and Titrations. The Solutions, the Soap-Making, and Paper Chromatography laboratories are not reported. All the laboratories except the Density laboratory are part of the Chemistry 100 curriculum at Truman State University ("CHEM 100", 2010).

Aim/Purpose: This paper proposes a new approach to developing a deep learning-based prototyping wearable model which can assist blind and visually disabled people to recognize their environments and navigate through them. As a result, visually impaired people will be able to manage day-to-day activities and navigate through the world around them more easily. Background: In recent decades, the development of navigational devices has posed challenges for researchers to design smart guidance systems for visually impaired and blind individuals in navigating through known or unknown environments. Efforts need to be made to analyze the existing research from a historical perspective. Early studies of electronic travel aids should be integrated with the use of assistive technology-based artificial vision models for visually impaired persons. Methodology: This paper is an advancement of our previous research work, where we performed a sensor-based navigation system. In this research, the navigation of the visually disabled person is carried out with a vision-based 3D-designed wearable model and a vision-based smart stick. The wearable model used a neural network-based You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm to detect the course of the navigational path which is augmented by a GPS-based smart Stick. Over 100 images of each of the three classes, namely straight path, left path and right path, are being trained using supervised learning. The model accurately predicts a straight path with 79% mean average precision (mAP), the right path with 83% mAP, and the left path with 85% mAP. The average accuracy of the wearable model is 82.33% and that of the smart stick is 96.14% which combined gives an overall accuracy of 89.24%. Contribution: This research contributes to the design of a low-cost navigational standalone system that will be handy to use and help people to navigate safely in real-time scenarios. The challenging self-built dataset of various paths is generated and transfer learning is performed on the YOLO-v5 model after augmentation and manual annotation. To analyze and evaluate the model, various metrics, such as model losses, recall value, precision, and maP, are used. Findings: These were the main findings of the study: (1) To detect objects, the deep learning model uses a higher version of YOLO, i.e., a YOLOv5 detector, that may help those with visual im-pairments to improve their quality of navigational mobilities in known or unknown environments; (2) The developed standalone model has an option to be integrated into any other assistive applications like Electronic Travel Aids (ETAs); and (3) It is the single neural network technology that allows the model to achieve high levels of detection accuracy of around 0.823 mAP with a custom dataset as compared to 0.895 with the COCO dataset. Due to its lightning-speed of 45 FPS object detection technology, it has become popular. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners can help the model's efficiency by increasing the sample size and classes used in training the model. Recommendation for Researchers: To detect objects in an image or live cam, there are various algorithms, e.g., R-CNN, Retina Net, Single Shot Detector (SSD), YOLO. Researchers can choose to use the YOLO version owing to its superior performance. Moreover, one of the YOLO versions, YOLOv5, outperforms its other versions such as YOLOv3 and YOLOv4 in terms of speed and accuracy. Impact on Society: We discuss new low-cost technologies that enable visually impaired people to navigate effectively in indoor environments. Future Research: The future of deep learning could incorporate recurrent neural networks on a larger set of data with special AI-based processors to avoid latency.

The paper examines the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in special education in Ghana. Taking the relevant literature as the guiding principle, the paper addresses the opportunities, barriers, and challenges posed by the integration of assistive technologies devices in schools for the blind and visually impaired in the teaching and learning process. The paper shows that inadequacies of teachers' knowledge and skills in assistive technologies coupled with lack of these technologies are some of the greatest hindrances to effective teaching in the schools for the blind in Ghana. Educators and policymakers acknowledge Evidence-Based Teaching (EBT) as one of the most effective strategies for teaching the blind and the visually impaired. The paper highlights that effective integration of assistive technologies into schools will help bridge the digital gap between the blind and the sighted in Ghana.

This paper investigates how specialist teachers of learners with vision impairment (i.e. teachers who have had specific and/or additional teacher training in the area of vision impairment education) in Turkey and England conceptualise their roles in supporting learners with vision impairment (VI) using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory as a conceptual lens. Through comparative analysis of the findings of interviews with thirty specialist teachers of learners with VI in Turkey (n = 17) and England (n = 13), the paper identifies similar and different aspects of the teachers' conceptualisations of their roles "with" the learner and with other agents "around" the learner. The findings mainly suggest that the concept of promoting/developing independence is commonly understood as concerning "teaching" independent living skills to learners, including mobility and self-care skills within mostly the school setting in Turkey. In contrast, that role was conceptualised in a broader context in England, such as "developing" independent living, independent learning and self-advocacy skills, involving other agents "around" the learner within and between home and school settings. Given the similarities and differences between the perspectives of specialist teachers on their multi-layered roles in two countries, the paper provides greater understanding of the specialist role of those teachers. It also offers a methodology to others who wish to explore and emphasise the distinctive roles of specialist teachers in their own settings.

Introduction: Technological advances have introduced three-dimensional (3-D) printing as an option for creating tactile maps for people with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision), diversifying the types of map products that are available. At the same time, it presents a challenge to map makers to implement designs across multiple production methods. We evaluated map symbols to determine their discriminability across three different materials: microcapsule paper, 3-D printer plastic, and embossed paper. Methods: In a single session lasting less than 90 minutes, participants completed a matching task and provided informal feedback regarding their preferences. We measured speed and accuracy to establish discriminability of map symbols on each of the materials. Eighteen participants were recruited from a referred sample among attendees at the American Council of the Blind annual convention in 2013. Results: Response times were significantly different across the three materials (p < 0.001). Without sacrificing accuracy, response times were faster for the 3-D printed graphics than for either the microcapsule paper (p < 0.001) or the embossed paper (p < 0.001). User preference was divided across the three materials. Some people disliked the "sharp" corners of the 3-D printed symbols, while others preferred their "crisp" edges. Discussion: Our results demonstrate faster discriminability of a set of tactile symbols produced on a 3-D printer compared to those same symbols printed on microcapsule paper, the material for which the symbols were originally designed. Participant feedback reflected preferences both in favor of and against reading symbols produced on the 3-D printer. Implications for practitioners: This article discusses the functional equivalence of tactile symbols produced across multiple production technologies. It addresses two considerations when using 3-D printing to make tactile maps: preparing digital files for printing and the printing work flow. Digital files ready for printing on each of the three materials are available for download (Brittell, Lobben, & Lawrence 2016).

Introduction: Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) typically affects children's overall functioning in visually cluttered environments. This study aims to consider whether the removal of classroom clutter ameliorates visual problems and the associated behavioral difficulties for these children. Methods: Two classrooms at a special school were de-cluttered. Changes included: covering glass panels with thick black paper; hanging sheets over open shelving; creating areas of blank wall in front of the student to focus attention on work; removing unnecessary equipment and furniture; and taking down information on windows and walls, and that hanging from ceilings. Teachers, paraeducators, and students worked in these classrooms for two weeks, following typical daily routines. Observations by teachers and paraeducators of students' behavior and learning experiences before and after de-cluttering were sought through interviews. Findings: The perspectives of the teachers and paraeducators were that de-cluttering had a positive effect on the students' learning experiences and behavior and also on their own functioning. They also considered the fact that creation of learning spaces lined with black paper resulted in greater attention and focus, but that students continued to be distracted by the noise and movement of others. Discussion: The potential link between cluttered classrooms and students' functioning and behavior indicates that visual clutter may amplify the visual difficulties associated with CVI and distract the students from learning activities, and is in line with current literature. Changes to classroom layouts that include specific areas for different learning activities, including "black hubs," may therefore benefit students with CVI. Implications for practitioners: This pilot study suggests that the elimination of classroom clutter and the creation of black hub learning spaces enhances functioning and merits further investigation. A study that compares specific behaviors and performances, before and after implementation of de-cluttering strategies, might also determine whether the positive effects described by the teachers can be further corroborated.

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 core mission of these professionals remains advancing the independence and capabilities of individuals who are visually impaired (that is, those who are blind or have low vision), the scope of practice in the field of visual impairment has undergone shifts that require the attention of fellow practitioners and professional training programs. This thought piece is a result of observations from the field and discussions with fellow colleagues and stakeholders who are visually impaired, including a focused discussion held with attendees of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) conference in the summer of 2016. This paper is not intended to reflect a stance but rather to open a discussion on updating professionals' roles within the field of educational and rehabilitative vision services. More specifically, addresses changes to the tools used to accomplish the mission of the field of visual impairment, the way its professionals instruct students and train future personnel, and the professional linkages that must be forged for members of the field of visual impairment to be successful in their work. Some of the principal changes discussed in this paper include: (1) the effect of ubiquitous computing on daily living and learning experiences; (2) the increased prevalence of multimedia in the classroom and community; (3) advancements in delivery options for accessible educational materials; (4) changes in the built environment (both physical and digital); and (5) the need for more transdisciplinary collaborations, including partnerships in the design, technology, engineering, and architecture fields.

Introduction: This study examines the spatial abilities of middle school students with visual impairments (i.e., blindness and low vision) in the context of spatial visualization. The study also aims to examine the strategies used by such students in solving questions requiring spatial ability. Methods: Participants comprised eight students with visual impairments attending the 8th grade of a school in Ankara, Turkey, which teaches students with visual impairments. The data collection tool is composed of eight questions under the guidance of the definition for spatial visualization. Question types belonging to the spatial visualization subcomponent were organized in four topics: 2D rotation, 3D rotation, paper folding, and cube folding. Results: It was observed that students with visual impairments used mental rotation and key feature strategies for 2D rotation questions. They used the key feature strategy for 3D rotation questions and the mental manipulation strategy for cube folding and paper folding questions. Discussion: In this study, it was identified that strategies used by students with visual impairments show similarities with spatial strategies defined in the literature as used by students without visual impairments. Of all the other types of questions, the most successful question of students with visual impairments is the paper folding question. Implications for practitioners: The results of this article can help teachers become aware of the kind of difficulties that students with visual impairments encounter when they try to solve questions that require spatial ability.

The inclusion of students with disabilities in the education system results in content or assessment accommodations to suit the students' special needs and to ensure they have acquired the objectives listed in the curriculum. In this paper, we aim at proposing different ways to accommodate a university English language test to a partially blind student who used text-to-speech tools (TTS) in order to provide them with accurate assessment. To carry out this research, the student has been monitored throughout the course to see which accommodations fit their needs best. All in all, we have observed that read-aloud accommodations lead to a better inclusion of the partially sighted student and better performance.

Drawing upon a unique longitudinal study, which has followed the experiences of students with vision impairment (VI) in the United Kingdom (UK) through the full university student lifecycle, we report the findings of an original analysis that seeks to broaden understanding of the lived experiences of students with disabilities in higher education (HE) by critically assessing student outcomes with respect to "access", "success" and "progression". The paper presents evidence collected from 40 participants, captured through 205 interviews over a 7-year period, and uses this evidence to assist with interpreting patterns observed in national equality data, and in identifying hidden inequalities which these datasets do not capture. We examine how well this equality data represents the reported experiences of students with VI. We do this by firstly considering where the data might not fully represent the experiences of the student, and secondly by interpreting why some of the observed inequalities persist. We take a holistic view of the student experience, by examining factors that might impact upon the student at different levels through the perspective of the Bioecological Model of Inclusive Higher Education. The findings show that whilst national equality data in the UK capture improved access and attainment for students with VI in HE, it fails to capture poor lived experiences, and restricted choice. The findings also identify barriers to successful transitions into the labour market, in some cases intrinsically linked to barriers faced during their courses.

This study provides information on the use of a refreshable braille display in relation to reading speeds and accuracy for students with visual impairments. The characteristics and variables which were statistically significant predictors of reading speed were explored. Forty-nine students in grades 1-9 participated with their teachers of students with visual impairments. In this 16-week study participants used the "Reading Adventure Time!" app to complete a pretest, intervention, and eight progress monitoring checks. Using descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression analyses the researchers found silent reading speeds averaged 16.80 WPM at grades 1-2, 46.43 WPM at grades 3-4, 46.12 WPM at grades 5-6, and 50.51 WPM at grades 7-9. Oral reading speeds averaged 18.37 WPM at grades 1-2, 49.05 WPM at grades 3-4, 45.62 WPM at grades 5-6, and 45.82 WPM at grades 7-9. On average, there were few miscues for participants at all grade levels. Statistically significant predictors of reading speed included the number of braille cells on the refreshable braille display, the proportion of students receiving free and reduced lunch recipients, time spent in literacy instruction with the general education teacher, and whether the student was a dual braille and print reader. Reading speeds were comparable to those found in studies which examined reading paper-based formats. The most common statistically significant predictor of reading speed was the number of cells on the refreshable braille display. Wise decisions about the types of refreshable displays used can potentially make a difference in students' reading speeds.

Training teachers of learners with visual impairment (VI) emphasise instrumental skills such as curriculum adaptation and assistive technology, at times ignoring anxieties and attitudes within teachers surrounding disability. South Africa's education system faces a huge backlog in VI teacher training, which is being addressed by intensive short courses developed through the Teacher Empowerment for Disability Inclusion (TEDI) project. With only 5 days of contact, hard choices must be made regarding what teachers most need to prepare for the VI learner. The Authors felt that personal and attitudinal shifts (in teachers entirely new to VI) were pivotal. Besides 'harder' skills, trainees took part (as audience) in a daily panel discussion by four academically successful VI graduates, with experiences of both inclusive and special education. The panel strategy had five aims: (i) counter stereotypes by showcasing high-achieving VI persons; (ii) provide humanising, first-hand experience of VI; (iii) raise and digest difficult emotions to do with VI; (iv) model a sense of mutual acceptance between learners and teachers and (v) add humour and lightness to difficult issues. This paper presents qualitative data on the outcomes of these aims, based on written submissions by panellists, and questionnaire and focus group material from trainees.

This study explored the effects of visual status and braille reading patterns on the reading accuracy of students with visual impairments in China. The sample consisted of 121 students aged 10-19 years: 48 were students with congenital visual impairments, 25 were students with adventitious visual impairments, and 48 were sighted students. Students with visual impairment read braille and sighted students read printed materials, whilst both reading materials have same content. The participants' reading accuracy was measured by assessing the number and range of errors. The types of error identified included mispronunciation, omission, repetition, substitution, self-correction, and insertion. The study had two main conclusions. (1) Type of vision status had a significant effect on reading accuracy. More specifically, the reading accuracy of the sighted students was significantly higher than that of the students with visual impairments. Furthermore, repetition was the most common type of reading error made by the two groups of students with visual impairments, whereas self-correction was the most common type of reading error made by the sighted students. (2) Braille reading patterns had a marginally significant effect on reading accuracy. The participants who used cooperative and one-handed patterns were more accurate than the students who used the other braille reading patterns. Specifically, the participants using cooperative and one-handed patterns made significantly fewer mistakes in the repetition category than the students using marker and parallel patterns, but this difference did not exist for the other types of reading errors. These results are analysed and discussed in the discussion section of this paper.

Coursework that is dependent on experiential learning, such as that offered in the laboratory-based sciences, can present barriers for a variety of students. These barriers can be magnified for students who experience disabilities that impact their access to the full depth of the course content and materials. Our unique perspective was formed primarily by supporting two blind students at two institution types across multiple biological science departments. In this paper, we explain the barriers we find are currently impacting blind and visually impaired (VI) students' access to STEM as well as some tools to navigate creating more equitable and accessible spaces to support blind/VI students in STEM. More specifically, we provide general recommendations for working with blind/VI students using a student-centered approach to planning and daily interactions, followed by tips and tools for preparing accessible materials and a case study on how to use learning outcomes to modify course activities to be more useful for blind/VI students, and lastly we provide recommendations for important collaborations.

The paper describes an engaged scholarship course at a large public research university on the west coast of the United States. The pilot course introduces students to the scholarship on disability framed within the cultural studies of sport. Participants engage with existing literature while actively participating in goalball, a sport designed for the blind or visually impaired. Through narrative analyses of participants, three themes emerged within this engaged scholarship experience: (a) an increased sensitivity to disability issues through an academic and somatic experience; (b) challenging ableism by privileging visual impairment in a sports context; and (c) envisioning political action by creating community among unlikely partners. Based upon research findings from this pilot study, the paper proposes an integrated model of sport and disability studies at the postsecondary level, bringing together campus and community, combining academic and athletic curriculum and integrating sighted and visually impaired participants. One important outcome of the course has been to help redefine the popular adage of the blind leading the blind from an ableist metaphor to an expression of emancipatory education.

Disparate approaches to assessment pursue differing purposes. Clinical assessment interviews like the Australian early numeracy interview (ENI; Clarke et al. 2002) or its German version ElementarMathematisches BasisInterview (EMBI; Peter-Koop et al. 2007) can be used to gain insights into children's mathematical thinking and aim at providing a basis for instruction and intervention. In practical trials in inclusive classrooms, the EMBI proves as suitable for the use in inclusive mathematics education. However, this interview reaches its limits in the case of sensory impairments such as blindness or severe visual impairment. This paper presents a modified version of the EMBI for children with visual impairments and the analysis of respective case study data. In addition to the description of mathematical abilities and understanding in terms of growth points, a more sophisticated competence grid is used for a more detailed analysis of children's competencies. Both the adaptation of the interview and the competence grid are critically reviewed in this paper.

The issue this paper addresses is the lack of attention to inclusivity of people with visual impairments in the maker movement. To capture major challenges which blind makers are faced with in makerspaces and to learn how to pursue a more accessible making ecology, three online communities for blind makers (The Blind Arduino Blog; Raspberry VI; and Blind Electronics) have been qualitatively explored based on the autoethnographic approach. As a result, three imperative challenges that need attention in designing inclusive maker tools have been highlighted: (1) inaccessible/undocumented instructions for maker toolkits; (2) a less tangible design of making board; and (3) a lack of multi-sensory modules. Three corresponding practical recommendations drawing from the blind makers' know-hows along with author's personal experience as a blind maker, are suggested. This paper contributes to improving the current awareness of accessibility aspects of the maker movement to invite another marginalized group into its discourse.

The educational research literature has promoted integrating students with disabilities into mainstream classrooms since the 1970s. In 2007, the Japanese government amended the School Educational Law, which has increased the number of educational opportunities available to students with disabilities. At the same time, the Japanese education system is, increasingly, following the global trend of promoting English as a foreign language (EFL) education at every level of the education system. There are approximately 1.64 million visually impaired people in Japan. Of these, an estimated 187,800 are blind. Even as the disability rights movement in Japan advances its agenda of barrier-free access, the processes through which blind students learn (and can be taught) foreign languages has not been well described within the broader educational community. In this paper, I will present the results of an interview study conducted with student and teacher participants at a school for the visually impaired in Japan. In this study, I sought to address two research foci: (1) what best practices can support teachers in conducting classes with visually impaired students; and (2) how visually impaired students relate to and engage with their EFL classes. Through my analysis of the interview data, I identified three core themes: (1) the importance of targeted needs analysis; (2) the centrality of braille for equity and access; and (3) a tension between traditional educational support systems for visually impaired students in Japan, and what contemporary students increasingly need.

Students with blindness or visual impairment face learning barriers in the typical higher education classroom where a great deal of information is conveyed visually. Instructors can use a variety of strategies to accommodate such students and make visually presented information accessible. One common and inexpensive strategy is the use of tactile graphics, which are graphics created with raised lines or bumps printed on special paper. However, due to the ways tactile information is processed, pedagogically these two-dimensional tactile graphics are not always ideal for understanding course concepts and developing mental models. We describe the benefits and logistics of a promising recent technology, 3D printing, that can benefit visually impaired students. The use of 3D printable designs shared as open educational resources can increase accessibility in the higher education classroom, even for instructors who have no interest in designing tactile learning aids themselves. The technology allows for incremental, iterative improvement and customization. For examples, we describe our experience using a 3D printed learning object in an introductory statistics course with a blind student, and we also describe our experience teaching an interdisciplinary service-learning course in which student teams worked with visually impaired individuals to design new 3D printable educational models.

With approximately six million people who are blind, between the ages of 16-75+ years of age in the U.S., audio description (AD) is one way to increase people with disabilities' access when visual images are involved (American Council of the Blind, 2019). Snyder (2014) described AD as a verbal description of a program (i.e., performing arts, films, cultural events). Furthermore, AD is distinct from an art label, photo caption, or an audio tour offering more than context, but actual description of the situation (Thomson, 2017). In some cases, AD is available at art and cultural museums. This paper imagines AD as a collaborative and reflexive tool for college artists, AD practitioners, blind communities, and gallery curators. This collaborative practice is important because the outcomes can increase shared access accountability, offer participating artists reflexivity, and increase the level of AD accuracy for people with visual impairments.