Affordable Colleges Online (AC) has developed a Guide for Visual Disabilities on how colleges help visually impaired and blind students succeed. The guide explores how visual impairments impact the educational experience, what colleges are doing for their visually impaired students, and includes numerous resources, as well insight and tips from experts and a list of scholarships and grants.
Dan Schuessler, CEO of AC, says:
“We created this guideto show how today’s colleges and universities are improving their technologyand resources to help students with visual disabilities earn degrees. The newguide also provides a list of online technology and literary resources studentswith visual impairments can use on their own to get ahead.”
The guide also contains:
– A breakdownof assistive technology for learning
– College success tips for students with visual impairments
– A detailed look at accommodations colleges are making for fully and partiallyblind students
– A print screen option
– Full JAWS compatibility
Two experts contributed to the development ofthis guide, including Chris Danielson, Director of Public Relations for theNational Federation of the Blind, and Marcus Madsen, Senior Disability ServicesAdvisor at Capella University.
An additional guide recently was released by www.bestcolleges.com which assists students who are blind and visually impaired, their families, and others who advise them. This guide starts by defining what a visual impairment is; then it details statistics concerning average income and education level achieved by persons who are blind and visually impaired. Later this guide offers suggestions for handling barriers that students who are blind and visually impaired may face, such as a lack of accessibility and professors who have little or no understanding of the student’s disability. Next the guide outlines organizations who assist students who are blind and visually impaired and provides a list of entities that offer scholarships for these students. Finally, the guide includes an interview with a student; the interview adds additional recommendations for finding the right college or university and suggestions for making the experience as barrier-free as possible.
The guide’s authors describe the need and functions of this guide as follows:
The statistics are alarming. Fewer than 15% ofpeople with vision loss earn their bachelor’s degree as compared to about 30%of the general population. Whatever the reason, one way to mitigate thiseducation gap is to give students with vision loss the information needed tosuccessfully transition to college with additional support given by financialaid resources such as scholarships and grants. Our guide serves to give studentswith visual impairments the tools necessary to tackle their education withconfidence. View the guide at http://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/college-planning-with-visual-impairments/.
