Blindness & Vision Impairment
Accessibility Guide for Microsoft Products - This Microsoft site provides instructions and assistance in adapting the company's software products for use by persons with visual impairments. The site covers operating systems, browsers, and Microsoft office products.
American Foundation for the Blind - AFB is a nonprofit organization founded in 1921, recognized as Helen Keller’s cause in the United States. Besides offering a number of educational pamphlets, videos, and other information, this site has two very interesting sections: a mentor database and the Helen Keller archives. The Careers & Technology Information Bank (CTIB) is a network of blind people from all 50 states and Canada who use assistive technology at home, at work, or at school, and are able and willing to serve as mentors to others. Helen Keller’s writings are not all available online, but you can read some of them, and there are photographs available.
The Blind Reader's Page - This is a "labor of love" site which has links to hundreds of resources for students who are blind or vision impaired and their families. They include spoken word resources, information on assistive technologies, speech recognition, Braille tutorials, and much more. Unfortunately, the site itself isn't particularly disability-friendly, but the scope of the resources more than makes up for it.
V.I. Guide - A basic, well-organized site with lots of useful information. You’ll find everything from speech-friendly game recommendations to vendors of Braille embossers. Special Education Services has information on Individualized Education Plans and advocacy. The Vision-related Services section offers help with Braille, curriculum adaptations, socialization skills, and even activities in daily living. Other sections on the site have legal and medical information regarding the blind, book recommendations, and lots of links to parenting help sites.
Blindness Resource Center - Links, links and more links. This site offers links to a number of resources: Braille literacy and history, deaf-blindness, organizations, research, university disability programs, eye diseases, you name it. One very interesting link, "Web Homepages," lets you discover more about what it means to be visually impaired. It contains a list of links to the home pages of visually impaired or blind people of all ages. Many of them have helpful links and information, as well as their personal experiences and ideas.
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic National Headquarters - A nonprofit organization, RFB&D is the nation's leading educational lending library of academic and professional textbooks on audio tape from elementary through post-graduate and professional levels. They offer over 75,000 titles in accessible format, as well as other products and services, through an easy-to-use online catalog.
DB-LINK: The National Information Clearinghouse on Children who are Deaf-Blind - DB-LINK is a federally-funded information service that offers information on children ages 0-21 who are deaf-blind. They have many brochures concerning how to interact and communicate with these children, which are available to read online. The site also features two databases: one with bibliographical information on deaf-blindness and one with federal, state and local resources. Both educators and parents will find this information helpful.
The Seeing Eye, Inc. - America’s pioneer guide dog school was founded in 1929. If you are interested in information about a seeing eye dog, visit this site.
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