Legal blindness is defined as having visual acuity no better than 20/200 with correction in the better eye, or having a field of vision that subtends an angle no more than 20 degrees.
Low-vision is defined as a visual impairment that is not so severe that the student cannot read print of any kind.
Most students with visual impairments fall into the low-vision category, while less would qualify as legally blind. Not all students with legal blindness can read Braille.
AT tools focus on audio and tactile formats.
Some students with visual impairments use assistive technologies such as monocular and binocular glasses, canes, and service animals.
Looks can be deceiving.Most students with visual impairments do not read Braille, use a cane or have a guide dog. Even if a student is legally blind, it may not be obvious to others. Tools focus on magnification and audio formats.
Students with visual impairments account for approximately 16% of reported disabilities of students with disabilities in higher education. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999187.pdf
[For more information on the above, see "Review Accommodations" in the FAME Rights and Responsibilities module]
- Hardware Tools
- Optical Magnifiers– handheld magnifying glasses and magnification bars.
- Closed-Circuit TeleVision (CCTV)– CCTVs magnify printed materials.
- Refreshable Braille Displays – a "marquis" of Braille dots that can be used with a computer to give a tactile representation of the computer information.
- Software Tools
- Screen Magnification Software– used to enlarge the view on the computer screen.
- Screen Readers – software that reads aloud using synthetic text-to-speech the contents of the computer screen.
- Alternate Formats
- Braille– a tactile representation of textual material.
- Large Print – print with a font size of at least 16 points. Non-serif fonts such as Arial are preferred.
- E-text – electronic materials that can be used with text-to-speech technology or Braille to represent the information in an accessible format.
- Books-on-Tape – audio recordings of material, usually textbooks.
 | Video Clip: Screenreader Demo – DOIT Duration: 1.9 minutes  |
Screen Magnification Video Demohttp://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/video/screen_magnification.asp
Duration: 1.8 minutes
