Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness

Over 250 orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors who are also teachers of children with visual impairments were surveyed to determine their roles and responsibilities, satisfaction with their university training, and current jobs. The majority of the respondents were middle-aged, Caucasian women with master's degrees who were satisfied with their training and jobs. The respondents spent the largest proportion of their workweeks performing the duties of teachers of children with visual impairments and fewer hours teaching O&M techniques in public schools.

This article describes an eight-dot computer braille notation, COBRA, with integrated mathematical and scientific notation that achieves immediate print-braille compatibility through one-to-one representation of letters and other characters. Text can be entered and manipulated from the braille or the Qwerty keyboard and can be viewed simultaneously in the same format on the braille display and monitor screen. Thus, translation to and from braille is unnecessary.

This study identified the perceptions of six college students with visual impairments on what influenced their social activity on campus. It found that the influences were different for these students than for traditional students as identified in the literature. The findings suggest that it is necessary to intervene in the social development of young people with visual impairments before they attend college and to help them overcome such barriers as peers’ discomfort with them in social situations and difficulties with transportation.

This study examined the changes in team membership for 18 students with deaf-blindness from 1994-95 to 1997–98. The findings highlight the many people who are involved in each student's education and the high level of turnover among professional staff from year to year. Implications for managing changes in team membership are discussed, and recommendations for future research are offered.