THE BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 44, No. 4 April, 2001
Barbara Pierce, Editor
Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT
National Office
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
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National Federation of the Blind
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES
ISSN 0006-8829
Vol. 44, No. 4 April, 2001
Contents
Philadelphia Site of 2001 NFB Convention!
NFB 2001 Washington Seminar
The Guide Horse Foundation: Joke or Jeopardy?
by Eugenia Firth
Braille Contractions
Are They Really So Hard?
by Ramona Walhof
Sacramento Bee Takes Hard Look at Problems
Facing the Blind
Traveling around Philadelphia
by Jim Antonacci
Struggling with the Tough Questions: A Review
by Carol Castellano
The Slate Book: A Review
2001 Convention Attractions
NOPBC-Sponsored Convention Activities for Parents and Kids
by Barbara Cheadle
Hearing Enhancement and Spanish Translation Available at National Conventions
by D. Curtis Willoughby
Another Slant on Fund Raising.......................................................................................................
by Anil Lewis
Dialysis at National Convention:....................................................................................................
by Ed Bryant
Recipes.............................................................................................................................................
Monitor Miniatures...........................................................................................................................
Copyright © 2001 National Federation of the Blind
Philadelphia Site of 2001 NFB Convention!
The 2001 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 1-7. Arrangements have been made to hold our convention at the Philadelphia Marriott, a first-class convention hotel. Room rates are excellent: singles $55 and twins, doubles, triples, and quads $65 a night, plus tax. The hotel is accepting reservations now. A $60-per-room deposit is required to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if notice is given to the hotel of a reservation cancellation before May 29, 2001. The other 50 percent will not be refundable. For reservations call the hotel at (215) 625-2900 or the Marriott toll-free number (800) 228-9290.
Rooms at the Marriott will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations may be made to secure these rooms before May 29, 2001. After that time the hotel will not hold the block of rooms for the convention. In other words, you should get your reservation in soon. We will probably need rooms beyond those we are holding at the Marriott, so those who get their reservations in first will get the rooms we have reserved there.
Participants in the 1999 and 2000 conventions can testify to the gracious hospitality of the Marriott. The Philadelphia Marriott has excellent restaurants, first-rate meeting space, and other top-notch facilities. It is in downtown Philadelphia across the street from the Reading Terminal Market, an establishment which combines the sights, smells, experiences, and tastes of Philadelphia cuisine and the Amish Farmers' Trading Center. Other attractions of Philadelphia are immediately at hand, and of course the convention will be occurring in the spacious ballroom of the Marriott.
The 2001 Convention will follow a Sunday-through-Saturday schedule:
Sunday, July 1 Seminar Day
Monday, July 2 Registration Day
Tuesday, July 3 Board Meeting and Division Day
Wednesday, July 4 Opening Session
Thursday, July 5 Tour Day
Friday, July 6 Banquet Day
Saturday, July 7 Business Session
Plan to be in Philadelphia.
The action of the convention will be there!
NFB 2001 Washington Seminar
From the Editor: The Washington Seminar has come to be one of the busiest and most interesting events in the Federation year. The 2001 seminar was no exception. For the first time ever representatives from all fifty-two affiliates took part in the meetings and headed off to Capitol Hill to meet with legislators.
The first event of the 2001 Washington Seminar was the student party Friday evening, February 2. It gave students a chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones.
All day Saturday the National Association of Blind Students met to discuss building the future in the context of NFB philosophy. Peter Berg, President of the Illinois student division, emceed the banquet that evening. NFB Second Vice President Peggy Elliott delivered a memorable banquet address, and several hundred people had a wonderful time.
Sunday morning throngs of Federationists went off to Baltimore for a galloping tour of the National Center for the Blind. Meantime blind merchants, blind lawyers, Capital Campaign volunteers, and folks interested in a little extra preparation for Capitol Hill all met around the hotel to take care of business.
The great gathering-in meeting began at 5:00 p.m. sharp and lasted its allotted two hours. Before and after the meeting the Mercury Room, nerve center of the Washington Seminar, was fully staffed with volunteers who took down meeting schedules so that Kris Cox would know when meetings with Members of Congress and Senators were taking place in case she wanted to join the discussion. At the same time people were dropping by Mercury to pick up material for the folders they would be taking to each Congressional office.
Sandy Halverson and her crew always do a magnificent job keeping records and taking down reports after the meetings. But it also seems as if each year some things get a bit better. This year we actually had an agenda of the entire set of seminar activities. It was available in both print and Braille. The fact sheets we were using on the Hill were available in print and on cassette as usual, but for the first time they were also provided in Braille.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Federationists wore a path to House and Senate office buildings and could be seen and heard tapping our way all over that complex of buildings. We addressed three issues this year: raising the Social Security work earnings limit, providing Medicare Part B coverage for rehabilitation services for seniors, and a requirement that, if federal funds are available to states for modernizing voting methods, the systems bought with those funds be accessible to print-handicapped voters. The earnings limit bill has been introduced by Congressman Robert Ehrlich and is called the Blind Empowerment Act of 2001. Its bill number is H.R. 498. When we went to press in early March, 233 House Members had already signed on as cosponsors. We had 283 last session, so we still have work to do to get ourselves back to that point, but we have made an excellent start. At this writing Senator McCain has still not introduced a companion bill but is promising to do so almost immediately. His office reports that they have good response among senators interested in being original cosponsors.
Congressmen Adolphus Towns and Martin Frost have now agreed to sponsor a bill containing our Medicare language, though at press time we did not yet have a bill number. As soon as we have this information, everyone will need to go back to House members to urge them to sign on as cosponsors.
Rather than supporting one particular voting reform measure, our fact sheet urged Members of Congress to include our language requiring nonvisual access in any proposal to provide federal funds for voting-machine modernization. Senators Charles Schumer and Sam Brownback did exactly that in their proposal, which was introduced at a press conference Tuesday afternoon of the Washington Seminar. A number of blind people made a point of being present to underscore the importance we place on this matter.
Senator Mitch McConnell, chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration, has now introduced his own bill addressing this matter, and he has agreed to include the NFB language, so we are already clearly making progress on this important issue. What follows is the NFB's 2001 legislative memorandum and the three fact sheets we discussed all over Capitol Hill. Please use them in the months ahead to continue urging our legislators to do what will truly assist blind citizens across this nation.
Legislative Agenda of Blind Americans:
Priorities for the 107th Congress, First Session
Public policies and laws affecting blind people have a profound impact throughout our entire society. Most people know someone who is blind. It may be a friend, a family member, or a coworker. In fact, as many as seventy-five thousand Americans become blind or visually impaired each year. The blind population in the United States is estimated to exceed 1.2 million with millions of others classified as visually impaired. These numbers may not seem large, but the social and economic consequences of blindness directly touch the lives of millions and, at least indirectly, have some impact on everyone.
Public policies and laws that result from misconceptions or lack of information about blindness are often more limiting than the loss of eyesight itself. This is why we have formed the National Federation of the Blind. The Federation's leaders and the vast majority of its members are blind, but anyone is welcome to join in the effort we are making to win understanding and equality in society.
Our priorities for the first session of the 107th Congress reflect an urgent need for action in three specific areas of vital importance to the blind. (For an explanation of these issues, please see the attached fact sheets.)
1. Congress should enact mandated increases in the earnings limit for blind people under Title II of the Social Security Act, similar to those enacted for seniors in 1996. This proposal seeks to reduce the harsh work disincentive of the Social Security earnings limit as it now affects blind beneficiaries.
2. Congress should amend Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to include Medicare coverage for rehabilitation services provided to older individuals who are blind. This proposal is designed to ensure that older blind Medicare beneficiaries have access to the critical rehabilitation services they need to remain independent and contributing members of society.
3. Congress should require nonvisual access to electronic voting technology as a condition for the receipt of federal funds. Many members of Congress have introduced bills which seek to establish a federal grants program to modernize voting systems used in federal elections. The proposed nonvisual access amendment would ensure that blind and visually impaired voters can use the next generation of electronic voting technology resulting from this legislation.
People who are blind are asking for your help to address the priority issues listed in our current agenda. By acting on these priorities in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind, each member of Congress can help build better lives for the blind both today and in the years ahead.
Promoting Work and Fairness for the Blind
Common Sense Work Incentives for Blind Social Security
Beneficiaries
Background
With the 1996 increase in the Social Security earnings limit, Congress provided seniors age sixty-five and older with a powerful incentive to work. In making the case for this change, advocates in Congress explained that more senior citizens would have the opportunity to work, earn, and pay taxes since they could work without fearing the loss of income from Social Security. The 106th Congress further encouraged work among seniors by eliminating the earnings limit altogether.
A law passed in 1977 established the earnings exemption threshold for blind people at the exempt amount used for seniors. In a rush to pass debt-ceiling legislation in 1996, Congress broke this historic link by excluding blind people from the increase in the seniors' earnings limit. This change enacted a series of mandated adjustments in the earnings limit in order to reach an exempt amount of $30,000 in 2002. However, the earnings limit was then completely eliminated altogether effective in January, 2000--two years before the 1996 law was fully in effect. The blind were once again excluded from this change.
As a result a lower earnings limit of $14,880 is in effect for blind people in 2001 as compared to no earnings limit for seniors. Earnings of $14,880 for a blind person who is age sixty-four will cause the complete loss of Social Security benefits until the individual becomes sixty-five. At that point there is no limit to what that same individual can earn. This is the inequity that now exists.
Existing Law
Section 216(i) of the Social Security Act defines "blindness." Therefore, blindness--as with age--can be determined with reasonable certainty. By contrast "disability" is not precisely defined and is determined on the basis of "inability to engage in substantial gainful activity." Compared to evaluating blindness, this is a complex and fairly subjective determination.
Although blindness is precisely defined, monthly benefits are not paid to all persons who are blind but only to those whose earnings (if any) are below the annually adjusted earnings limit. Personal wealth not resulting from current work does not count as earnings and has no effect on eligibility. Only work is penalized. It was the recognition of this fact that led to the increased earnings limit for seniors and its eventual elimination. The situation for seniors prior to 1996 is precisely the same for blind people today.
Proposed Legislation
Congress should enact mandated increases in the earnings limit for blind people similar to those enacted for seniors in 1996. This proposal would be a step towards equity for blind people and reduce the harsh work disincentive policy now in effect. Under this proposal blind individuals would be able to work and earn up to $30,000 without fearing the loss of benefits. Congressman Robert Ehrlich has reintroduced legislation this session to reduce the harsh work disincentives now in place for blind people. Similar legislation is contemplated in the Senate. With 283 Representatives cosponsoring Congressman Ehrlich's bill and fifty-four Senators cosponsoring similar legislation in the 106th Congress, this proposal enjoys broad and bipartisan support.
Need to Remove Work Disincentives
Increasing the earnings limit for blind people will provide more than 100,000 blind beneficiaries with a powerful work incentive. At present a blind individual's earnings must not exceed a strict limit of $1,240 per month. When earnings exceed this exempt amount, the entire sum paid to a primary beneficiary and dependents is abruptly withdrawn after a trial work period.
When a blind person finds work, there is absolutely no assurance that earnings will replace the amount of lost disability benefits after taxes and work expenses are paid. Usually they do not. Therefore few beneficiaries can actually afford to attempt substantial work. Those who do will often sacrifice income and will certainly sacrifice the security they have from the automatic receipt of a monthly check. Increasing the earnings limit will allow blind people to work without being penalized financially for doing so.
Moreover, an increase in the earnings limit would be cost-beneficial. With a 74 percent unemployment rate, the vast majority of working-age individuals who are blind are already beneficiaries. Providing them with a meaningful work incentive would allow them to become taxpayers as well. Members of Congress supported raising the exempt earnings threshold for seniors, and it is only appropriate that they do the same for blind people of working age. The chance to work, earn, and pay taxes is a constructive and valid goal for senior citizens and blind Americans alike.
Medicare Coverage Equity for Older Blind Persons
Background
The aging of seventy-six million American baby boomers and their parents will cause a number of societal challenges. Loss of eyesight, which accompanies advancing age, will be one of them. Today in the United States over 6 million individuals age fifty-five or older have severely impaired vision, and more than half of all blind people are age sixty-five or older. These numbers have doubled in the last thirty years and are expected to double again by 2030. Age-related vision loss is the second leading cause of disability among our country's senior population.
With blindness increasing among seniors, the demand for rehabilitation services is overwhelming. Without these critical services vision loss can destroy an older individual's quality of life and ability to live independently. Yet only 2 percent of seniors are served by current programs. In contrast, older blind individuals who receive rehabilitation services can continue to remain independent and active members of society. The programs that do exist are vastly under-funded, and there is no long-range plan in place to remedy this situation. Consequently older blind individuals are left without the essential support services they need.
Existing Law
The Medicare program--Title XVIII of the Social Security Act--provides health insurance coverage for people age sixty-five and older and for individuals with disabilities who qualify. As originally conceived, this program pays for reasonable and necessary services to prevent illness, maintain health, and restore functioning after injury or disease. Part A of Medicare-- Hospital Insurance--covers hospital services. Part B--Supplementary Medical Insurance--covers a wide range of outpatient services such as physicians' services; physical, occupational, and speech therapy; mental health services; a variety of rehabilitation services; the purchase of durable medical equipment, including wheel chairs; and home health care services. Despite Medicare's coverage of these and many more services, coverage of rehabilitation services for older blind individuals is not provided.
Chapter 2 of Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, authorizes grants to designated state vocational rehabilitation agencies to provide independent living rehabilitation services to older persons who are blind and visually impaired. These services include visual screening; independent living skills training, such as orientation and mobility and daily living skills; and other appropriate rehabilitative services needed for older individuals to live independently. This program is currently funded at $20 million for fiscal year 2001. With this amount the program will serve fewer than 5 percent of those in need.
Proposed Legislation
Congress should amend Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to include Medicare coverage for rehabilitation services provided to older individuals who are blind. This proposal is designed to ensure that older blind Medicare beneficiaries have access to critical rehabilitation services. The proposed amendments define rehabilitation services as those provided to an older blind individual under Chapter 2 of Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended, approved pursuant to regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. Services would be provided by the state vocational rehabilitation agency or others chosen by the beneficiary and supervised by such agency. The term "older individual who is blind" means "an individual age fifty-five or older whose severe visual impairment makes competitive employment difficult to attain but for whom independent living goals are feasible." This is identical to the definition currently in Chapter 2 of Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act.
As with Chapter 2 of Title VII, only state vocational rehabilitation agencies could receive payment for services provided in this program. This approach utilizes a well-established and accountable system for the delivery of rehabilitation services to older blind Medicare beneficiaries while also allowing beneficiaries to exercise choice. Title XVIII allows hospitals, community rehabilitation centers, home healthcare centers, and other entities enrolled as Medicare service providers to receive payment for services. Under this proposal state vocational rehabilitation agencies could also enroll as Medicare service providers. Once a service is approved by a state Medicare carrier, state agencies could submit claims and receive payment for rehabilitation services they provide to older blind Medicare beneficiaries.
Need for Legislation
Costs associated with age-related vision loss are substantial. For example, the Alliance on Aging Research reports that visual impairment is one of the top four reasons why seniors lose their independence, contributing to medical and long-term care costs of $26 billion annually. In addition, the Framingham Eye Study (ongoing) reports that 18 percent of all hip fractures among seniors can be attributed to age-related vision loss. At $35,000 for treatment and care in each case, the total annual cost attributable to hip fractures due to visual impairment exceeds $2 billion.
Rehabilitation services for older blind persons teach safe travel, daily living skills, and use of adaptive aids and devices. Individuals who receive these services are able to continue living independently in their own homes and communities. This is consistent with the goals of Medicare. By receiving these services covered by Medicare, seniors who become blind can regain self-reliance and self-worth. This will allow them to remain active and valued members of their communities for as long as possible. Without these services older blind individuals often become dependent and isolated.
The Blind and Electronic Voting Technology
Ensuring Nonvisual Access to the Next Generation
of Voting Systems
Background
Microchip and digital technology will undoubtedly change the way Americans vote. In the wake of the 2000 election, states and political subdivisions are scrambling to update their antiquated voting machines with electronic and computer-based voting systems. Arizona is already testing Internet voting, and other states have purchased touch screen digital voting machines.
Individual states develop and apply their own standards to approve or certify voting systems used in local jurisdictions. The needs of blind voters are rarely considered during this process. As a result virtually all electronic voting technology is unusable by as many as eight million people who are blind or cannot see a print ballot.
Existing Law
With the enactment of the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act, Congress showed an interest in how blind people vote by approving the Voter Assistance Provision. Prior to the establishment of this provision, election officials could insist on entering the polling booth with a blind voter to assist the individual in casting a ballot. Today individuals with disabilities can vote using the assistance of whomever they choose. Voter assistance has been the only alternative for blind voters in the era of the paper ballot and mechanical voting machines. It is still a valid voting method. However, it does not allow blind people to cast a secret ballot or independently confirm their vote.
Two years after the adoption of the voters' assistance provision, Congress enacted the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act. This Act requires states and political subdivisions to make available "aids" to assist with registration and voting in federal elections. The Act has not been amended since its enactment. Consequently its provisions do not address today's electronic voting and nonvisual-access technology.
Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act as amended in 1998 requires federal departments and agencies to ensure that their electronic and information technology is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Several states have also enacted similar laws primarily focusing on nonvisual access. However, neither these state laws nor Section 508 have been applied to electronic voting technologies. Recently Texas enacted specific legislation requiring all voting equipment to be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Proposed Amendment
Congress should require nonvisual access to electronic voting technology as a condition for the receipt of federal funds. Many members of Congress have introduced bills which seek to establish a federal grants program to modernize voting systems used in federal elections. The proposed nonvisual access amendment would ensure that blind and visually impaired voters can use the next generation of electronic voting technology resulting from this legislation.
Under the amendment the federal department or agency administering the grants program would publish nonvisual-access standards for the development and procurement of electronic voting technology. Compliance with these standards would be one of the criteria for receipt of federal funds. Without this amendment nonvisual access, such as speech and Braille output, will be overlooked in the rush to use modern technology in voting.
Need for Legislation
According to the National Center on Policy Analysis, low voter turnout is primarily due to inconvenient voting procedures. Confirming this, an Ohio study pointed to "intimidating" voting methods as a significant reason why people don't vote. For blind people these factors are compounded by voting systems which are not only inconvenient but unusable. Inaccessible voting systems discourage blind voters from exercising the most fundamental right of citizenship--the right to vote.
Modern technologies (such as synthesized speech and speech-activated software) allow electronic information to be accessed through visual and nonvisual means. Using these technologies, blind people would be able to vote privately and independently. The Nonvisual-Access Amendment extends the convenience and benefits of electronic voting systems to sighted and blind voters alike. Any action taken during the 107th Congress to modernize voting systems will impact the way Americans vote for decades to come. Consequently needs of blind voters must not be overlooked.
The Guide Horse Foundation: Joke or Jeopardy?
by Eugenia Firth
From the Editor: If you read newspapers, watch television, or use email, you have probably heard something recently about the Guide Horse Foundation and its plans to train miniature horses as guides for blind people. I frankly laughed the first time I read one of these articles. Then I read another piece describing a blind man in Maine who preferred to make a spectacle of himself bumping into things and people rather than admit that he was blind. He expects all this to change as soon as he is given a guide horse. He believes that he will no longer mind going places once he has his trusty little horse to show him the way.
He is not alone, of course, in hoping that something outside himself will accomplish the hard work of coming to terms with vision loss. We who have walked this path know that disappointment and disillusionment lie ahead of this man and every blind person who hopes to short-circuit the adjustment-to-blindness process.
Now the leaders of the National Association of Guide Dog Users, our guide dog division, have discovered how much more disturbing and even dangerous the guide horse plan is than we had first thought. Eugenia Firth is the Association's Secretary. In the following article she describes what she and NAGDU President Suzanne Whalen have discovered about the Guide Horse Foundation. This is what she says:
Within the past year I have become aware of an organization called the Guide Horse Foundation, located in Kitrell, North Carolina. It is the brainchild of Don and Janet Burleson. Mr. and Mrs. Burleson propose to train miniature horses to serve as guides for the blind. Indeed the organization has already advertised that it plans to serve two students, Cheryl King of Washington state and Dan Shaw of Elsworth, Maine. Mrs. Burleson is a retired horse trainer, and Mr. Burleson designs Web sites.
As far as I have been able to determine from my reading of several news stories about them, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Burleson has any knowledge of blind people and our needs. Furthermore Mrs. Burleson knows nothing about training guide animals for the blind. Suzanne Whalen, the president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU), discovered this in an extensive telephone interview with Mrs. Burleson. This interview demonstrated that the Burlesons have made no real effort to learn proper training methods for guides as they have evolved during the past seventy‑two years, first by The Seeing Eye and then by other guide dog schools. Also in her conversation Suzanne discovered many disadvantages of miniature horses as guides, disadvantages which my reading on the subject has corroborated.
I first became interested in the Guide Horse Foundation through our division listserv, in which interested contributors discuss issues affecting guide dogs and their owners. When I first heard about miniature horses as guides, I had the same reaction as many other blind people: I laughed the concept off as a joke. However, I began to hear more about this idea, so I decided to start researching the topic for myself.
The chief problems with the Guide Horse Foundation spring from the fact that, even if the horses can learn guide work, they are inflexible and ill-adapted to dealing with changing situations. By Mrs. Burleson's own admissions Guide Horse Foundation personnel know nothing about training guides for the blind and have made very little effort to ensure that the horses will be safe guides before accepting applicants. In addition, they do not adhere to the procedures normally followed in the guide dog industry to ensure that blind people receive the best matches possible.
Mrs. Burleson told Suzanne that guide horses are not meant to replace guide dogs but only to offer another choice to blind horse lovers. She went on to say that the Guide Horse Foundation is experimenting at this stage to see whether miniature horses can work as safe, effective guides. I wonder if Mr. Shaw and Ms. King realize that they are the subjects of an experiment? Are they prepared to risk their lives for an uncertain outcome? What compelling reason could any blind person have for risking life and limb to obtain questionable mobility in these days when the methodologies for teaching cane travel and guide dog travel are well established?
The only blind people the Guide Horse Foundation proposes to serve who might become that desperate are blind wheelchair users. Mrs. Burleson has chosen Nevada, one of her larger guide horses, to be the first guide horse to pull a wheelchair while guiding a blind person. Southeastern Guide Dogs, Inc., the only guide dog school currently teaching wheelchair guiding, has refined its program over the past several years. However, they started, like every other guide dog school, working with walking blind people. Mrs. Burleson, on the other hand, hasn't yet proven guide horses either safe or effective guides for walking blind people, much less for those who use wheelchairs.
Last, but certainly not least, the media have presented blind people in a poor light when describing the services of the Foundation. Although an organization cannot control what the news media finally choose to say, its attitude as expressed to the reporter does convey its philosophy and its view of the people it serves. An organization with a positive philosophy of blindness would try, whenever interviewed by the media, to present a positive attitude about blind people and their abilities. This, as far as I can see, has not been the case with the Guide Horse Foundation. The news media have focused solely on the cuteness of the horses--in one story a blind woman paraded back and forth across a street with a miniature horse decked out in children's tennis shoes. Only once, and this was a story televised by the Discovery Channel, have I heard a reporter mention the problems. He said: "There's a whole stable full of problems." I wonder if this man realized just how right he was and what an unbelievable understatement he had made. The first guide dog school, The Seeing Eye, did not seek media attention until Morris Frank, the first person to use a Seeing Eye dog, had proven to himself and to his instructors that guide dogs were safe, effective mobility aids. Yet Guide Horse Foundation representatives, even though they claim their program is experimental, have been featured on "Good Morning America," CNN, Fox News, and in the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today, People magazine, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, to name only a few.
The leaders of the National Association of Guide Dog Users believe that our community is facing a very real threat which will require collective action of the sort for which the NFB is famous. No existing legislation that I know of provides protection from irresponsible guide-animal training. Pigs are supposed to be smarter than dogs. One day soon we may find pot-bellied pigs being ballyhooed as ideal guides--the Philadelphia Inquirer recently carried a story about two women who talked their way onto a US Airways flight with a 300-pound so-called therapy pig. Unless we draw the line and insist on common sense, the variety of ill-conceived notions and poorly trained animals imposed on blind people will be limited only by the imagination and creativity of well-meaning enthusiasts.
Let us examine our immediate threat more closely. Unlike guide dogs and of course canes, guide horses limit their owners to rural areas and the suburbs. True, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Mr. Shaw plans to bring Cuddles, his guide horse, to Atlanta and ride the Metro during his training. However, whether he likes it or not, if he wants to keep a guide horse, he will need to return fairly soon to a rural area so that Cuddles can graze and run around outside. Guide horses can live for thirty years, which is one of their advantages as guides; but, according to Mrs. Burleson, the owner must stay in the rural environment during that time to benefit from that long life span.
Suzanne discovered some other disturbing limitations to miniature horses. If you have a guide horse, forget about riding in taxis, Greyhound buses, or any other vehicle that requires your guide to curl up; horses cannot curl up. While they can, according to Mrs. Burleson, be taught to lie under tables, they prefer to stand. Even if they do lie down, they must spread themselves out. The complications arising from this fact are obvious to any experienced, independent blind traveler. However, inexperienced travelers, such as the newly blind and those happy to remain dependent upon sighted friends and family members who drive roomier vehicles, may be persuaded that thirty years of guide service is precious enough to sacrifice all possibility of independence. What we are talking about, however, is thirty years of prison--the prison of dependency and limitation.
Mrs. Burleson mentioned to Suzanne some additional limitations. For example, guide horses cannot hold their waste products as long as guide dogs can. According to the Guide Horse Foundation Web site, excursions longer than five hours are not recommended without precautions, presumably those diapers the police horses wear. Guide dogs are somewhat flexible in this department. Responsible guide dog owners can tailor relief schedules to their own work schedules. However, if you have a guide horse, your horse's schedule will determine yours.
At first, when Suzanne questioned Mrs. Burleson about graduates being required to remain in a rural or suburban setting in order to benefit from a guide horse, her first response was to say that of course blind people wouldn't move. Suzanne pointed out that blind people, like everybody else, refuse to stay where they are put. Mrs. Burleson's response was that, if the blind person had to move to a city, he or she could just give up the guide horse. There goes the longevity advantage. Unless you plan never to accept urban job offers, never to marry Mr. or Ms. Right and move to the big city, never to accept that wonderful scholarship you were just offered, you can't count on the advertised advantage of a thirty-year guide horse.
Mrs. Burleson has also failed to consider the emotional pain of giving up a horse. In fact, I fear that some people who have come to love their guide horses will refuse to give them up, instead subjecting the animals to a living situation for which they are unsuited. If that happens, even one problem guide horse could cause access problems for guide dog owners.
During the telephone interview Suzanne asked Mrs. Burleson to clarify what she planned to teach guide horses. She could not do this clearly. The Foundation's Web site gives a very good description of this process, but Mrs. Burleson, the trainer, was unable to outline her curriculum. At one point the subject of assessment came up. The Guide Horse Foundation plans to bring Mr. Shaw to the school for a week of assessment, yet Mrs. Burleson could not tell Suzanne what they planned to assess or how they were going to accomplish it. An established guide dog school can tell you what skills a blind person must possess to work successfully with a guide dog, and they can explain how they evaluate a person's performance with a guide dog. Mrs. Burleson had no idea what she was going to do with Mr. Shaw. Suzanne was speaking to her toward the end of January, and Shaw is scheduled to arrive some time in March. As a guide dog user with thirty‑one years of experience, I would be unwilling to work with a guide dog instructor who exhibited so little knowledge of methodology or techniques.
Suzanne and Mrs. Burleson discussed established procedures in guide dog schools for choosing which dog a person is to receive. Cuddles, one of the horses, has already been chosen for Mr. Shaw, even though Mrs. Burleson has never evaluated him or formed a clear idea of what she is looking for in a solid working team. In a guide dog school an instructor takes the student on a walk to determine speed, pull, and the student's balance while walking. Based on conversations with the student and other assessments, the instructor matches the personality of the guide dog with the personality of the person.
No responsible guide dog school would choose a dog or make a definite match with as little information as Mrs. Burleson has used to choose Cuddles for Mr. Shaw. When Suzanne pointed out this problem, Mrs. Burleson admitted that she knew nothing about how guide dog schools pick dogs for blind people even though this process is one of the most critical aspects of training. In fact, Mrs. Burleson said that Cuddles would work for anyone but that, if this relationship didn't work out, she had nine other horses from which to pick.
All of this adds up to one thing: trouble for any blind person unwise or unfortunate enough to choose this method of mobility. We in the Federation could just sit back and let this school fail naturally, which is likely to happen eventually. However, before the school fails, blind people will be at risk, and they will make exhibitions of themselves with ridiculous‑looking guides wearing tennis shoes. These are not the booties we guide dog users sometimes use for our dogs' protection against hot concrete or snowy sidewalks; these are cutdown children's tennis shoes on the feet of tiny horses.
In addition, because of the relief problems, guide dog users may well face increased discrimination in restaurants, apartment buildings, and other public accommodations. The Board of the National Association of Guide Dog Users has voted to bring a resolution opposing the Guide Horse Foundation and its activities to our convention this summer for consideration. My fellow Federationists, we need the support of every cane and guide dog user. All of us have an interest in blind people being presented in a positive way. We guide dog users must protect our rights or risk losing them.
Braille Contractions: Are They Really So Hard?
by Ramona Walhof
From the Editor: Ramona Walhof is Secretary of the National Federation of the Blind. She is also a fluent Braille reader and experienced Braille teacher. This is what she says:
In the October, 2000, Braille Monitor an article appeared entitled "Trends in the Use of Braille Contractions in the United States: Implications for UBC Decisions" by Sally Mangold. Dr. Sally Mangold is a respected teacher and researcher. I have no comment on the UBC. I have not carefully studied it, and I operate on the assumption that Braille readers will adjust to whatever the experts decide to do. If too many experts involve themselves in the argument, the process may never be completed. However, Dr. Mangold discussed much more than the UBC in her article, and I am vitally interested in the instruction of Braille.
In the 1990s we have heard increasing discussion about teaching grade I or grade II Braille. Consider the following two quotes from Sally Mangold: "Grade I is being used more with beginning readers of all ages," and "Grade I Braille is used for instruction of newly blinded youth and adults."
First of all, why don't we eliminate the terms grade I and grade II Braille? Grade I Braille means uncontracted Braille; grade II means contracted Braille. These terms are clear to everyone, and, while we are talking about change, this would be as useful as any. Long-time Braille users understand Grade I and Grade II, but others do not. The very terms indicate that one somehow must complete grade I in order to be ready for grade II. This is a false assumption and makes Braille seem more daunting than it needs to be.
Second, let us not underestimate the ability of blind students‑‑children or adults. Yes, there are many blind children with several disabilities, and their needs must receive individual attention. Yes, contractions seem difficult to sighted people who all read and write uncontracted (grade I) print.
Dr. Mangold says that parents and classroom teachers prefer to teach uncontracted Braille because it equates more closely with print. This is true, and we must take that into consideration. However, the most important issue is what will assist more people to learn to use Braille as the wonderfully effective and useful means of reading and writing it should be for the blind. If contracted Braille helps to improve Braille reading speed, it is important. Many Braille readers are very certain that this is the case. Some, however, argue that the truth of this conviction is not well established. So let's do some studies to be sure.
My experience is that adults learn to use Braille and to depend on it for personal notes and reading books much more quickly if they learn signs--the more signs the better. In the 1970s I was teaching Braille to adults, and they were becoming bogged down and discouraged before they developed good skill in either reading or writing. We were using the old Illinois Series, three small paper‑bound volumes, to complete the instruction of standard Braille. Adult students were spending most of their time trying to improve their ability to feel the dots. This slowed them down. The books required each student to read an entire page for each letter of the alphabet. The students could learn the new letters by reading far less than a page. We could skip part of the page, but most students were reluctant to do that.
My colleague Mabel Nading and I believed that we could speed up the process of learning Braille by introducing signs sooner and in a different order. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Our students had been taking from six months to a year to complete standard Braille, and some never learned the whole system. With our new lessons our students needed from three weeks to six months to complete standard Braille, and very few were unable to learn the entire system. Even those who used jumbo Braille loved the signs. It saved them time and work in writing. They did not need to be experts. If one sign was missed when writing, so be it.
Student enthusiasm increased amazingly, as you can imagine. And the ways they used Braille were just as exciting. Now there are several different books available for Braille instruction. Whichever one is used, signs may or may not be regarded as a huge difficulty. Good teachers know that their attitudes about matters such as these have a major influence on the attitudes of their students.
My experience with blind children is that they do not regard signs as problems, except in certain individual situations. Alphabetic word signs are simple memory work and easily taught along with each letter: b‑but, c‑can, d‑do, etc. Many other signs consist entirely of letters of the alphabet: fr‑friend, ll‑little, rcv‑receive, cd‑could, etc. These are easy, friendly signs. Students do become confused when learning all the rules for using signs, but these are not required to recognize the contractions.
In testing spelling, obviously students use uncontracted Braille. This need not be a problem. I have seen a number of Braille spelling books that show the uncontracted word followed by the same word in its contracted form.
If signs are not taught initially, then when and how? Sighted children are taught to write printed letters in kindergarten and first grade. Then in second or third grade they are taught to write cursive. When the whole group learns together, it works. A systematic approach to teaching blind children contractions could also work. However, I have real concern that the same teachers who are not well equipped to teach signs to beginning readers will still not be well equipped to teach signs later on.
I have heard other discussions regarding Braille instruction of young blind children. Teachers tend to lament that not enough books are produced without contractions. This is a good argument for teaching contractions early. We do not want to deprive children or adults of a good variety of interesting material to read. As long as the majority of books and magazines are produced in contracted Braille, it is to the advantage of the new reader to learn the contractions as soon as possible.
If a teacher who can teach contracted Braille is not available, by all means let the student learn uncontracted Braille. But let us not pretend that this decision does not carry some risk. No matter how young the student, it is a disadvantage for him or her not to be able to pick up other Braille materials and read them. If the reading level is too advanced, a child can still pick out familiar words and phrases. This is an important part of learning to read for some sighted children just as for blind students.
I can understand that parents might enjoy spelling out words with their youngsters. There is no harm in this. Let those who are producing books for young children in uncontracted Braille continue to do so. They can serve a purpose. But this does not make contractions bad.
In a utopian society parents and teachers would all know standard Braille. We all know that is not going to happen. In the real world it seems to me we must make available as much Braille as possible, the best instruction possible, as much appropriate reading material as possible, and as much moral support from school and family as possible. Since we do not live in utopia, we must do the best we can in the circumstances. But let's not lose sight of what ought to be. And let's not forget about teaching signs to students who start out reading and writing uncontracted Braille.
I would be interested in the reactions of other Braille readers and teachers to these issues. Dr. Mangold might also find such reactions interesting. The matter is too important not to address. This is an essential aspect of Braille literacy. How many blind children will have the opportunity to be truly literate and skilled in Braille?
Have you considered leaving a gift to the National Federation of the Blind in your will? By preparing a will now, you can assure that those administering your estate will avoid unnecessary delays, legal complications, and substantial tax costs. A will is a common device used to leave a substantial gift to charity. A gift in your will to the NFB can be of any size and will be used to help blind people. Here are some useful hints in preparing your will:
! Make a list of everything you want to leave (your estate).
! Decide how and to whom you want to leave these assets.
! Consult an attorney (one you know or one we can help you find).
! Make certain you thoroughly understand your will before you sign it.
For more information contact the National Federation of the Blind, Special Gifts, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998, (410) 659-9314, fax (410) 685-5653.
Sacramento Bee Takes Hard Look at Problems Facing the Blind
From the Editor: On January 28 and 29, 2001, a Sacramento Bee staff writer, Melanie Payne, published a total of five articles, each on some aspect of the complex of problems facing today's blind citizens. Although she focused on California and its statistics, what she said holds pretty much true across the country. Many of the people she interviewed were Federationists. Here are the articles as they appeared:
Setting Sights on Good Jobs:
Fighting Stereotypes, Rejection
All in Day's Work for the Blind
by Melanie Payne
January 28--Linda O'Neal, Brenda Sanden, and Paul Carver can swap horror stories about finding a job. All three are college-educated, experienced, and qualified, in some cases overqualified, for the work they were seeking.
Their complaints vary. Some employers held them to higher standards than their other employees. Other employers looked at them for jobs that required only remedial skills. And some outright refused to interview them. But O'Neal, Sanden, and Carver do have one other thing in common. All three are blind.
Linda O'Neal was laid off from her last job as a relay operator at Sprint about four years ago. The relay operators act as intermediaries between deaf and hearing callers. Some 300 of those operators lost their jobs when Sprint lost the California relay contract to a lower bidder.
Within months most of the relay operators O'Neal knew had been re‑employed, including some to other positions in Sprint. It was easy for many of the relay operators to find new jobs. The economy was booming, and relay operators were smart, quick typists with good communication skills. But unlike O'Neal they weren't blind.
O'Neal said she expected it would take awhile for her to find a job. "But I didn't expect it to take two years." She credits her Department of Rehabilitation counselor with helping her finally land a job as a customer service representative at the California State Automobile Association.
Although relieved to find a job, O'Neal missed her previous work. As a relay operator she used a Braille display to read the information typed in by a deaf person and then would type in the hearing person's response. It was fun and different every day. She was familiar with the technology. She was confident and comfortable in the job.
The new job was much different. O'Neal was frustrated by the technology, the difficulty of learning a new job, and a horrific commute.
"There were a couple of times during the first year that it seemed like it was way too much," O'Neal said. "There were a couple of times I almost gave up. Had there been another job, I would have given up." O'Neal learned to use the Windows‑based software (which is hard for blind people because it is based more on graphics than text) and now enjoys the job. But her transportation problems persist. O'Neal and her guide dog Miranda commute from their Natomas apartment to Rancho Cordova by bus, light rail, and foot. If she makes great time, she gets there in an hour and twenty minutes. On a bad day the trip can be two-and-a-half hours long. O'Neal said, when she got her first job, she felt as if she had to prove herself. Work harder than anyone else because she was blind. Prove to her employer that he should have hired her.
Even now she feels some guilt about her situation. She is grateful in a way most employees are not over the adaptive equipment her company had to purchase so that she could do her customer-service job.
"The employer is expected to purchase any adaptive software or adaptive equipment," O'Neal said. "That to me is wrong. That employer shouldn't be expected to [provide the blind employee anything special]."
When she was looking for a job, several companies told her that it was going to cost too much money to hire her, O'Neal said. "We can't afford that in our budget," she was told. That's why now, O'Neal explained, "I feel beholden in a sense, that they gave me a chance."
Davis resident Brenda Sanden has worked as a contract specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service for the past eight years.
For years before that, however, Sanden was underemployed despite an undergraduate degree from Amherst College in Massachusetts and a law degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Sanden had wanted to be an employment law attorney "because I had been so frustrated myself." But Sanden's problems were not just discrimination. Despite a good education Sanden lacked two skills blind people need to get employed‑‑she didn't know Braille, and she couldn't travel independently. Because Sanden's blindness was caused by juvenile macular degeneration, which can be a gradual deterioration of eyesight, she was encouraged as a child to use her residual sight. As a result she said, "I learned to hide my blindness." She used magnifiers and large print to read and didn't learn Braille.
She stayed in the same community growing up and going to college, so she learned to get around without using a cane because the environment was familiar to her. Both things changed as she got older. Her vision deteriorated, and she left Amherst. "I didn't realize how poor my vision was until I left my community," Sanden lamented, where she "had learned the layout ... so well." "I was afraid," Sanden said. She realized she had never been on her own; there had always been a family member or friend who guided her around.
"I realized it wasn't cool to go to a job interview with someone leading you up to the employer's door," she said. When she couldn't find a job, she went on disability and found the experience "demeaning, degrading, and boring," she said. "It affects your self‑esteem." So she went to work doing the only job she could find, booking reservations for the Marriott Hotel chain, where she worked for two years. But the work wasn't challenging, and the job was a dead end, she said.
Sanden went to school to learn cane travel so she could become independently mobile. She also learned Braille, and although she's not great at it, she can use it for filing, making notes for herself, and keeping things organized. Sanden also decided to take the civil service test and see if she could get a job with the federal government. She reasoned that with a high enough score they would have to hire her.
She scored in the eightieth percentile. It qualified her for a job, but that was only part of the battle. She had to get into a department that would get her an assistant who could read for her. People also questioned her ability to do the job. "When I first was hired, there was a lot of resistance. People couldn't understand how a visually impaired or blind person could do contracting," she said. As a result she's tried to work harder and smarter. And, over the years, she's had to defend her work to skeptical co‑workers and supervisors. "I've had to prove myself harder than anyone else," she said.
Paul Carver just wanted the chance to prove himself. The forty‑year‑old Rancho Cordova resident has been working with computers since the early 1980s. And now he assembles them, distinguishing the various components through touch. The pins allow him to tell the difference between a network card and a video card. The other components are just as easy to differentiate, except for the keyboard port and the mouse port. They're the only ones that give him trouble, except on a Compaq, where there is a small, raised picture of each over the port. Carver can feel it.
He laughs a bit sarcastically when asked if he thought they did that to make it easier for people who couldn't see. It's the only time the affable Carver gives any indication of being jaded. There are prejudice and misconceptions about blindness, Carver said. "When a blind person walks into an interview...blindness colors the perception of what that person can do."
When Carver, a computer engineer, was looking for a job, he registered with employment agencies. One called him back with an interview for a job. He'd never been to the agency. "Blind" doesn't appear on his resume. The guy from the agency offered to drive him to the interview so they could meet and talk. Carver agreed. When the day for the interview came, Carver stood in front of his house waiting for his ride. He heard a car go by slowly, pass him, and turn around. It came back again and stopped in front of the house. Carver walked to the door, got into the car, and introduced himself.
The man wouldn't start the car and drive away. "Isn't the interview in fifteen minutes," Carver asked him. The man answered him by stating the obvious: "You're blind." Carver said they spent the next forty-five minutes sitting at the curb in front of his house. The man told Carver he should have told him he was blind. "If I had told you, would you be sitting here now?" Carver asked. He answered, "No." Carver, angry, went back into his house. The next day he called the agency and told the man that he could come to his house so that he could demonstrate the technology he used and how he could do a job. And if he didn't agree to at least come and see, Carver would sue him.
The man showed up, and Carver spent an hour with him. The next day he called with a job interview. But Carver didn't need it; he'd already found another job. Carver has been working as an information systems analyst for the Office of Emergency Services Disaster Assistance Division for five years now. When he went to his job interview, he was escorted through a labyrinth‑like office building. Months later, when he was talking to the man that hired him, he thanked him for "giving (him) the opportunity to do the job." According to Carver, his boss said, "Well, the thing that clinched it for me was that you were the only one who interviewed for the job who could find the way out of the building without assistance." "I found that amusing," Carver said.
Special Agency for Blind Sought:
Advocacy Groups Fault Rehabilitation Department
by Melanie Payne
January 28--It was a historic moment. One night early this year over wine and Chinese food, members of the National Federation of the Blind of California and the members of the California Council of the Blind set aside some thirty years of bickering to come together for a cause.
They, along with other advocacy groups for the blind, have formed the Blindness Alliance for Rehabilitation Change. The alliance is going up against what they say is a multimillion dollar bureaucracy--the Department of Rehabilitation.
The alliance says the best way to serve the state's estimated 600,000 blind and visually impaired people is to stop lumping them in with other disabled people. Instead they recommend establishing a Commission for the Blind, an agency specifically designed to meet the needs of the blind.
Alliance members say that about 70 percent of working age blind people are out of work despite the booming economy and the estimated $25 million a year that the Department of Rehabilitation spends on services for the blind. California's unemployment rate now hovers at about 3.2 percent.
The Department of Rehabilitation's mission is to assist those with all types of disabilities in gaining employment and becoming independent. Critics say that, because the department isn't focused on the needs of the blind, it doesn't adequately help the blind.
The thirty-eight-year-old department "clearly isn't established for blind people," said Nancy Burns, president of the National Federation of the Blind of California and former counselor for the Department of Rehabilitation.
"There are special needs and training that a blind person needs to be independent," Burns said. But the department doesn't understand that," she said, "and it isn't giving people the skills they need to be able to work."
Erin Treadwell, a department spokeswoman, said the department had no position on the commission and declined to comment on it.
The department's director, Catherine Campisi, who moved into the position last year, was unavailable to comment because of a busy schedule, Treadwell said. Treadwell did, however, elaborate on the changes under way at the Department of Rehabilitation to address some of the blind community's concerns.
In the last six months, Treadwell said, the department hired a new deputy director of specialized service, who will oversee services to the blind and deaf. It is also reinstituting a requirement that counselors for the blind and deaf exhibit additional competency in order to serve blind and deaf clients.
The department, which has been understaffed, has launched a nationwide search for qualified rehabilitation counselors, Treadwell added. Critics contend, however, that this is too little, too late.
Nationwide, an estimated 70 percent of blind people of working age are without jobs, a figure that has remained unchanged despite record low unemployment levels for the sighted population, according to statistics from the National [American] Foundation for the Blind.
In fiscal 1999-2000 the Department of Rehabilitation placed in jobs roughly 323 people who were blind or visually impaired, including nineteen who were self-employed. Ten people in the Sacramento district got jobs with the assistance of the Department of Rehabilitation.
Bryan Bashin, executive director for the Society for the Blind in Sacramento, is harshly critical of the job the Department of Rehabilitation is doing to help the blind find jobs.
"California really lags behind," Bashin said. "If you live in Texas and you're blind, you have seven times the chance of getting a job than if you live in California." Bashin recognizes that the department has begun to change. Still, he said, the system needs "a fundamental, structural rebuilding."
The unemployment rate for the blind and what activists see as the failure of the department to address adequately the situation has galvanized support for a separate Commission for the Blind. The Department of Rehabilitation has "six layers of bureaucracy" between the rehabilitation counselor and the director, said Gil Johnson, director of the National Employment Program for the American Foundation for the Blind.
By its own admission the Department of Rehabilitation is spending an estimated $25 million annually on services for the blind. It successfully meets the rehabilitation goals for 1,240 of the roughly 4,900 clients who use its services each year. Of those 1,240, about 300 are placed in jobs.
The department's total budget is $444 million. It spends about $316 million on vocational rehabilitation. According to Johnson the department has seventy rehabilitation counselors that work with blind clients. Half of those counselors provide job services; the others work with clients on independent living skills.
That means an average of four to five blind people were placed in employment by each of the department's seventy counselors last year, Johnson said. The national average, he said, is fifteen. In addition the average salary of a person placed in a job through the Department of Rehabilitation is $350 a week.
Oregon illustrates the flexibility of a commission for the blind over an all-encompassing Department of Rehabilitation. The fifty-five-staff-member commission for the blind placed 114 blind people in jobs last year, with an average weekly salary of $423. The blind population in Oregon numbers about 70,000--about one-tenth California's number of blind and severely visually impaired. But the Oregon Commission for the Blind placed in jobs one-third as many as were placed by the Department of Rehabilitation.
Frank Synoground, assistant director of rehabilitation services for the Oregon Commission for the Blind and a former California resident, said that the commission is "more consumer-driven" than a rehabilitation agency that serves all disabilities. Four of the seven commission board members are blind, he said. The administrator of the agency serves "at the pleasure of the board," he said, rather than as a political appointee.
Yet some critics say a small organization wouldn't be practical in a state like California because it would duplicate $25 million in administrative services that are already done by the Department of Rehabilitation.
Even if that's true, commission supporters argue, employed blind people would more than make up for the money. There are more than 100,000 blind people of working age in the state who aren't paying taxes and are collecting welfare, disability payments, and other forms of public assistance, said Bashin, who estimates those programs cost taxpayers $10,000 a year per person.
Dan Kysor, director of governmental affairs for the California Council of the Blind, is supporting a bill that would set up a nine-member commission--including at least five blind or visually impaired members--for the blind in California. He's enlisted the support of state Senator John Burton, who introduced SB 105, a bill to establish a Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Burton said the Department of Rehabilitation "grossly under-utilized" the services of California's thirty community agencies that serve the blind.
Although Kysor said he expects the majority of legislators to support the bill, he expects resistance to come from the governor's office. A spokesman for the governor had no comment on the commission bill since it was submitted only recently and hadn't been reviewed yet.
Opening Work Door:Blind Must Overcome Prejudice, Lack of Skills
by Melanie Payne
January 29--Because of society's negative perception of blind people's abilities and because many blind people lack skills they need to work--such as independent mobility and Braille literacy--about 70 percent of blind people of working age nationally are jobless, said Bryan Bashin, executive director of the Society for the Blind in Sacramento. That compares to an overall unemployment rate of about 3.2 percent in California.
As a group the blind are solid citizens, Bashin said. Many are well educated, commit few crimes, and indulge in little substance abuse, he said.
Employers are crying for this type of worker, he said‑‑except, it seems, when they are blind. Many employers won't give blind workers a chance, Bashin said. They don't believe that a blind person can do the work. But often the problem is with the blind themselves, who lack the necessary work skills because they never received proper training.
Brenda Sanden, a Davis woman who is blind, didn't learn Braille or travel skills until she was an adult. "I had great parents," Sanden said. "But they were too protective." As a result, she said, when she became an adult, "I didn't have confidence."
Castro Valley resident Priscilla Ching said that young blind people often lack role models and don't know that an independent life is available to them. "I didn't know successful blind people," Ching said. Ching, who became blind at fourteen, was encouraged to rely on what she described as "unreliable" residual vision. She didn't learn to use a cane. She also didn't learn Braille.
The mobility issue, however, was a particular problem for the independent‑minded woman. She had to be led around, a situation she didn't like, but she didn't know she had a choice, she said.
That was until she went to the University of California, Davis, where she befriended another blind student who used the long white cane. She saw how her friend was independent and liberated. Ching decided to attend the Louisiana Center for the Blind, where she learned both Braille and cane travel. She went on to earn a master's degree in educational psychology with an emphasis in orientation and mobility.
And she excelled at both. After completing cane-travel instruction, Ching traveled by herself to Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. She recently returned from a solo trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. At the end of January she'll head to the East Coast, traveling to Washington, D.C., and Boston.
"Having good travel skills sets you free," Ching said. "It (the cane) allows you to do what you want to do when you want to do it." Many people like Sanden and Ching don't learn these skills as children, Bashin said. And it can severely affect their ability to get a job in adulthood.
Braille literacy is one of the best correlations with employment, Bashin said. Although Braille literacy among the blind is about 10 percent, the Braille literacy rate is 93 percent among blind people who are employed.
Braille is a code of raised dots that allows the blind to read by touch. Invented in the early nineteenth century, Braille was slow to catch on. But by the 1950s, the rate of Braille literacy among the blind was around 60 percent. Then, in the 1960s, the culture changed. Braille was thought to be clunky and slow. Tape recorders and recorded speech‑‑books on tape and talking computers‑‑were the future.
"Mechanical speech meant the death of Braille," Bashin said, even though mechanical speech is inappropriate for many tasks. Hearing is not the same as reading, even when the reading is done with the fingers instead of the eyes.
Try, for instance, following a recipe after only hearing the directions. What about hearing a mathematical formula? Or a list of inventory items? But speech replaced Braille first in recordings and then with computers, and the Braille literacy rate dropped to where it is today, around 10 percent.
Mechanical speech wasn't the only thing that killed Braille, said Nancy Burns, president of the National Federation of the Blind of California. The educational policies of the 1960s and 1970s also hurt. It used to be that blind people were sent away to residential schools, where they learned "daily living skills," how to get around independently and live as a blind person, in addition to academic subjects, Burns said.
And, most important, they learned to read Braille. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the movement began to keep blind children in their communities. Although this kept children with their families, which was a good thing, she said, they didn't get good training in Braille and travel skills in public schools.
For one thing there weren't enough teachers who specialized in teaching skills to the blind. If a school had only two or three blind children, the school couldn't have a full-time instructor for them, so the job was turned over to itinerant teachers.
That's still the way it's done today, she said. In Victorville, for example, the instructor who teaches Braille to blind children is there only two hours a week. The result is illiterate young adults, Burns said. They can't go to work, she said, because they can't read and write.
High‑Tech Devices Ease Adaptation
by Melanie Payne
January 29--Technology has made it possible for blind people to do all kinds of work. By using optical equipment that raises images on paper and software that reads e‑mail messages aloud, the blind can serve as call center operators, computer programmers, attorneys, and even astrophysicists. However, that hasn't translated to more of the 600,000 blind people in California finding employment. "With technology, we thought we would see a great upsurge in employment for blind people," said Catherine Skivers, president of the California Council of the Blind. Instead, she said, many employers either don't know the technology exists or don't want to believe it can be used by blind people to be effective on the job. Kent Cullers, who is blind, is director of research and development for the SETI Institute in Mountainview. SETI, which is an acronym for "search for extraterrestrial intelligence," was formerly a NASA program and is now a private company. It's most famous for the project that listens for radio signals from space that may be deliberate or inadvertent transmissions from other planets.
Cullers, who is in his early fifties, describes himself as a "child of high tech." He has always tried to be at the forefront of using technology for the blind. He used an Optacon camera that scanned a page and produced the image with raised pins, allowing a blind person to feel what a photo or text looked like. "I proofed my Ph.D. thesis on a gadget like that, one letter at a time," Cullers said.
Since then the technology has advanced and has made it much easier for blind people to interact with the sighted world. Humanware, a company located in Loomis, produces and sells state‑of‑the‑art adaptive equipment for the blind. Al Puzzuoli, a blind employee at Humanware who is a specialist in products for the blind, found a number of items to assist him in his sales job. One was software that read off his e‑mail messages in a synthesized voice. Puzzuoli listened to them at the rate of 500 words per minute--about five times faster than average speech and incomprehensible to all but the blind people in the room.
"I have speech going at a pretty good rate," Puzzuoli said, explaining that through practice most blind people can discern speech at a faster rate. It's really a necessity, Puzzuoli said, since speech is slower than reading. Puzzuoli used another item to scan his mail. He could then choose to have it read aloud to him, again at a 500‑word speed. Other items at Puzzuoli's disposal were Braille writers that allowed him to type text into a computer and then print it out in Braille to proofread or to send off to a blind person.
In most jobs, "with the right adaptive equipment," said Humanware President Jim Halliday, "a blind person could be as productive" as a sighted person. The problem, Halliday said, is to get the employer over the initial reluctance to hire a blind person. Some employers don't know how far the adaptive equipment has come. Sometimes they fear that it will be too expensive. Some equipment is very costly. A Braille display, for example, may cost $10,000. But the employee may be able to get by with a speech display, which is $1,000. "You're selling the employer not on the technology," Halliday said, "but on the blind person being able to do the job."
Some blind people were doing their jobs before computer technology and many of the advances in adaptive equipment became available. Ralph Black, for instance, is one. Black, the general counsel for the chancellor's office of the California Community Colleges, started working as an attorney there in 1980. Adaptive equipment, Black said, "has certainly made my job easier." But more than that, he said, it has allowed him to stay competitive and "operate in the same environment everyone else is operating in." His employer has been quite generous in providing equipment, Black said.
He has a scanner that allows him to scan and read documents and a Braille printer to produce Braille documents for meetings. He has a small notetaker that uses speech and Braille output. And his computer has speech output and a Braille display. Some blind people worry that employers will be reluctant to hire them because they might assume the Americans with Disabilities Act will obligate them to provide expensive adaptive equipment. But that is not the case, said Erin Treadwell, spokeswoman for the Department of Rehabilitation.
The "expertise is out there" to design a way for employees to do jobs with sometimes very inexpensive adaptive equipment, Treadwell said. She admitted the ADA has scared away some employers who fear that hiring a blind person opens them up to lawsuits and "special treatment." But the cost of adaptive technology shouldn't be used against blind people, Treadwell said.
"All of those concerns can be addressed, removed, or mitigated," Treadwell said. "It's just having an employer with the guts to give it a try."
Vending Job Program Draws Chorus of Critics
by Melanie Payne
January 29--More than sixty-five years after it was approved by Congress, the federal act that established a program to recruit and train the blind to operate vending services in government buildings is coming under attack.
Critics have argued that the Business Enterprise Program makes a few vendors wealthy while others scrape by and that it spends too much money to benefit too few blind people.
According to the American Foundation for the Blind, the state Department of Rehabilitation spent about $8 million to $10 million in the last fiscal year on the program. The money goes toward recruiting and training vendors, helping them purchase inventory, and other administrative costs.
However, only nine new vendors were set up during that time, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. Seven vending locations closed. Others criticize the program as socialism for the blind. The BEP vendors own and operate snack stands, coffee bars, cafeterias, and vending machine operations throughout the state. The vendors aren't really independent, critics say, but operate under a paternalistic program, a relic from the days when blind people had to be taken care of.
Joni Patche, who is blind, used to be one of the naysayers. She had planned to be a college graduate and go on to a career as a translator. She remembers passing the blind vendors as she commuted on the subway in her hometown of Boston and feeling as if she could do better.
Now Patche is one of the 155 vendors in California's BEP program. It's not welfare at all, Patche said. "It's hard work." No one would work this hard for welfare. Patche is at Joni's Java Junction, a snack bar and coffee shop located in the Department of Rehabilitation building in Sacramento, every weekday from 5:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
Even on weekends, when the shop is closed, Patche comes in to check on things. She started in 1983 with $1,700 in inventory. She now has about $17,000 in inventory and several employees. Patche's husband Paul is also a BEP vendor with a snack bar in another state office building.
Patche operates through incredible organization, employing some sighted employees, and with the assistance of a consultant. The consultant helps her with displays and new ideas that might make her business more profitable.
Employees will tell her if equipment needs to be cleaned or something is amiss. Customers also help out, Patche said, telling her if an employee "looks scruffy." But for the most part she's on her own, Patche said.
"It's all-consuming," she said. "If I want to take a vacation, I have to find someone to work for me." The shops are profitable, but it's not quite enough to meet the Patches' needs. They still receive disability payments that supplement the business income for the family of five.
That too, however, is a criticism of the program. Vendors don't have the incentive that regular business owners have to turn a profit--there's always supplemental disability from the government. But still many vendors need it. Among the state's 155 BEP vendors fourteen made in excess of $100,000 in profits last year. But fifty-three vendors made less than $20,000.
Erin Treadwell, the spokeswoman for the state Department of Rehabilitation, said she's heard the criticisms, and in the past people have tried to revamp the program. But, she said, the minute that the department starts to tinker with the BEP program to make it more equitable or to make vendors more competitive, there's an uproar from the blind community.
Traveling around Philadelphia
by Jim Antonacci
From the Editor: Jim Antonacci, President of the NFB of Pennsylvania, has traveled for years around the City of Brotherly Love. In the following short article he tells you what you need to know to get to the Marriott when you arrive in Philadelphia and then how to find what you want in the heart of the city. If you take the time to read what he says carefully and memorize a few street names and their order, you will be in great shape to enjoy the area the first week in July. If you have not yet made your reservation, look back at the information at the beginning of this issue and reserve your room immediately:
Now that you have read in recent Monitors about some of the things that Philadelphia has to offer you during the 2001 convention of the National Federation of the Blind, you will want to know how to get around the city.
First let's explain some of the geography of the center-city area. You will be happy to learn that almost all of the streets in the downtown area run north and south or east and west. The Delaware River is the eastern border of the city, separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The north-south street nearest the river, therefore, is aptly named Delaware Avenue. The next street to the west is First Street, followed by Second, etc., up to Sixty-Ninth Street. However, Fourteenth Street is known as Broad Street. Market Street is the divider between North and South Philadelphia and runs east and west through the entire city. As you proceed north from Market Street, the first street is Filbert Street (one-half block north), followed by Arch and then Race Streets. As you proceed south from Market, the streets are named Chestnut, Sansom, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, Lombard, and South Street. The Marriott Hotel is between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets (east to west) and Market and Filbert (south to north). The streets were laid out so that each full block is one-tenth of a mile long. For example, if you began at Twelfth and Market Streets and walked seven blocks east to Fifth Street, then one block south to Chestnut, you would arrive at the corner where Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell are located, after having walked only eight-tenths of a mile.
Philadelphia has an excellent system of busses, trolleys, subways, and commuter rail services, which funnel through the central business district of the city. You might say that, if all roads in Italy lead to Rome, in Philadelphia all public transportation leads to the Marriott Hotel.
If you are flying into the city, you have your choice of transportation methods to get to the Marriott. If you choose to take a cab, be advised that a flat-rate charge of $20 each way is in effect. You can also make your way to the ground transportation area of the airport (near baggage claim) and call one of the available shuttle services on a free phone. The cost for these is about $8 per person for a one‑way trip. During regular business hours these run every half hour, but, if you plan to take a flight arriving in the wee hours of the morning or you have an excessive amount of baggage, you may need to make special arrangements with the services. Lady Liberty Transportation can be reached at (215) 724‑8888. USA Limo Shuttle Services is at (215) 546‑4044.
You can also take the regional rail service, running every thirty minutes, which stops at each airline concourse and brings you to within a block of the hotel. This is a regular commuter rail service with conduc