Nat-Cent News

806 Pages·2001·46.7 MB·English

NEWS
'NAT-CENT
13
Published 3 times a year by:
Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults
111 Middle Neck Rd.
Sands Point, N.Y. 11050
Tel.: [phone] (Voice)
516-944-8637 (TTY)
Operated by Helen Keller Services for the Blind
—
EDITOR ROBERT J. SMITHDAS, L.H.D., Litt. D., L.H.D.
—
Editorial Assistant Allison Burrows
Vol. 31 No. 2
Winter 2001
NAT-CENT NEWS
published three times a
is
year in large print and braille. It is available
who
free of charge for all readers are deaf-
blind and for libraries. There is a $10.00
subscription fee for all other readers.
FOR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS: The bank
on which a draft drawn must have a branch
is
office in or be affiliated with, a bank in the
,
United States.
The activities of the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults
reported herein were supported by funds from the U.S. Department of Education, Office
of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. However, the opinions or policies
expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Education.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial: In Retrospect 1
Do You Want To Go
Sailing? 4
Couldn't See a Thing 5
I
Lynn
Jansen: Vision for
Herself and Her Deaf-Blind
Group 9
Deaf Blind and Living
9
Life to the Limit 14
A
Bright Light in the
Darkness 21
Woman
Pines Deaf-Blind
Is Anticipating the Future 32
Equal Opportunity
For Defense 38
Woman
This Doesn't
Lack the Vision
to Create 44
When Dreams Come True 46
Here and There 52
RETROSPECT
EDITORIAL:
IN
LHD
By Robert J. Smithdas, LHD, Litt.D,
Now that we have completed the first full
year of a new century and a new millennium,
seems appropriate to review the progress
it
that has been made in providing much needed
programs as well as aids and devices for deaf-
blind citizens in the United States. The last
fifty years of the twentieth century in
particular, brought tremendous changes in
rehabilitation and training programs for all
A
new
disabled people. host of technologies
were developed (and are still developing) to
help disabled people overcome the limitations
of their disabilities through use of assistive
devices and technologies that today provide
disabled individuals with a growing sense of
independence.
When
I began attending St. John's
University in September of 1947, the Perkins
Brailler was not yet on the market. There
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were no braille displays for computers, and
computers were huge machines used only by
professional workers. Transcribing textbooks
into braille was done by hundreds of dedicated
volunteer transcribers who used board slates
and styluses, punching out the letters of the
My
own
text a dot at a time. college textbooks
had to be ripped into sections and sent to
transcribers all over the country to be copied
into braille, tediously, by hand.
I was probably the first deaf-blind person
to learn to travel with the long cane developed
by Dr. Hoover of the Veteran's
Administration after World War II. It was
Mowat
not until the mid-seventies that
sensors, laser canes and various other
came
electronic mobility devices into being.
When moved my own
I first into
apartment in 1956, there were no convenient
vibrating signaling devices to let one know if
the doorbell or telephone were ringing. You
had to use your creative sense to solve such
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