With growing concern over the low academic achievements of American youth, summer camping programs can be part of the solution while providing new, exciting experiences for their campers. Camp Courage, a residential camp in Minnesota for youth with disabilities, has developed technology-rich offerings for its campers in "Teen Camp."
DotsPlus Braille is a two dimensional Braille format designed to express complex mathematical equations in a format similar to standard print math notation. DotsPlus Braille allows standard Braille and tactile graphical math symbols to be used simultaneously within spatial equations in a form identical to that used in standard printed math documents.
According to the website for the Americans with Disabilities Act:
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, State and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation. It also mandates the establishment of TDD/telephone relay services.
Some learning disabilities make it difficult for students to acquire math skills. Students may not be able to fully understand mathematics content in standard print form because of the additional mental processing required to interpret math expressions. They may react to math problems on the page as signals to do something, rather than as meaningful sentences that need to be read for understanding. In particular, they may face difficulties with self-verbalizing math equations. Using synthetic speech to verbalize digital mathematics expressions may aid students with these challenges.
Mathematics and science are disciplines that have historically communicated ideas visually. This is especially true of formulas and equations, where relationships between parts are understood by their spacial relationship to one another. Communicating these same ideas to people who are unable to see poses significant challenges. However, a variety of solutions exist.
Yes, there are funds available specifically for producing captioning. While the U.S. Department of Education is still a major source of caption funding, a good deal of captioning today is made possible by corporate support. Corporate contributions supplement or match those allotted by a program's producer and its distributor (i.e., the broadcast or cable network or syndicator).
Nemeth Code is a special type of braille used for math and science notations. It was developed in 1946 by Dr. Abraham Nemeth as part of his doctoral studies in mathematics. In 1952, the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) accepted Nemeth Code as the standard code for representing math and science expressions in braille. With Nemeth Code, one can render all mathematical and technical documents into six-dot braille, including expressions in these areas:
Lab science classes like chemistry create unique access challenges for some students with disabilities. However, resources exist to help educators maximize the participation of all students in these important learning experiences.
The rights and responsibilities of high school students with disabilities are different from those of college students with disabilities. Understanding the legal and practical issues involved can help students with disabilities successfully transition from high school to college.
Calculators are commonly used at every education level. Calculators that can perform statistical or scientific calculations, manipulate matrices, and plot functions on a graph are particularly helpful in the study of higher-level mathematics. Although most scientific or graphing calculators are not accessible to someone who does not have usable sight, there are options available that allow students who are blind to use these tools successfully.