Utah People's Post

The Latest News from the Beehive State

Sunday, August 14, 2022
Log in
  • National News
    • Female Caseworker Killed & Doctor Shot in Philadelphia
  • State News
    • Car Chase Leads to Drug Arrest
  • Tech & Science
  • Health
    • How to Prepare For Ticks Season
    • Magical Weight Loss Bean Scam
  • Sports
  • Business
You are here: Home / National News / Visually Impaired Students Can Be At The Top of Education

Visually Impaired Students Can Be At The Top of Education

January 13, 2015 Posted by Staff

braille

The Braille Challenge competition offers blind students the chance to bring out the best in them in one of the hardest Braille literacy contests. Visually impaired students can be at the top of education, or so the competition hopes to show.

In January, February and March forty regional competitions for blind students from the 1st to the 12th grade are planned. These competitions will test children’s skills in spelling, proof reading, speed, accuracy, reading comprehension and charts and graphs. The sixty finalists, which will include kids from each age group, will be invited in June to the Braille Institute, for the Braille Challenge Finals.

The American House for the Blind said that the United States has a number of sixty thousand legally blind students. Only 5,000 of them can read Braille, a writing and reading system in which characters are represented by raised dots.
The first Braille Challenge was held fifteen years ago with the purpose of stopping the deterioration of the Braille literacy rate, because blind students were being moved from special schools to public schools. Access to Braille education was limited, after the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. Since then, Braille education started to decline. In the 60s, fifty percent of legally blind students were capable to read Braille. Nowadays the percentage has dropped to 8.5 %.

Experts say that Braille is a must for blind students and without it, they cant take notes or process the information. Blind students who are attending public schools are studying with audio books, but when studying algebra with an audio book, it’s almost impossible to do equations while listening to the math lesson.

The use of Braille literacy is crucial for blind people to have success professionally and academically. 75% of blind adults in the U.S. don’t have a job but almost 99% of the ones who have jobs know how to read Braille, said the American Foundation for the Blind.
The events held by the Braille Institute gather a lot of visually impaired students, as they come to socialize and meet others like them and who are capable of reading Braille.

Tiffany Zhao, an 18 year-old freshman at the University of California-Berkeley, has been attending this event for twelve years. She won three times and one of her prizes was a Braille speech computer, which she uses daily to translate the books of her colleagues into Braille. Zhao said that the high demands of the competition helped her to prepare for the university standards. She admitted that the most difficult part of the competition were the charts and graphs. She lost her sight when she was a child due to a rare type of cancer. Her parents agreed to enter her in the competition so she could meet kids having the same condition. She made a lot of friends that she keeps in touch with trough social media platforms.
The main purpose of the Braille Challenge is to teach students to set high expectations and the competition is meant to be hard.
Image Source: Medeguru

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email

Filed Under: National News, Tech & Science Tagged With: blind people need to learn braille, braille challenge competition, competition for blind students, education for blind students in the united states, learn to read braille

Woman working out at the gym

Just 23% of Americans Are Working Out Enough in Their Spare Time

June 29, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Poliovirus Therapy Gives Brain Cancer Patients New Hope (Study)

June 29, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

United Airlines airplane

Passenger Mysteriously Dies on United Airlines flight Bound for Boston

June 28, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Breakfast sandwich

Here Are Some Foods No Nutritionist Would Ever Eat

June 27, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Poppy flower

UN Warns of Surge in Opium-based Drugs and Cocaine Supply

June 27, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

U.S.-Canada border

French Jogger Detained 2 Weeks for Accidentally Crossing Border

June 26, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Plus size model

Normalizing Plus Size Could Fuel Obesity Crisis (Study)

June 25, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Giant manta ray

Unique Manta Ray Nursery Spotted off Texas Coast

June 23, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

The rainbow flag

WHO Scraps Transgenderism from List of Mental Illnesses

June 22, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

456 People Dead at U.K. Hospital after Taking too Many Painkillers

June 21, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Kenyan girls dancing

Kenyans Facing Poor Nutrition as Supermarket Shopping Is on the Rise

June 20, 2018 By Amelia Donovan

Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy GDPR
  • Staff
  • Terms and Conditions

Recent Posts

  • Just 23% of Americans Are Working Out Enough in Their Spare Time
  • Poliovirus Therapy Gives Brain Cancer Patients New Hope (Study)
  • Passenger Mysteriously Dies on United Airlines flight Bound for Boston
  • Here Are Some Foods No Nutritionist Would Ever Eat
  • UN Warns of Surge in Opium-based Drugs and Cocaine Supply
  • French Jogger Detained 2 Weeks for Accidentally Crossing Border
  • Normalizing Plus Size Could Fuel Obesity Crisis (Study)

Related Articles

  • U.S.-Canada border

    French Jogger Detained 2 Weeks for Accidentally Crossing Border

    Jun 26, 2018
  • Billboard on Texas Interstate Kindly Asking Liberals to Leave

    Jun 20, 2018
  • Crosses on a wall

    Religious People Live Longer, Are Less Stressed than Atheists, Study

    Jun 15, 2018
  • U.S. Border Patrol Agents surveying border

    Border Patrol Busts 51K People Trying to illegally Cross Border

    Jun 7, 2018
  • Antineutrino Detector

    Scientists Discover an Even More Elusive Particle than Neutrinos

    Jun 5, 2018
  • Funny Albert Einstein

    Time Travel Is Already Here

    May 30, 2018
  • Alabama 4-Year-Old Is Feeding the Homeless in a Superhero Cape

    May 22, 2018
  • Planet 2003UB313

    Scientists Found Evidence that Elusive Planet 9 May Be Real

    May 18, 2018
  • Electronic cigarette in man's hand

    Electronic Cigarette Blows Up in Florida Man’s Face, Killing Him

    May 17, 2018
  • CIA Hacking Tool Leaker Faces Child Porn Charges

    May 16, 2018

Categories

  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • National News
  • Nature
  • Provo
  • Salt Lake News
  • Science
  • Sports
  • State News
  • Tech & Science
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
  • West Jordan
  • West Valley City
  • World

Copyright © 2022 utahpeoplespost.com

About · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Site Map · Contact