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Tactile Drawing and Spatial Thinking
In March 2023, I spent three days in New York City with 30 people who were learning and practicing tactile drawing. I am writing this post to describe that rare opportunity. Background To understand why opportunities to learn tactile drawing are rare, it is necessary to start by acknowledging that many sighted people favor some…
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Making History Accessible
I am pleased to announce the release of a digital publication titled Making History Accessible: Toolkit for Multisensory Interpretation. I am proud to have been a member of this collaboration. It details a range of digital and physical/tactile solutions to help make content created by historic sites and other educational facilities more accessible to people…
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Commentary: How Many Braille Readers
In this post, I will discuss a research paper that debunks the misleading, though often-quoted, statistic that only 10% of blind people in the United States read braille. That statistic has been repeated in academic research and in media stories. It is the favorite talking point for those who want to avoid producing materials in…
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Making the Ocean Accessible Through Sound
I have written about sonification, representing data with audio. My earlier posts were about astronomers analyzing data recorded by telescopes in outer space. The Accessible Oceans project also uses sonification to analyze data, but their data was recorded by underwater microphones. “Scientists are finding that people can sometimes pick up more information from their ears…
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Remembering Judy Heumann 1947-2023
The disability rights activist Judith (Judy) Heumann died in Washington, D.C. on the afternoon of March 4, 2023. She was a fearless advocate for inclusion of disabled people in society, and she was an effective organizer of nonviolent protests when officials were not listening. Her advocacy, in solidarity with many others, dramatically improved the quality…
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