Sociology

As I researched about the blind, I focused on their access to emergency facilities and classes in academic institutions. certainly, there is an urgent need to focus more on the blind community because of their peculiarity, hence, access to education and emergency facilities for the blind is truly important and requires improvement. Although all the policies and assistance to the access for the blind are established in official regulations, blind people still experience limited access. Such assistance involves alternative formats of written resources and Braille signs for certain cases. One of the reasons involved in the lack of general access for blind people is the problem of management. Since the necessities of accesses for safety and education are especially critical to the life of the blind, it is insufficient to easily assume that the need for the blind is fully and appropriately satisfied with the existences of such regulations. So, how the society manages the regulations in real life is essential for blind so that everything written in such regulations can be done for the benefit of an average blind individual.
    As I mentioned above, there are blind people who still experience the lack of access. Among all different kinds of access for the blind, the most important thing in routine for blind people would be literacy. Since people with visual impairment cannot read directly, they need to have proper assistances such as alternative formats or personal readers. However, blind people claim that they need more access to written word (Carl). According to an article by Carl Jacobsen, president of the National Federation of the Blind of New York, Although many of us read everything we can get our hands on, we cant get our hands on very much to read. There are services for us, of course. Government entities and nonprofit organizations convert books into Braille, audio or digital form for our use. But only 5 percent of all books published undergo such a conversion. Obviously, blind people have limited access to written word because of the small percentage of books that are actually converted to alternative formats.
    In addition to the lack of accessible books in alternative formats, there is another reason that makes blind people isolated from written resources. The prices for conversions of books are too expensive when compare to the cost of production of the normal print. (Carl)) Therefore, there is a pending problem as to the alternative formats of books for blind people, as well as the price for its conversion. However, Carl Jacobson emphasized the fact that an agreement is currently going on between Google, authors and publishers about making millions of title digitally available for a vast majority of people including those who cannot read printed materials (Carl). Carl Jacobsen informed that the settlement, if approved, will make life easy and provide printed words to as many people as possible. The Google settlement would support blind people to be able to search for books of their choice through the Google searching tools and read excerpts or purchase entire books in a format compatible with their known alternatives. Thus, this proposed Google settlement will give magnificent impact of access to written information for blind people.
    Without the Google settlement, the information that blind people can have access to become highly limited. Moreover, the devastating effect of lack of information has already meant that fewer percentage of blind people graduate from their high school, this has resulted into inability to precede their education to the college and university which in turn has reduced their employment rate. This indicates that there should be more effort to improve this situation for the blind society.
The Google settlement is something that blind people including people who cannot read printed materials look forward to having in future. Then, how about some of the other options that blind people have Are other aids for the blind working properly in real life According to Tasha Chemel who is blind student in Newton North High school, one year, someone forgot to order the ones (text book) I neededlast year, my history book took forever to come. In the interim, I had to listen to it on tape, which doesnt work very well, its been a pain. Sometimes, Tasha Chemel had to do math for three months without text because the Braille version of her textbook did not arrive until after school year began. The sixteen years old who has been blind from birth, must have all her text books converted to Braille, but most times, she does not get them on time. Tasha Chemel said, I should have books as accessible as anyone else, I should not have to waste my time chasing down materials. I want to focus on academics. This clearly indicates that she is facing unfairness as a blind student who is supposed to have equal opportunities like everyone else.
For blind students, it is really important to have text in Braille version on time to catch up work in class. However, this simple conversion of text is not even working well in real life. As an objection to this problem, Stephen Driesler, Executive Director of the school division of the American Association of Publisher said, The system has not worked well for the blind kids. It takes sometimes six months or longer into the school year to get their books Furthermore, converting printed textbooks into Braille is so elaborate that it takes about three months. It means textbooks have to be ordered far in advance of the schools year, but officials often have to wait until budgets are approved in the summer to order books. And sometimes teachers have not made their selections or change their mind at the last minute. (Eileen Curren) But still, I personally believe that this system should have been well developed so that blind people would not feel isolated and have equal access to academic materials. After the invention of the Braille code, there is no any wide-spread reading tool that is more superior to Braille code. If we consider how long it has been after the invention of Braille code, in 1821, it is enough time to have been quiet improved all the systems and tools for the literacy of the blind.
    As high technology meets with the necessary needs for the blind, there is a new portable handheld device called Reader that reads out the concerned text aloud. This high-technology device targets specifically people who are visually impaired. According to Ben Foss, researcher in assistive technologies in Intels Digital Health Group, Basically, the intel Reader is a handheld text-to-speech device meant for reading any text aloud and is powered by Intel Atom Chip. This Reader is available at a hefty price of 1499 and additional 400 for the Portable Capture Station. Although it might look little bit expensive,

The work of this small device is incredible. It can store about 500,000 pages of text or 600 pages of scanned book pages. Foss said, I was able to scan a 262-pages book in a half hour and listen to the first chapter of the book while I was doing it. Also, there is a 5-megapixel digital camera in the Reader to take pictures of book pages and the device reads text in plain text as well as mp3 music files.
    Fortunately, this high-tech Reader just came out few weeks ago. The article about the Intel Reader was out on November 9, 2009. This invention has been needed for so long by the blind. However, if this great device should have come out earlier, it will have created more opportunities to have access to the written words. On the other hand, the cost of the device is too expensive for an average blind person, this will in a way limit the usefulness of such device as a means of proffering a permanent solution to the limited access of the blind people to written books. The issue about the price can be minimized if both government and non governmental organization subsidize this for the blind people. Thus, as long as the device, Intel Reader, gradually spread to lives of blind people, I am sure that blind people would face better access to written information. It might take sometime before it becomes popular and generally acceptable by the blind people. On the other hand, there is lack of access to the Braille sign. Sign is probably the most common way to grab attention of viewer, to alarm viewer in various cases, and to inform viewer on certain reasons. However, lack of Braille signs hinders accessibility of people with visual impairment. According to Cara Bollinger, newspaper staff in Truman State University, Handicap accessibility, including Braille signage, should be a priority not a last minute detail. Since the lack of Braille sign really put people who have visual impairment at a severe disadvantage, there should be enough Braille signs around the public areas. There is a standing regulation relating to Braille signs in public buildings. ADA (American Disabilities Act) states that all permanent rooms and spaces in public buildings must be designated with Braille Signs. However, this regulation by ADA is not actually met in the reality.
One of the reasons attributed to the lack of Braille signs in public places is space availability on walls. In many cases of public buildings, there are too many of paints and artworks hanging on the wall where the Braille sign are supposed to be. So, there is nowhere to put the Braille sign for blind people. Although there are specific regulations about the Braille sign in public buildings, it seems that the regulations just exist to make blind people feel equally-treated not to actually support them. In order to really help blind people, all the public places and organizations that control the residential facility should not stop at satisfying the minimum requirement. Rather, they should keep improving the aid for blind people and that would be the only way we can make a better public buildings as the true meaning of Public. Lending helping hands is more than offering proper information to blind people therefore, it is important to keep with the regulation according to the ADA and having proper Braille signage in public buildings would provide equal rights to people with visual impairments.
      While I was looking for the reason why there is Braille sign for the emergency in public places, I found it really ironical. I understood that blind people must have equal opportunity and having Braille signs in public places would satisfy the constitution of equal human rights. However, on the other side, I ask myself does these Braille sign really work Is having Braille sign effective to blind people in emergency how All this were running through me with no concrete answers.
       Having emergency Braille signs in public places might be just to meet the regulated requirements from official organizations and government. Since the main role of having emergency signs in public places are to alarm people in case of emergencies and dangerous situation, the best function that emergency Braille signs can do is simply to save the blind people from danger. However, awareness that they are under circumstance of emergency does not help that much for the blind in real life.
    From this reason, blind people are supposed to have something more than Braille sign which does only notify them of the dangerous situation that they are. Blind people need something that can actually lead them out of the place in emergency situation. Common tool that blind people can easily notice and follow to reach somewhere safe is by using tactile sense. On the streets of Japan, it is not difficult to notice the yellow raised tile. This yellow line is called  Braille Block  which is for person with visual impairments to indicate direction and prevent them from the accidents. This Braille Block is called  Tenjiburokku  (pW0000f00X0v00c0O0    in Japanese and it was invented by Japanese. The Braille Block is composed of many raised directional tiles or pavers.

    As it is on the right side of above pictures, there are two types of tiles, one with protruded rectangle patterns which means go. And the other type with protruded dots which means stop. The two types of tiles are supposed to be felt differently by the tactile sense of feet from blind people so that they can distinguish whether to go or stop. If you try to step on both of types, you can feel Q for the first tile and Q for the second tile. (Tommy Oshima) This Braille Block is certainly designed for blind people to reach out by themselves and it really works as guidance on the streets. The left picture above shows some, some phrases written in Japanese. Those phrases mean This is for blind people. Do not put anything here. In case of obstacle that places on the Braille Block, there are attached warning phrases on the yellow tiles.
    Like the Braille Block that Japan invented and accepted into their common streets, blind people need to have actual tool that directs the way out of danger in emergency. Since Braille sign for emergency in public places does not actually guide blind people out of the danger, applying the Braille Block to public places is a reasonable solution that will ensures that the blind people leave the dangerous vicinity by themselves. The Braille Block would certainly work for blind people in public places since the yellow raised tile works in normal streets.
Although the regulations by government must be maintained properly in every case of public places, not all of public buildings are following the minimum requirements for Braille signs. In order to increase the success of Braille signs in public places, it might be a good idea to have specific organization that controls the requirements by American Disabilities Act. The particular organization will have to be checking up the status of requirements regularly.
    In conclusion, general access for blind people such as Braille sign of emergency in public places and the education of the blind in classes should be more enhanced. Although there are official regulations regarding Braille signs in public places, what blind people really need is direct aid that can help them out of danger in emergency in which the Braille Block could be a good option. It is also important to keep track with the current regulations, so as to know if those requirements are met in all of public places. Specific organization or existing agency that can manage the requirements regularly could also be encouraged. Moreover, for the education of the blind, as technology improves, blind people have many options that are available for the access to written resources. Developing aids from high technology such as intel Reader seem to lead better access to written words. Moreover, the newly produced reader will serve better if the price is made affordable for everybody. It will also be more useful if its production can be speed up so as to cater for the good number of blind people in our community. It is also considerably critical to have special attention to blind students by qualified teachers. As I research about the education of the blind, all the current policies and aids for the education still have a lot of spaces to improve so that blind students would not feel isolated by academic resources.   
As I looked back to what I have been researching for several weeks, I noticed how important it is, to focus on area I never thought of. My brief interest on subject has become my initial observation paper and the topics relating to the access of the blind in the society has been one of my top interests during researching period. Since I never imagine myself to be a blind, this research was really meaningful to me and gave me opportunity to appreciate my sight. As I conclude my research about the access of the blind, I hope that more blind people can have more access to diverse areas such as education and general health. I am sure that there would be a moment that blind people and non-blind people have equal opportunity offered by the society.