[Art_beyond_sight_educators] questions

[fnugg at online.no]

Hi,

I have been wondering about a few things and would like to hear what you 
think.

1. When and where is it most likely that a visually impaired person will 
encounter tactile graphics? School, museums, sports activities, 
galleries etc.

I guess this is an "it all depends type of question" but am thinking 
that it would be at school. That it, when a student recieves school 
books in braille it is often that they will also recieve tactile 
graphics and that once leaving school they will have little access to 
tactile graphics even though books in braille are available. Does that 
seem correct?

2. There are two "understandings" connected to understanding an 
information graphic for everyone. 1. understanding the form of it, how 
it is drawn etc.   2. interpreting what the lines making up the graph 
means.

a. Learning to understand information graphics (graphs, maps, pie charts 
etc)  for both sighted and visually impaired students is dependent upon 
exposure and practice to such information.  Does this seem true?

That is if a sighted child does never encounters a graph at all he/she 
will not be able to understand it - either in the first way of 
understanding or in the second way.  Does this seem true?

That more experience a sighted child has with information graphics, the 
greater chances are that he/she will be able to understand more 
difficult graphics. Does this seem correct?

3. A sighted student has constant exposure to information graphics both 
in school and out of school. A student who is blind does not have 
constant exposure to information graphics - neither in school or outside 
of school. This is a generalization but does it seem correct? If this is 
so, would it then follow that it would be difficult for the blind 
student to understand information graphics in both ways

The reason I am asking this is that I feel that it is in school that 
most VI students encounter tactile graphics and that if they don't get 
the chance to read them then it is not likely that they will encounter 
them later.

OK, I hope to hear what you think.

Thanks,

Lisa