
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991                   TAG: 9102120144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: DENVER                                LENGTH: Short

GROUP: ILLITERACY RISING AMONG BLIND STUDENTS

There is a crisis of illiteracy among blind students because many of them are not learning Braille in public schools, the head of a national parents group says.

Nearly half of all blind and vision-impaired students - 48 percent - read Braille in 1965. But by 1989, the number had dropped to 12 percent, according to the American Printing House for the Blind.

Barbara Cheadle, president of Parents of Blind Children at the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, traces the genesis of the decline to the 1950s, when parents began enrolling blind children in local public schools rather than specialized residential schools. - Associated Press

by CNB