[Athen] Organic Chemistry/CHEM Draw for Student with Visual Impairment

[Channing Francis]

Dear Colleagues,

A student who has a come-and-go convergence issue with his eyes is taking Organic Chemistry during the Spring 2017 term. At times, his vision is good. At other times, his vision is blurry. College has exacerbated the issue and sometimes the blurriness last for days (instead of hours as it did previously). The student has not learned many of the skills others who are blind/low vision have. At this point, he cannot read tactile graphics in a way that is helpful to him. I read this article<http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ed4005936?src=recsys> in Chemistry Education on making organic chemistry representations tactile and more accessible to students who are blind or low vision. For most of his life until college, he was able to manage the symptoms without a lot of assistance.

The article also mentions "using text to speech output with Chem Draw." - Has anyone done this successfully? Would you be willing to share more about the process? The article is unclear about how this actually happens and I have not been able to find instructions for doing this online.

Any other advice you have for making Organic Chemistry materials more accessible to students with vision impairments would also be appreciated.

Thank you,
-Channing

Channing Francis | Disability & Accessibility Services (DAS)
Berea College Office of Academic Services
Lincoln Hall 112 | CPO 2205 | (859) 985-3835 | channing.francis at berea.edu<mailto:channing.francis at berea.edu>

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