?Tom: I totally agree with you! It is a shame when for example I need to do a written work for university and it is spelled wrong. Most of the time I do the work in under a day or so but I spend 4 to 5 days in spellchecking and correcting the work. It is a pain. Most of my life I used readers and now when I am independent, alone at the university it is a pain. I am a supporter of full braille literecy. It is the only way a blind person can learn context, syntax and spelling skills. A screen reader doesn't provide the same support. 10 percent of braille children knows. braille. Here in Puerto Rico is less than that. It just boils my blood just of thinking about it. I was of that 90 percent. From: Tom Lange Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:28 PM To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: the Personal Computer was the greatest thing ever invented for the Blind Hi, I've used Optacons since 1978, when I was hired by IBM as a programmer trainee. The Optacon was the only way that I could read my 3270 display terminal at the time; the Talking Terminal wouldn't read the APL characters that I used to write code. I agree with the statement that the Optacon really helped me to see how things are laid out both on paper and on screen, which is a huge help. While screen readers have been a godsend, I have definitely noticed a decline in blind people's ability to spell the written word, and I blame this on the de-emphasis on Braille in our educational system. It appalls me that only 10 percent of blind people in the U.S. read Braille, and, if it were up to me, I would make Braille education mandatory, unless it could be demonstrated that a student has a physical limitation that prevents him/her from reading Braille. 90 percent Braille illiteracy is, to my mind, nothing short of obscene. You can talk about lack of manpower to properly teach it, lack of funding, et cetera et cetera, but what that says to me is that there's a callous disregard by the government for the literacy of blind people in this country, and that makes me furious. Surely I can't be the only one who feels this way. Tom