Visit Our Expanded Listings for Resources, Services, and Products

National Organizations: Information about organizations, agencies, and services for people who are older, have other disabilities, and are blind or have low vision.

Veterans’ Services: Legislation, services, and recreational opportunities for veterans who are blind, have low vision, are visually impaired, or disabled.

Searchable Databases: Locate eye care professionals, audiologists, support groups, vision rehabilitation services and other resources for people who are blind or have low vision.

State Resources: Find low vision clinics and specialists, vision rehabilitation agencies, and other specialty resources in our state-by-state resource guide.

Recreation, Sports, and Leisure: Find associations that serve the sporting and recreation interests of people who are blind or have low vision.

Religious Products: Find religious products, services, and organizations for people who are blind or have low vision.

If you’d like to add your agency, company, or service to our listings, contact Maureen Duffy, Editorial Director, at maureen.duffy@visionaware.org.

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST

Accessible Astronomy

You Can Do Astronomy LLC is an accessibility design and consulting company that makes astronomy and space science accessible to people with disabilties, including blindness and low vision. Noreen Grice, President of You Can Do Astronomy, is the author of five accessible astronomy books. Her company also makes planetarium theaters and educational programs more accessible via tactile illustrations, captioning, and assistive listening devices.

Logo for You Can Do Astronomy, credit YouCanDoAstrongomy.com

Blind, Yet Seeing: The Brain’s Subconscious Visual Sense

A blind patient whose visual processing centers in the brain were destroyed by two successive strokes demonstrated the ability to navigate an obstacle course and recognize fearful facial expressions. The patient, a doctor, participated in a study that examined the ability to sense objects and people by using the brain’s primitive, subcortical – and entirely subconscious – visual system. Read more about this study and its implications at The New York Times.

A diagram of the brain, including the visual cortex; credit: American Printing House for the Blind.

Experimental Gene Therapy for Blindness?

Jean Bennett, a physician and molecular geneticist, and Albert Maguire, a retinal surgeon, are a husband-and-wife team at the University of Pennsylvania who are experimenting with gene therapy as a possible treatment for Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a congenital eye disorder. Read more about their experimental gene therapy trial in Smithsonian Magazine.

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About VisionAWARE

AWARE is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit social service organization. AWARE's primary focus is VisionAWARE, a "Self-Help for Vision Loss" web site that includes Questions & Answers on a wide range of topics, including eye diseases and disorders, home management, home modification, reading and writing, personal care and grooming, recreational activities, crafts, braille, computers and technology, and helpful services and resources.

For more information, e-mail Maureen A. Duffy, AWARE's Editorial Director, at maureen.duffy@visionaware.org

Your donation can help us continue to promote self-help vision rehabilitation hints, provide step-by-step adaptive techniques, and disseminate information on services and independent living resources to adults with vision loss, their families and friends, caregivers, and related professionals.

VisionAWARE is made possible through the generous support of
Reader's Digest Partners for Sight Foundation.

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AWARE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit social service organization.