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NEWS 'NAT-CENT 13 Published 3 times a year by: Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults 111 Middle Neck Rd. Sands Point, N.Y. 11050 Tel.: 516-944-8900 (Voice) 516-944-8637 (TTY) Operated by Helen Keller Services for the Blind — EDITOR ROBERT J. SMITHDAS, L.H.D., Litt. D., L.H.D. — Editorial Assistant Allison Burrows Vol. 31 No. 2 Winter 2001 NAT-CENT NEWS published three times a is year in large print and braille. It is available who free of charge for all readers are deaf- blind and for libraries. There is a $10.00 subscription fee for all other readers. FOR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS: The bank on which a draft drawn must have a branch is office in or be affiliated with, a bank in the , United States. The activities of the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults reported herein were supported by funds from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. However, the opinions or policies expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Education. TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial: In Retrospect 1 Do You Want To Go Sailing? 4 Couldn't See a Thing 5 I Lynn Jansen: Vision for Herself and Her Deaf-Blind Group 9 Deaf Blind and Living 9 Life to the Limit 14 A Bright Light in the Darkness 21 Woman Pines Deaf-Blind Is Anticipating the Future 32 Equal Opportunity For Defense 38 Woman This Doesn't Lack the Vision to Create 44 When Dreams Come True 46 Here and There 52 RETROSPECT EDITORIAL: IN LHD By Robert J. Smithdas, LHD, Litt.D, Now that we have completed the first full year of a new century and a new millennium, seems appropriate to review the progress it that has been made in providing much needed programs as well as aids and devices for deaf- blind citizens in the United States. The last fifty years of the twentieth century in particular, brought tremendous changes in rehabilitation and training programs for all A new disabled people. host of technologies were developed (and are still developing) to help disabled people overcome the limitations of their disabilities through use of assistive devices and technologies that today provide disabled individuals with a growing sense of independence. When I began attending St. John's University in September of 1947, the Perkins Brailler was not yet on the market. There -1- were no braille displays for computers, and computers were huge machines used only by professional workers. Transcribing textbooks into braille was done by hundreds of dedicated volunteer transcribers who used board slates and styluses, punching out the letters of the My own text a dot at a time. college textbooks had to be ripped into sections and sent to transcribers all over the country to be copied into braille, tediously, by hand. I was probably the first deaf-blind person to learn to travel with the long cane developed by Dr. Hoover of the Veteran's Administration after World War II. It was Mowat not until the mid-seventies that sensors, laser canes and various other came electronic mobility devices into being. When moved my own I first into apartment in 1956, there were no convenient vibrating signaling devices to let one know if the doorbell or telephone were ringing. You had to use your creative sense to solve such -2-