American Printing House for the Blind

Alzheimers disease (AD) and cancer are the disease are seemed to be not correlated since the prior one is caused by cell degeneration and the latter one is caused by over-proliferation. However, recent research indicates that there is an inverse correlation between incident rate of infecting one disease when being diagnosed with the other. This paper evaluates the method and discoveries of the existing studies and reviews the association between Alzheimers disease and cancer through analyzing the existing findings. As result, current researchers are focusing on the underlying reasons of the inverse relationship between the two diseases through either examining the opposite end of biological mechanisms of the two diseases, or using statistical data to find potential correlations between several risk factors and their correlation to both diseases. Although all reach the conclusion that the inverse relationship of incidence rate does exist, there is still a lack of confirmation to the existing study on which mechanism or factor is the major cause of this inverse relationship. Further research is required to expand on the existing studies by either confirming the effects of opposite ends of biological mechanism existing in both disease, or gathering more statistical data to exclude possibility of biases and deviations to provide possible explanations for the inverse relationship.

Keywords visually impaired, English language learner, English as a second language, literacy, English learner, blind

Competency in basic motor skills like running is essential for all students regardless of a visual ability. Children encounter running in their daily lives and many sporting activities. Research has shown that for children who are visually impaired, running specifically is a motor skill that is difficult to develop without instruction and practice. If children with visual impairments have a solid foundation of running as a motor skill and a safe way to run, they will have a better chance of becoming competent in running equal to their sighted peers.

A primary purpose of maps is to convey information about space and spatial relationships. This study was an attempt to determine whether specific training in scanning a tactile display would enable blind students to more effectively organize the spatial relationships presented than would students not so trained. Thirty-six braille students in grades 4 to 12 were asked to inspect a tactile display consisting of 9 removable symbols. After inspection, the 9 symbols were removed and the students were asked to replace the parts in their correct location. There were 2 groups: a control group that received no training and an experimental group that was trained to systematically search the display using a vertical search technique. The results showed that the students in the lower grade levels benefited most from the training and were superior to the control group in the same grades. However, training interfered with the performance of the students in the upper grade levels (10 to 12), with the control group performing better than the experimental group. Apparently, training is most effective before strong habits have been established.

The blind child's concept of space is explored by the construction of the projective straight line. Designed by Jean Piaget, the task illustrates the shift from topological to projective and Euclidean representations. Approximately half of the blind subjects were able to successfully complete the task, but median age for success was later than for sighted subjects. No differences were found between construction of the horizontal and oblique lines.

The contribution of preview to the performance of open tasks is pointed out, and sensory anticipation and perceptual anticipation are discussed as components of preview. A case is then made for regarding the blind pedestrian's task as a typical example of an open task. Next, there is a review of research in which the contribution of preview to the performance of open tasks has been observed under controlled conditions. Preview has not been the variable of primary interest in the studies of the performance of blind pedestrians reported so far. However, some experiments have provided indications of the importance of preview, and these experiments are reviewed. The article concludes by urging the necessity of understanding preview, so that its contribution to the performance of blind pedestrians can be taken into account in the formulation of mobility training programs and the design of mobility aids.

The effects of physical size and complexity of metric figures on tactual discrimination performance was investigated with 36 blind children in grades 1 and 2. Metric figures from three levels of complexity (3 × 3, 4 × 4, and 5 × 5) were combined factorially with three physical sizes (1, 2, and 4 inches) in a same-different pair-comparison discrimination task. Increasing levels of physical size and complexity had no effect on discrimination accuracy, but increasing levels of either physical size or complexity significantly increased task time. Overall accuracy of performance was low (62 percent correct discriminations), and it appeared that unsystematic and inappropriate hand and finger motions were responsible for the low level of performance.

Studies were conducted comparing learning achieved by blind students at different grade levels for 3 types of material presented at normal and compressed rates under conditions of active and passive listening. Findings of the research lend support to the theory that active participation in the listening process results in greater learning. A secondary finding was that comprehension of uncompressed material was superior to comprehension of compressed material under conditions of motivation.