Communications

BSBP Training Center

(Michigan) Bureau of Services for Blind Persons

People gather, store, retrieve and share information every day.  In the BSBP Training Center Communications Class, we teach people how to use the tools, techniques and strategies needed for quick, easy and efficient communication for everyday personal needs, business and pleasure.  Here are just a few examples of what students learn to do:

·        Get information by telephone - Special services such as "Tell Me" and "Newsline for the Blind" provide people who are blind with daily news and information simply by using the telephone.

·        Read books - Learn about the National Library Service, which will send tape recordings of books to the home of a person who is blind.  (No postage is required to receive or return the books.)  Learn about other resources available to people who are blind or visually impaired, including radio broadcasts which require a special radio (free) and audio books through the Internet.

·       Read mail and prepare correspondence - Depending upon individual needs, students learn to use screen readers, handwriting guides, tape recordings, e-mail, word-processing software, or other techniques for personal and business correspondence.

·        Get news and weather reports - Toll-free telephone numbers and radio broadcasts available to individuals who are blind and visually impaired for current local, national and international news and weather reports.

The onset of the "information age" has produced an abundance of equipment, devices and technologies that make communication fast, easy and reliable worldwide.  Telephones, digital and analog recording devices, CD and tape Talking Books, cell phones, and dubbing cords are just a few of the everyday things that blind and visually impaired people can use with little or no adaptation.  When computers, scanners and special software are used, there is little in the way of information that cannot be accessed, recorded and transmitted by anyone who has the skills.  The BSBP Training Center Communications Class, in conjunction with our Keyboarding Class and our Adaptive Computer Training Class, teaches those skills.

Today, we live in the world of the Internet.  We have e-mail, e-books, and e-commerce.  Reading machines and computers that function as reading machines are readily available.  Inexpensive long-distance telephoning and a wide variety of recording devices and information resources are the norm.   The world is a wide-open place for people who know how to communicate.