Undergraduate mathematics for the blind

Extract

At a time when the public conscience is being focussed on the disabled, it may be opportune to report on the experience gained at Middlesex Polytechnic between 1979 and 1982 in taking the student Paul Holliman, who has been blind from birth, through its B.Sc. degree in Mathematics for Business. This paper begins with some indications of the system of Brailling mathematics, in the form in which Holliman had learnt it and used in the course. Then the course itself is described, with especial reference to the problems faced in teaching and learning. Attention then switches to the available technology; its scope and limits, and the prospects for future development. A brief final section notes some of the conceptual difficulties which blindness causes.