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IRVING MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS GO A STEP FURTHER THAN “GETTING BACK TO NORMAL”

They Get Ahead by Testing New Digital Audio Assistive Technology

November 12, 2001, Eagle Rock, Ca. – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Students at Irving Middle School in Eagle Rock are taking the President’s request to “get back to normal” a step further. Working with Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic-Los Angeles (RFB&D-LA), students in two special education classes will start this week taking part in a national project to test new assistive digital audio technology. The students in Mr. Fox’s and Mr. Vizard’s classrooms will join 39 other schools across the nation using RFB&D-LA’s new audio textbooks on CD, instead of the 4-track cassettes long-used in the past, for students who learn though listening.

Cassettes will still be offered to student members as long as needed, although the old analog recording equipment is quickly being replaced in RFB&D’s studios with the new digital recording work stations that produce CD-ROMs. The CDs and special playback machines offer students advanced navigational access that is as easy as using a print textbook. Additionally, one CD holds as much information as 12-15 cassettes, which literally eases the student’s load.

RFB&D, now with over 50 years of service, is a national nonprofit volunteer organization providing audio textbooks to students of all ages who have vision, physical or learning disabilities. RFB&D-LA Outreach Director Stacey Eubank has added Irving Middle School as a test site for the new breakthrough technology along with three other Los Angeles area schools that include vision impairment and learning disability programs. Eubank says that feedback from the students at the test sites will help shape the final outcome of RFB&D’s national digital audio release within the next two years.

The schools testing the new technology are part of RFB&D-LA’s Annual Institutional Membership program, or AIM. The AIM schools join on behalf of their students with print disabilities. RFB&D-LA then loans the audio textbooks and provides training for teachers, students and parents. RFB&D-LA has 70 Los Angeles and Ventura County schools in the AIM program while also serving 4,300 individual student members across Southern California. For further information, call 1-800-732-TEXT.