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GLOSSARY Cognitive Rapping. The ability to understand the layout of the larger spatial environment in which purposeful activity is undertaken. Disability. Limitations in carrying out tasks, involving such factors as motivation, training, and resources needed to accomplish tasks. Electronic Travel Aid METED. Also electronic mobility aid. Any one of several electronic devices on the market designed to detect obstacles or to orient the blind or visually-impaired traveler. Examples include the Russell Pathsounder, the Laser Cane, the SONA aid system. A type of sensory aid. Handicap. Limitations in performing social roles or socially structured sets of tasks. Impair ent. The lasting consequences of pathology, affecting parts of the organism. Loss of vision or low vision arising from retina' destruction or deformities of the eye or through neurological damage. Decal Blindness. An administrative definition used by some federal, state and private programs. Defined as 20/200 acuity or worse in the better eye with correction or a visual field of 20 degrees diameter or less. Lo. Vision. Impaired vision which even after optical correction is severe enough to affect one's functioning visually. Visual acuity of 20/70 or less in the better eye is one commonly used objective measure. (Excludes people who are totally blind.) Mobility. Generally, movement from place to place. mean movement undertaken to reach a destination, elements of orientation and obstacle avoidance. Used here to implicitly involving Mobility Specialist. An individual with training in the mobility problems of blind and visually-impaired persons, usually holding a B.A. or M.A. degree, whose primary job it is to assist the visually-impaired 91
92 person in learning how to travel efficiently, effectively, and safely, including training in the use of mobility aids. Referred to elsewhere as orientators, orientation and mobility instructors, and peripatologists. Orientation. - Collection and organization of information concerning the environment and one's relationship to it. For the visually-impaired person this involves the process of utilizing the remaining senses in establishing one's position and relationship to all other significant objects in one's environment. Pathology. A medically determined disease or disorder {including trauma, structural abnormality, etc.~. Preprocessing. The processing of data by a machine prior to its presentation to the user in a coded form. Transducers. Electronic component that translates physical energy of one type into energy of another type. Usually used in conjunction with a sensor.