health care, emergency contraception, pregnancy
options, STDs (pp. 16-7), including testing and
treatment (p. 18). In other words, upper elemen-
tary and middle school students are expected to
access a plethora of "accurate and credible" infor-
mation, some of which is more or less available
depending on the young person's identity and de-
sires. So, for example, information about gender
identities, gender expressions, and sexual orien-
tations that are not heteronormative are often
censored from sex education materials, making
information about such identities and desires
more difficult to access.
Secondary grade level expectations. The
expectations, of course, intensify for high school
students to include explaining how to "access lo-
cal STD and HIV testing and treatment services"
and demonstrating how to access valid informa-
tion and resources "to help deal with relation-
ships" and "for survivors of sexual abuse, incest,
rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault and dat-
ing violence" (FOSE, p. 22-23). Accessing such
information is a challenge for sighted young peo-
ple, but this challenge becomes more complex for
those who have visual impairments.
Accessibility of Instructional Materials
There is the issue of instructional material ac-
cessibility. Consider, for example, the challenge
of accessing information about anatomy and pu-
berty. For students who have visual impairments,
3-D models are imperative but not always avail-
able and even less so for upper elementary stu-
dents since sex education typically started in mid-
dle or sometimes even high school. Then, too,
think about the challenge of accessing informa-
tion about personal hygiene and contraception.
Hands-on demonstrations with real objects are
needed, but again, not always provided, for stu-
dents who are visually impaired. There is also the
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