issue of orientation and mobility. Although stu-
dents who have visual impairments are typically
trained in orientation and mobility, such training
rarely includes getting to places like Planned Par-
enthood; local STD and HIV testing and treatment
facilities; local centers for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth;
and facilities that serve survivors of sexual abuse.
There is a third issue that is related to a failure to
understand young people as sexual beings, par-
ticularly those with disabilities, including but not
limited to those with visual impairments. Often,
information is either skipped or glossed over for
these young people based on an implicit misun-
derstanding of these young people as asexual.
In the absence of being provided accessible
instructional materials and thus information in
schools and with the difficulty of getting to alter-
native sources of such information, many stu-
dents who have visual impairments turn to the
internet to complement their often inadequate sex
education (Wild, Kelly, Blackburn, & Ryan, in
press). Of course, the internet is a significant re-
source for all sorts of information, including sex
education, but it also comes with some risks.
There is the risk of receiving inaccurate informa-
tion, but there is also the risk of sexual predators,
particularly when conducting searches that are,
by definition, sexual in nature. This risk is of par-
ticular concern for people who visual impairments
since they are more likely than their sighted peers
to experience sexual abuse (Kvam, 2005), with
one in three people with visual impairments being
survivors of either attempted or actual sexual or
physical assault (Pava, 1994). This concern gets
addressed across the grade levels through the
topic of personal safety, beginning with teaching
young children to assert their rights to tell people
not to touch their bodies when they do not wish to
be touched and going so far as teaching young
adults to "advocate for safe environments that en-
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