Foreign language education of visually impaired individuals: a review of pervasive studies

Nowadays, the significance of foreign language education has increased and new teaching methods have been developed. Until 1980s, the foreign language education of visually impaired (VI) individuals was not provided effectively. The most important reason for this was the belief that VI individuals were disadvantageous in learning foreign languages. In recent years, studies in neuroscience have led to the conclusion that VI individuals are not disadvantageous, but rather are more advantageous than those sighted people. Experiments conducted in neuroscience showed that, VI people have stronger verbal memory which contributes to their foreign language education. With the changing understanding and the developing technology, studies on foreign language education of VI individuals have gained speed and thus progress has been made. In this study, it was aimed to provide a literature review about pervasive studies in terms of foreign language education of VI and give an idea to the researchers who are interested in this subject. According to the literature review, it can be said that assistive technology developed specifically for the target group contributes to their foreign language education in terms of instantaneous access to information, individualized instruction, and success