Stephen F. Austin State University

While most people are focused on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his high-priced prostitute, Jennifer Parrish is thinking about the man who will take Spitzer's place next week.

"It's awesome," the 32-year-old Parrish said. "I'm not that up on New York government, but it's incredible that somebody is coming that far."

Parrish, like New York Lt. Gov. David Paterson, is legally blind. Like Paterson, she grew up surrounded by people who expected her to be independent.

She attended Stephen F. Austin State University and now works as a medical transcriber, making a living from her memory and lightning-fast typing skills.

People with significant visual impairments long have been part of mainstream U.S. life, a trend accelerated by technology. But Paterson's status as the first blind governor in the United States has undeniable symbolic power.

"There are still myths and stereotypes," said Carl Augusto, president of the American Foundation for the Blind, who worked with Paterson during the decade Paterson spent on the foundation board. "I'm hoping this will challenge those perceptions. I'm hoping it'll influence an employer who has a blind applicant.

"If we can have a blind governor, maybe we can have a blind computer programmer or a blind salesman."

Paterson, 53, also will become the first black governor of New York. His optic nerve was damaged by an infection when he was a baby, leaving him blind in his left eye and with significant vision loss in his right eye. A lawyer who was elected to the New York state senate in 1985, he does not use a guide dog or a cane; observers say he has a phenomenal memory that allows him to deliver lengthy speeches without notes or other prompts.

About 1.3 million people in the United States are legally blind, a number that Augusto said is growing as more premature babies survive but are blinded by complications from early births. Paterson can help those children — and their parents, who often know nothing about the condition before having a blind child — by inspiring higher expectations, said Augusto, who also is blind.

Blind children began entering regular classrooms in the 1960s, a movement accelerated by a 1975 law that mandated mainstreaming when appropriate. In 1950, about 90 percent of blind children attended special schools for the blind, Augusto said, and blind children with other disabilities often weren't educated at all. Now, 90 percent of blind children attend regular schools, and most of the 10 percent at schools for the blind also have other disabilities.

"Everybody has moved up a step," Augusto said.

Technology has helped.

Braille, a system of writing that uses raised dots to form letters, remains important even now that computer software can easily translate written material into spoken language.

"As long as print is important to sighted people, braille will be important to blind people," Augusto said.

But braille is cumbersome, and students and professionals increasingly rely upon technology.

About 60 students with visual impairments attend the University of Houston, where the Center for Students with DisABILITIES helps ensure that students have the technology and other accommodations they need to succeed.

That can range from large-print books to audio books and software that translates spoken language into print and vice versa, center director Cheryl Amoruso said.

Other technological advances for the visually impaired include large-face or talking watches and calculators, said Heather Stanga, special projects manager for the Lighthouse of Houston, which serves the region's visually impaired community.

That all has made it easier for the blind to hold a wider variety of jobs. In the 1980s, most job training and placement at the Lighthouse — then known as the Lighthouse for the Blind — focused on manual labor and industry, Stanga said. Now, visually impaired people perform everyday workplace tasks, she said. "We've entirely changed how we train people."

Other seemingly simple tasks, such as filling a coffee cup, also have been made easier through technology, said Chelean Zander, vice president of community programs at the Lighthouse of Houston. That helps people to live independently.

Parrish, who has limited vision in one eye, uses screen-reading software at work. At home, a closed-circuit television allows her to scan small printed items, such as mail, reproducing them on the screen in giant type.

"We say visually impaired people can do virtually anything sighted people can do on the job," Augusto said. "There are no blind taxicab drivers or blind pilots, but who knows? That might happen someday."