As a Visual Impairment Specialist Teacher (TVI), who has supported students in a variety of school settings from ages Prep to Grade 12, I have had the wonderful opportunity to observe and explore how I can best support a student who is blind in a school environment. From this, I have created a quick and easy guide to share with others. This is by no means a "how to" or a "must do" list. It's more of an informative guide that will hopefully provide you with some ideas that you can take away and implement to suit the needs of the students you're supporting in and out of the classroom.
Some Points to Consider...
* 80% of all learning is through our eyes. Due to this, limited vision or blindness can have a strong impact on a student’s ability to understand concepts, learn language, move about freely with confidence, and develop and grow in a variety of ways. Teachers will need to use alternative methods and strategies for teaching basic concepts, the meanings of words and how to read, write, interact socially, and perform various daily activities as she grows.
*To have a beneficial impact, you really need to know your learner. Knowing when to step out and when to step in is very individual to each student (a balance between encouraging progress, and anxiety based regression is paramount). The benefits of using the same aides (consistency) for these students and building a deep rapport is significant (not so much from an academic perspective, but from a social development perspective).
*The apparent ease with which students who are blind go about their day to day business massively undervalues how difficult it is to navigate life without sight. I would argue that sight is the most relied on of our senses, and that life without sight presents so many significant hurdles. An appreciation of the challenges being faced daily is the first step to being able to provide the most useful assistance to their long-term development.
*Often, underneath a seemingly coping student is a whole lot of anxiety based on keeping up/fitting in. We need to understand this, and know many of their actions can be a result of this anxiety (hidden to different degrees). If we can read this in an individual student, we can implement (and more importantly, help them to implement themselves) the best strategies to help them cope, progress, and gain confidence and independence to keep progressing.
*While not trivialising academic success, building independence as a person with the capability to problem solve daily social expectations, confidently navigate their way around, and ‘fit in’ to society is the biggest opportunity we can give these students for success outside of school.
Top 10 Tips...
1. Put a greater focus on teaching social/coping skills
For example, O&M training - a student who is blind may be able to achieve top of the class in each subject at school, however, if they haven't been taught the skills to orientate their way to the classroom, how will they become independent enough to utilise their learning in the wider world. Alongside of this, social skills training is important to teach so students are able to better communicate this learning and build these skills alongside others.
2. Give students time to ‘explore’
If this means they are late to class or early/ late leaving class, it’s better that they get time to develop their ‘problem solving’ skills and ‘navigation’ skills on a daily basis than to get the first 5 / last 5 minutes of class. Catching them up academically can happen during a tutorial line, lunch break or during homework club.
3. Don’t be a “Fairy Godmother”
Worry less about getting them to the next thing (class, lunch, etc), and more about them developing their independence, and problem solving strategies in any way they can. For example, allowing the student time to pack away their own braille device, and head out a little later. Or, allowing a student time to take a bit longer to pack away their lunch gear and put their own bag on their back.
A student will also gain confidence and independence through navigating themselves to a classroom practising learn't skills such as echo location (clicking) without a peer or support person to be their sighted guide.
4. Give a student who is blind ‘first-hand experience’ in preference to ‘verbal descriptions’
Instead of describing an area to the student, get them to case it out by themselves (or with supervised support depending on level of needs), and share what you are seeing together. Or, if learning geometry and angles in the maths classroom, take the student outside and explore these in the natural environment to assist in building concrete concepts.
5. Step Back
Allow the student to initiate the action and follow their lead. Don’t do the thinking or the mobility for them. Reduce 'learn't helplessness' as much as possible and increase the opportunities of applying assertiveness wherever possible.
6. Challenge students
Allow students to progress with their development in navigational strategies (O&M), but don’t push so hard that anxiety eliminates the desire to progress (can lead to regression).
7. Instigate peer interaction
The most effective advice if delivered properly. An example of this may be allowing friends to explain to a student who is blind that personal space is needed when working together. Or, have peers or a friend explain that people who are sighted don't flap their arms in a crazy fashion (aka flapping) when they are sitting at their desk and maybe they could explain other social actions they use throughout the day instead.
8. Label and explore surroundings
Explore, locate and label objects and boundaries around the school – and consistently reference these areas in the context they have established. They may not always use labels that are commonly referred to. For example, I had a student who once named a particular path "litter lane" because every time she walked down this path her cane would hit endless amounts of rubbish on the ground.
On another occasion, a student who was blind named a tunnel entrance to an area of classrooms 'the porthole' because the student loved Marvel movies. Each time they walked through 'the porthole' they imagined the wind and echo of the tunnel area would be similar to what you may experience in space. This kind of labelling made it relevant and meaningful to those students, and from these, connections between environments and/ or spaces of travel were made.
9. Encourage mapping skills
To follow on from Tip 8, tie in and link what students may be picturing in their minds, to how they are navigating themselves around. This will help you as a teacher understand their individual navigational strategies / labelling systems. O&M and mapping skills are two elements I'm deeply passionate. I incorporate these two programs into the school week to consolidate a students knowledge acquired in their fortnightly O&M specialist sessions.
10. Consider organisational skills
Understand that these kids Schema (the structure behind data organisation) is different to a sighted persons – don’t assume your own way of thinking…..let students lead discussions and follow their lead with the way you assist them.
Thank you for reading and I hope these Top 10 Tips have been useful. Please feel free to leave any suggestions or ideas from your own experiences below!
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