Visual impairment

Students with disabilities struggle the most through their high school years as sometimes their disability can limit what activities the complete. One disability that is oh to often overlooked is Visual impairment. Students with Visual impairments or VI for short, not always but sometimes need accommodations to the curriculum delivery in order to be successful in their academic endeavors. As sight is a common method of learning, these students need assistive technologies such as manipulatives and hands on activities that can facilitate learning the general education curriculum. In math class for instance a teacher may talk about a rectangle and show a picture of the rectangle for the rest of the class but for the student who is visually impaired a paper cutout of a rectangle could be presented to the student so they can physically feel the four sides and the lengths of the sides.

Visually impaired students can also have other accommodations besides manipulatives. One thing that could be considered an accommodation is the room layout. Students who are completely without sight will benefit from a structured environment. If a student learns where the desks are and where the supplies are they will be able to maneuver around without much assistance. However if a teacher moves the desks and changes the orientation of the room it can cause confusion and frustration for the VI student. Additional accommodations could include text-to-speech softwares that allow students with VI to read novels and papers. These assistive technologies are often low cost and very reliable especially to schools with lower budgets.

Citations:
Fecich, S. (2015, July 7). GCSE657. Graduate Class. Lecture conducted from , 2015, 7 July- 2015, 20 August.
http://cnx.org/contents/72345e44-e02f-4206-8f3e-ead77ac2dc80@2/Measurement-and-Geometry:-Area