Eligibility Guidelines for School Based Vision Services

Teaching Students with Visual Impairments

ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES
for School Based Vision Services

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com

A child with a visual impairment is one whose vision, even with correction, adversely impacts a child's educational performance. Examples are children whose visual impairments may result from congenital (from time of birth) defects, eye diseases, or injuries to the eye.

Caution: These are the eligibility guidelines for Georgia! Although eligibility is similar from state to state, each state is able to set their own criteria for eligibility. Each state's Department of Education should identify the criteria for eligibility.

In Georgia, a child with a visual impairment is one whose vision, even with correction, adversely impacts a child's educational performance. Examples are children whose visual impairments may result from congenital defects, eye diseases, or injuries to the eye. The term "Visual Impairment" includes both visual impairment and blindness as follows:

1. Blind refers to a child whose visual acuity is 20/200 or less in the better eye after correction or who has a limitation in the field of vision that subtends an angle of 20 degrees. Some children who are legally blind have useful vision and may read print.

2. Visually Impaired refers to a child whose visual acuity falls within the range of 20/70 to 20/200 in the better eye after correction OR who have a limitation in the field of vision that adversely impacts educational progress.

(a) Progressive visual disorders: Children, whose current visual acuity is greater than 20/70, but who have a medically indicated expectation of visual deterioration may be considered for vision impaired eligibility based on documentation of the visual deterioration from the child's optometrist or ophthalmologist.

**Students who appear to be more visually impaired than one would suspect on the basis of their eye exam or students whose visual ability appear to be highly variable for no apparent reason may be suffering from damage to the visual pathway or visual cortex. When cortical visual impairment or post trauma vision syndrome is suspected, there are several ways to detect damage to the visual cortex or visual pathway:

1. Visually Evoked Potential Mapping (VEP Map) detects the processing of visual stimuli by the visual cortex.

2. Computerized tomography (CT) scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicate areas of destroyed brain structure.

3. Electroencephalogram (EEG) measures the electrical activity of the brain.

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TVI's Guide to Teaching the ECC: An Activities Based Curriculum for Teaching Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired

$50.00

Written specifically for fellow itinerant Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI’s), this book consists of over 400 activities and topic areas of discussion for instructing students in the Expanded Core Curriculum. The activities are age-neutral and multi-sensory and therefore can meet the needs of the broad range of students served on an itinerant caseload serving. The activities can be individualized to the students various learning modalities and scaffold in order to challenge students but ensure success. Select those activities that align with the student’s learning objects based on the student’s unique visual needs and academic and developmental level.

The core activities listed in the Activity section can be adapted to each thematic unit. These include:

Object Characteristic Activities
Quantity & Number Concepts
Time Concept Activities
Environment & Job Awareness Activities
Listening Skills Activities
Reading Foundation Activities
Reading Fluency Activities
Braille Basics Activities
Writing Activities
Tactual Efficiency Activities
Developing Skillful Hands Activities
Visual Efficiency Activities
Optical Device Instruction Activities
Recipe Activities

In addition to the core activity areas, each of the 32 Thematic Units incorporates additional unique ECC concepts and skills providing you with a years’ worth of activities. These units are cyclical and can be used repeatedly to help students build on prior knowledge and develop a deeper understanding of concepts. Each unit includes suggestions for activity adaptation associated with the unit. These include lists of objects, possible community based experiences, environmental print, poems, children & young reader books, children's songs, pop culture songs, movies, and websites.

Unique Concepts within the Units include:

Self Advocacy Activities (e.g. advocating for safe classroom, presenting to class on visual impairment, requesting help and more)
Social Skills Activities (e.g. Being bullied or teased, giving and receiving compliments, body language, "I" messages when upset and more)
Recreation & Leisure Activities (e.g. exploring interest areas, getting involved in clubs and sports, playing games, and more)
O&M Support Activities (e.g. Suggestions for community based experiences, dog guide information, locations in the school, bioptics, ride sharing, traffic signs, and more)
Independent Living Skill Activities (e.g. chores, being responsible, using tools, recipe suggestions, hygiene, staying healthy, labeling foods and products, and more)
Sensory Efficiency Activities (e.g. unique sensory experiences related to the unit, unique optical device activities, and more)
Compensatory Activities (e.g. organizing materials, study habits, and many unique concepts related to the unit)
Career & Vocational Activities (e.g. job awareness, completing applications, job task suggestions, and more)

Although the intended audience of this resource is fellow Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, special education teachers may find these activities beneficial to the students in their classrooms as the activities are multisensory and include life skills and concepts needed by all students. This resource, however, is not intended to take the place of a Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI). Readers are advised to consult their own TVI’s regarding instruction in the ECC and the unique visual needs of the student’s served in their programs.

Note: This curriculum is a digital pdf download. Once you make your purchase you will be directed to an order confirmation page where you will find the download link. This download will also be included on the receipt sent to the email address you provide. The pdf download can be found directly under the order number.

Each download is intended for single instructor use per copyright. Thank you for helping me preserve the content and not distributing copies to third parties.

Product details

Digital pdf download: 364 pages (11 pt font)

Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments

Author: Carmen Willings

Language: English

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Visual Efficiency & Magnifier Fluency Grab & Go ECC Supplements

$20.00

This workbook is a pdf download that can be printed on demand for use with students. It contains five different types of worksheets for developing visual motor skills and near magnifier fluency skills particularly with the use of a video magnifier. As a supplement to the TVI’s Guide to the ECC, the worksheets correspond to each of the 32 ECC Thematic units. The worksheets, along with a list of environmental print for each thematic unit, are designed to help students refine their visual motor skills while reinforcing ECC concepts presented in the thematic units.

Visual Efficiency & Near Magnifier Fluency Worksheet Details:

Digital pdf download: 210 pages

Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments

Author: Carmen Willings

Language: English

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