Using The APH Lightbox

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com
Updated June 6, 2019

The APH Lightbox was designed to help teach basic visual skills as well as more complex visual-motor and visual-perceptual skills. The high contrast background created by the Lightbox’s illuminated surface makes a variety of visual tasks easier to perform. The goal is that using brightly colored items will motivate students to utilize their vision. The following guidelines are from APH:

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The lightbox, available through the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) is used to help develop an awareness of light, color, and objects. It can also be used as a tool to facilitate visual tracking, visual scanning, eye-hand coordination, visual discrimination, and visual perceptual skills particularly in students that are interested in light-up objects and sources but will not visual attend to or interact with regularly presented materials. The lightboxes available from APH have a lighted translucent white work surface with variable lighting control.

If your student is not eligible for quota funds or for whatever reason those funds are not available, other light boxes or tables can be purchased or even made by placing a string of lights inside a transparent or opaque storage container. ​Material kits specially designed to use with the APH lightbox can be obtained from APH with quota funds. Although they can be helpful, they don't always meet the unique needs of students and can lack the characteristics that will motivate the student to look or you may just be looking for some variety.  The following are some possible materials that can be used with the lightbox.

​APH's Lightbox Guidelines

• Use the lightbox in a darkened corner of the room, positioned so that other children will not come in contact with it or its electrical cord.
• Examine the lightbox for flickering to guard against having a seizure in a seizure-prone student.
• If a student is seizure-prone, be cautious about presenting items or displays on the lightbox which move in a rhythmic, patterned manner.
• If a student is sensitive or averse to light, it may be helpful to introduce the lightbox with overhead lights on.
• Use the lightbox in a variety of positions and place the student in a comfortable posture.
• Present the lightbox at varying distances and areas in relation to the student’s body and watch to see whether the student demonstrates a preference.
• When presenting items on the lightbox, put them in different places on the work surface.  Note whether the student responds consistently and accurately to the items.
• Use the colored acetate sheets and objects and observe whether the student prefers one color over another.
• Use words like “look,” “see,” and “find” when presenting items on the lightbox work surface.  Encourage the student and describe for him what he is seeing – its shape, size, position, and color.
• To transfer a skill learned on the lightbox to a normally lit environment, increase room illumination as you gradually decrease the intensity of the lightbox. 

Materials for Developing Eye-Hand Coordination

Present a variety of unit related materials (see dry transfer suggestions) in a clear plastic tray positioned over the lightbox. Have the student trace with their finger or pour the materials in and out of smaller containers or nesting cups. Possible materials to use on the light box: acetate sheets (clear & transparent colored); colored projection markers; colored grease pencils; finger paints in plastic tray; crayons on thin white paper; three-way mirror; colored cellophane; colored tissue paper; thin, boldly patterned or colored wrapping paper; brightly colored plastic lawn chair strapping; tinsel; plexiglass sample squares; brightly colored or patterned fabric; transparent art film (contact paper); black tape; yarn; colored ribbon; doilies; colored buttons; rickrack; colored or patterned wrapping paper.

Materials for Drawing the Student's Attention to Shape & Tracing Around & Copying Shapes

Cookie cutters; coasters; Jell-O molds; stencils; wooden blocks; parquetry pieces; clay or play dough; poster board shapes; Lauri Tactilmat puzzles; Ideal Tactilmat puzzles; Familiar objects with simple contours (a cookie, ball, bar of soap, shoe, or spoon); puzzle pieces; window clings.

Materials to Use with Lightbox to Develop Skills

Colored transparent plastic construction pieces; colored transparent plastic pegs which fit in a pegboard; clear plastic balls with spinning objects inside; brightly colored Teether Ball (projections which make it easy to grasp); rainbow transparent party -ware; Halloween masks; make & bake (colored plastic 'stained glass' ornaments made from simple kit); brightly colored translucent or transparent plastic toys (Easter eggs, pop-beads, etc.); balloons; colored pinwheels; small toy cars; wind-up toys; colored plastic clothespins; plastic Halloween pumpkins; Wikki stick.

Materials to be Sealed in Clear Plastic Bottles

Materials to be sealed in clear plastic bottles to create an interesting object for the student to manipulate over the lightbox: costume jewelry beads; mosaic tiles (transparent plastic squares); marbles; confetti made of colored acetate; colored bath oil beads; fishing "jelly worms" (transparent colors).

APH Material Suggestions for Lightbox

Lightbox materials Kit, available through APH helps in teaching matching and identification skills, part-whole relationships, sequencing, pattern duplication, spatial relationships, and visual memory skills. It includes brightly-colored transparent and translucent shapes, pictured objects, stencils, and cutouts.

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TVI’s Guide to Teaching the ECC: An Activities Based Curriculum for Teaching Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired
The TVI’s Guide to Teaching the ECC is a digital pdf available for download. It is designed specifically for fellow itinerant Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI’s), and 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. 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.


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For complete product details and additional images, visit the TVI's Guide product page.


TVI's Guide to the ECC Product details
·      Digital pdf download: 346 pages (11 pt font)
·      Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments
·      Author: Carmen Willings
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The Near Magnifier Fluency Worksheets is a Grab and Go supplement to the TVI's Guide to Teaching the ECC. 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 companion 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.  


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Visual Efficiency & Near Magnifier Fluency Worksheet Details:
·      Digital pdf download: 210 pages
·      Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments
·      Author: Carmen Willings
·      Language: English


Thematic Keyboarding & Braille Fluency and Maintenance Worksheets: A TVI’s Guide to Teaching the ECC Grab & go Supplement
The Thematic Keyboarding & Braille Fluency and Maintenance Grab and Go ECC worksheet packet is a print on demand workbook that contains worksheets in print and simulated braille to use for data collection. Present the student with a hard braille copy and use the worksheets to document accuracy and fluency in reading braille. As a companion to the TVI’s Guide to the ECC, the worksheets correspond to the ECC Thematic activities presented in the curriculum guide. These word lists and sentences will help the student refine their keyboarding or braille reading skills while bridging ECC concepts presented in the thematic units. Although the lists and passages can be produced using a manual braillewriter, you may also copy and paste the passages into any braille translation software for quick production on an embosser. They may also be entered into a typing program such as APH’s Talking Typer to build keyboarding fluency.


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Thematic Keyboarding & Braille Fluency Worksheet Details:
·      Digital pdf download: 338-page print and simulated braille worksheets
·      Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments
·      Author: Carmen Willings
·      Language: English


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The Thematic Vocabulary Cards and Checklists Grab and Go ECC supplement is a 446 page pdf downloadable print on demand workbook that includes 2940 vocabulary card on 3 1/2" x 2" templates divided by each of the 32 Thematic Units along with a checklist of each unit words in print and simulated braille. As a companion to the TVI's Guide to the ECC, the vocabulary cards correspond to the ECC Thematic activities presented in the curriculum guide. 


Additional Use:
Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments can have a extremely varied caseloads. It is possible to go several years without having a student on your caseload who requires braille instruction. Like other skills, if you do not practice your braille regularly, it is easy to lose those skills. Use these checklists and cards to maintain your braille skills. Fold the checklist along the line dividing the print from the braille. Choose to either read the print and produce the word in braille using a braillewriter or read the simulated braille and decode it. Finally, these vocabulary cards and checklists may be used with family members or peers who are interested in learning and practicing the braille code.


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Thematic Vocabulary Cards and Checklists Details:
·      Digital pdf download: 446-page print on demand resource
·      Publisher: Teaching Students with Visual Impairments
·      Author: Carmen Willings
·      Language: English


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Print and use these cards to represent locations the student may visit that are related to the current thematic unit. Use these with the On My Way File Folder Game outlined in the TVI's Guide to Teaching the ECC p. 27.

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