REFERRALS
By Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com When a parent, caregiver, teacher, or member of the students educational team has concerns about a student's vision, they may wonder how to obtain vision services from the school. Services for students who are blind or visually impaired are based on a combination of the student's eligibility and the individual needs that particular student has for adaptations to materials and the need for individualized instruction. Although each state and district may have a slightly different referral process, this is the typical referral process, but always check with your state's Early Intervention Program (birth - 2) or school system (ages 3 - 21). The following pages will guide you through this process. Vision ConcernsThe initiation of a referral begins when there is a concern about the child's use of vision, or lack thereof. Family members, teachers or therapists might observe unusual visual behaviors or an unusual appearance of the eyes or a student may fail a vision screening at school. This page provides a list of possible concerns, or "red flags" you may have about a student's vision.
Vision ClassificationsA child with a visual impairment is one whose vision, even with correction, adversely impacts a child's educational performance. The World Health Organization uses the following classifications of visual impairment.This page details the classifications of visual impairments.
Referral Process This page provides a detailed flow of the referral process. This is the typical process, but always check with your state's Early Intervention Program (birth - 2) or school system (ages 3 - 21) as each district or county within a state may have a slightly different process that they follow.
Eligibility GuidelinesThis page addresses the guidelines in determining eligibility for school based visual impairment services and what to do when the student does not meet eligibility but his/her acuity is not "normal". Note: This may vary from state to state! Check your state's current guidelines.
Vision Therapy ControversyVision therapy, also known as vision training, is an individualized, supervised, treatment program that is used for children (and sometimes adults) who have binocular vision problems, such as convergence insufficiency, focusing problems, tracking difficulties, eye teaming difficulties and for visual perceptual difficulties. This page addresses the controversy surrounding vision therapy.
Students who do NOT QualifyYou may wonder what to do when the student's vision cannot be corrected to 20/20 but they are found to not meet the eligibility criteria for school based vision services. Other school personnel and/or specialists may be able to address the students unique visual and learning needs. A reading specialist may be contacted to work on reading and learning disabilities. An occupational therapist and a physical therapist may address concerns of eye hand coordination and vision perception difficulties.
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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:
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:
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 
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 |
