SENSORY AREAS & ROOMSBy: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com Updated November 4, 2017 For the student with visual impairments such Cortical Visual Impairment, highly controlled environments may be needed to help the student learn to look and use their vision. A sensory room is appropriate for students who need a place to go where they can have minimal visual and auditory distractions. If you are planning to set up a sensory area in your room, be sure that it is a quiet area away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the classroom. Some schools may have the luxury of having a sensory room, but space is typically limited in schools and creating a space within the classroom may be your only option. When setting up a darkened area for viewing lights and also providing tactual experiences, try to think about ways to encourage active involvement for the student. This could include using a power link device to connect electrical lights so when the student activates a switch, the lights (or other materials) turn on.
The Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI) can assist in setting up an area that will minimize auditory and visual distracters and encourage the student to attend visually to materials presented. The goal is to work on vision skills in the controlled environment and gradually introduce distracters until the student does not require such a controlled environment and goals can be addressed in the classroom under normal conditions.
Position the student with their hands and object in the preferred visual field; use appropriate or prescribed adaptive seating to achieve this. Determine the student’s preferred positioning for best visual function (sitting, supine, side-lying, etc).
For some students with significant disabilities, it can be helpful to place several objects around the student’s body that touch the student, or are very close so that any movement will cause contact with a toy. Allow the student time to discover and rediscover the same toys in the same places so that his play environment becomes more predictable. It may be necessary to find ways to stabilize toys for students, particularly for students that are in wheelchairs of standers. Use Velcro, Dycem, shelf liner or rubber pads under the toy to prevent it from sliding off a surface while the student is playing with it. SuggestionsI have constructed toy bars using cut pieces of PVC pipe and elbow and "T" connectors to form a stand. Depending on the students color or light preference, I have then wrapped Christmas lights around the toy bar. I then plug the lights into the Power Select switch from APH and encourage the student to activate the switch to turn on the lights. Another option is to suspend metallic materials from the toy bar and have the student activate the switch that is connected to a small fan (set on low) directed toward the materials. If the student is able to visually attend when there are auditory distractions, you may also want to connect the switch to a radio or CD player to play music or a story when activated. Alternatively, I have drilled holes in a Steralite clear plastic storage box and attached miniature lights and suspended reflective materials that can be activated through a switch.
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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 |
