By: Carmen Willings teachingvisuallyimpaired.com Updated March 11, 2018
It can be beneficial, and in some cases necessary, to formally instruct those new to the vision field, team members, or peers with the opportunity to experience some of what it is like to be blind or have a visual impairment. Providing an in-service training using vision simulators is an excellent teaching tool to help educators learn about the impact of vision impairment on their students. Low vision simulators can make for a fun and educational in-service!
It must be stressed that simulating a visual impairment is not the same as having the visual impairment. The sighted person has the visual memory and experiences to draw from and assist them in identifying information and navigating their way through the environment.
Keep in mind that it is critical to ensure that everyone stays safe during any type of simulation especially during any movement activities. Each person under simulation should have a sighted monitor to ensure safety.
Walk in a hallway to locate specific room numbers or areas. You may choose to provide the person with a verbal prompt or provide them with a card with the room number in print/braille and request they find the room.
Locate a doorway leading to the outside.
Go outdoors and locate a specific car in the parking lot or locate the correct bus.
Walk in well lit and dimly lit areas. Similarly, walk from a brightly lit to a dimly lit environment and vice versa.
Provide the person with a coin purse and encourage them to use a vending machine.
Request the person locate and use a water fountain.
Find a requested item in a familiar and unfamiliar classroom.
Provide the student with a set of keys and request that they open a locked door.
Play catch with a playground ball, tennis ball or a beach ball.
Get a wet paper towel and clean the table top and sweep up crumbs from the floor.
Arrange for participants to go through the lunch line and get their lunch.
Alternatively, provide a "potluck" meal. Prepare labels in different fonts and sizes and have participants fix themselves a plate.
Provide items to create a simple snack and encourage participants to assemble their snack including spreading cream cheese, peanut butter, etc.
Present an educational video and quiz participants on information that was dependent on vision.
Write information on the board and require participants to take notes.
Provide participants with textbooks and call on different participants to take turns reading passages and locating different pages in the text as well as reading diagrams. Also have the students look up information in the glossary.
Encourage participants to locate specific websites and find specific information.
Find a particular item in a flyer or on a menu.
Provide participants with a word search and require that they complete it in a designated amount of time.
Provide participants with an "I Spy" book and require that they locate items in the picture in a designated amount of time.
Vision Simulation Kits & Resources...
The Zimmerman Low Vision Simulation Kit contains goggles and interchangeable visual acuity and visual pathology simulations, as well as peripheral field restriction simulations that allow family, friends, colleagues, and those who work with individuals who have low vision, to better understand the affect that low vision has on mobility, learning, employment, and activities of daily living.
Vision Rehabilitation Services offers simulators that provide a reasonably accurate picture of some of the functional limitations and abilities that may be experienced with different types of visual impairments.
App Resources...
Free. Braille Institute's VisionSim (v3.0) app for iPhone and iPad was developed to allow people with healthy vision to see the world through the eyes of a person experiencing one of nine degenerative eye diseases. The eye diseases that are simulated are: age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, chronic open-angle glaucoma, corneal edema, diabetic retinopathy, homonymous hemianopia, macular degeneration, retinal detachment, retinitis pigmentosa.
$0.99. ColorDeBlind is an app that allows users to experience what it is like to be colorblind. It also modifies live video to help people who are color blind see the real world in ways they haven't before.
Social Etiquette Handout
This Social Etiquette Handout can be provided to anyone as guidelines for how to interact appropriately with persons who are blind or visually impaired.
Free Membership
Sign up for free membership to access the FREE downloadable templates, handbooks and handouts on the Printables page. Simply click on the Log In | Register link in the navigation bar. If you haven't joined yet, you will be prompted to create a password.
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
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
