Getting You and Your Child Ready for a Successful School Year 

Originally presented August 15, 2022 by Nancy Doyle, MS, TVI and Gale Delaney, O&M Specialist

This presentation provides parents of children with visual impairments with some helpful tips when either returning to school or starting school for the first time.

Transcript

Nancy

Hi everybody, this is Nancy.  I’m the teacher of the visually impaired, also known as a TVI.  And Carly is going to manage our slides, Carly, can you get to the first slide, which is Get Organized? 

Carly

Yeah, give me one that I’m having trouble with my computer right now.  Bear with me one moment. 

Nancy

Gail, did you want to say hi to everybody because I think I cut right into you. 

Gail

That’s fine.  Hi everybody I’m Gail Delaney, and I was going to ask, some of you have preschool children going to school for the first time. How many of you are in that category? You can put your answer in the chat for me if you want. Some of you may have children transitioning from elementary to middle school, middle to high school. So, we’re going to try to address all of these and have plenty of time for questions at the end. And, while we’re waiting for the first slide to come up…

So, Nadia has a child going to be going to kindergarten. Helen, yours is starting pre-K and I don’t know your first name, C Kim – yours is second grade, 11th grade.  So, a senior person. And 1 1/2 years old, so going into daycare then. Well, we hope we’re going try to cover everything we can, and any specific questions feel free to ask at the end. 

Nancy

It sounds like it’s a very broad range. So, this presentation is going to be a little bit general. Everybody has different visual impairments, and it’s pretty impossible to cover the details for every specific one of these, but if you do have specific concerns about your child going to school do try to write down your questions and save it for the end or you can e-mail us if you think of them later on, too. 

Gail

Alright, so we can go to the second slide. There we go. Get organized. 

Nancy

Okay, so we started with getting organized, meaning, basically to get your paperwork together. And I’m going to give you a little advice that someone gave me a long time ago. It’s actually, he’s also known my husband who said, get a file cabinet. With all this paperwork we have to live with, I really, really love my file cabinet now. But anyway, if you don’t have a file cabinet, do try to organize some of your paperwork, including your child’s medical exam, your child’s eye exam.

The medical exam you want to have all that information ready to go to the school nurse for the first day of school. You want to include things like dietary restrictions or insulin shots or seizure medication or eye drops and things like that. And then, you also want to have a copy of an eye exam with the diagnosis for their folder in school. They all have files in school to keep track of exactly what you know the eye condition is. And if your child has a low vision or some usable vision and wears corrective eyeglasses you want to make sure you have an updated prescription and nice, unscratched, clean, put-together pair of eyeglasses.

You also want to have included in your search for paperwork, you want to try to find your IEP and when you find the IEP, what I look in the IEP is for there’s three things. I’m suggesting that you look for what the mandates are for your child. In other words, how many times they’re supposed to see the TVI or teacher visually impaired per week, and for how long? And if there are any other kinds of therapists that you want to make sure that they’re being seen by those therapists, and how often they need to be seen by them.

That’s important to know, and you want to know the class ratio. So, you want know how many kids are supposed to be in your kids class and how many teachers and if there’s a paraprofessional for your child. And the other thing I think you need to look at in the IEP is what kind of equipment is mandated for your child. So, if you know your child needs adapted software, or adaptive seating or specialized equipment like light boxes and things like that, you want to make sure that it’s, you know, those things are noted in the IEP, and then you’re going to have to follow up on it and make sure that they’re being provided later on down the line. 

The other thing we were thinking you should have your hands on or some assessments. So, an assessment that’s really going to be important is a functional vision assessment which is also known as an FVA. You want to make sure you read through that assessment and understand it and if you don’t understand it, you want to try to get hold of the person who wrote it for you and make sure they explain it to you. Because that’s the information that you’re going to want to give to your child’s teacher and therapist and anybody else who needs that information. 

Gail

And the next assessment that’s important is the orientation and mobility assessment. So, for older children you’re probably going to have, one of you, Dorothea, your son may have an ONM assessment already. But, for little kids, toddlers, preschoolers, often they don’t assign ONM until the child is walking, but nonetheless you want to get some kind of evaluation to assess basically your child’s level of independence. How do they walk? Their gait? Their posture? How independent are they? Can they avoid large objects using vision? How are they on stairs? How aware are they of their environment? Do they sort of understand how the world is put together, and can they travel a route, even a small route, so a toddler or a preschooler, can they get from the sofa to the armchair to the kitchen table without you?

So, those kinds of things – we’re building up foundation of independence because the goal basically of ONM training is that your child be age-appropriately independent as they possibly can be at every stage. So, those ONM evaluations will determine if they need assistance or some kind of safety monitoring in the classroom or out on the playground. Things like that. 

And the last two Get Organized sections. Make sure you have a good idea of the school calendar. The vacation days, the parent conference days. All of those type of dates are important for you to make your own plans.  And then, before school starts, both Nancy and I want to emphasize the importance of a special, consistent place where they do school work.  And it doesn’t have to be complicated.

But, you want set up a little space for your child so that it is clear, organized. It is theirs. If you need lighting, there’s an outlet right there, and you know how to position the lamp so that it’s the best for their vision. And this makes it kind of inviting and fun for them to come home and do their work. 

So, we could take a look at the next slide which is Help Your Child Prepare.

Nancy

You can start this at any time. Probably at birth is a good time to get started with these little home routines.  So, if it’s possible at all, you want to, you know have mealtimes be consistent, and you know play times consistent. And alone times, reading times, homework times. You want all of those things to be as consistent as possible. 

So, in school, at least a preschool, maybe sometimes for older children, too, you know, a teacher will create a visual calendar or tactile calendar. And those calendars – 

Gail

You’re going to see those on the screen. You can see that one has objects and one is tactile. The one below it is tactile. Those are examples. 

Nancy

So, what we do is we use an object to represent an activity. So, you know if you want to represent snack time, then, maybe you’ll put a juice box. If you want to represent a bathroom time, maybe you’ll use a bar of soap. If you want represent sleep time, maybe you’ll use a tiny pillow or a piece of a blanket. That’s for children who are not reading yet or not able to see well yet. So, you’ll use objects instead of letters or braille.

Some form of a calendar is is helpful because the child can begin to predict what’s coming next. So, the idea is to stick with a routine so the child knows ‘I do this and then I do that, and then we do this and then we do that’ and then hopefully knowing what’s going to come next is going to help reduce anxiety and stress in daily life.  And in that routine you might want to include jobs.

Gail

So, jobs are – I can’t stress the importance, even as a young, young child, of giving the child a job, which means that you’re basically inviting them to be an equal participant in the life around them. So, this, especially for visually impaired children, jobs, little jobs, even “oh, could you bring me that cup?” Or, “would you get that bag off the table for me? Thank you so much.” It gives your child the feeling ‘I can do things, I can contribute. I am equally important’ and they don’t sit there while things happen around them. This is, for me, as a mobility instructor, this is the foundation for me of your child’s independence. So, have them, when they’re old enough, take care of packing their bags for school. The 11th grader should be packing their lunch or taking care of their money or whatever it is they need during the day.

In the home they should be taking care of their clothing. Even having a child hand you clothing and you could put it in the washer or lifting them up to have them push the button on the machine. All of these things create for them and awareness of what is going on around them and what it takes for day-to-day life and how it works.

And the other part of having a job for me, or having little jobs is when people or visitors come to your house, have your child get used to greeting them and speaking to them and taking their coat or offering them something to drink or eat.  Because this is a way to create a bridge to the world around them where they again, once again, they’re equal. And they’re part of it. They’re contributing. So, these little, tiny things I find are actually very big things. You are introducing them to the idea that they are independent and equal. You will also, and for the younger ones, this is very, very important, so Nancy is going to speak about bedtime.

Nancy

You know, of course you’re going to try to, you know, do as much as you as your child is able to do so, and you, too, not every family can have a schedule which includes, you know this specific – at 10:00 o’clock we do this, at 11:00 o’clock we do it. You know, that’s just it’s not very natural. But to the greatest degree you can, develop a schedule. A routine. It’s really helpful for for the children to grow in and like Gail says, become more independent. 

But if your household, if that doesn’t work for you, if you’re just not able to get a routine down with jobs and activities and stuff like tha,t do try as hard as you can to get a wake up and go to bed routine down so that they’re going to bed and getting up at the same time everyday so that when it gets to be time to go to back to school their internal clocks are kind of set and ready to go. It can be kind of traumatic I know, for me to be on vacation for a week and then have to come back and be like, oh, I’m going to have to get back into getting up at 6 o’clock and I need more sleep and now I’m stressed out ’cause I’m not going to be able to get up on time.

So, you know, what I’m trying to say is try to make go to bed and wake up routine as consistent as possible. And that routine could include things that they like to do. If your child likes taking a shower before going to bed or, you know, you can include the whole toileting routine like brushing teeth and washing face and, include all of those daily living routines in with your go to bed routine. And then, you can also do things like let them pick out a favorite book or sing a favorite song. Or bring a cuddly toy that’s their favorite to bed. Whatever works and that’s appropriate. 

I encourage you to try to develop some kind of routine so that they can get up in the morning and go to school and not be completely traumatized by that experience. 

Gail

And I just wanted to add that for older children, you want to really discourage scrolling on the phone or the iPad while they’re lying in bed trying to go to sleep. And I know this is hard, but you may want to start encouraging things like listening to books or something like that, that will lull them to sleep and maybe a healthier way of going into dreamland. 

Nancy

Speaking of assistive technology, assistive technology is becoming a huge part of education for our kids now. You know, there are some things you can do to help with that. You know, because it is a really important tool, but you don’t want to make it too serious, but you do want to make it interesting to them. So, you have to sort of find a balance so that they’ll like the tool and they’ll take care of it. 

I’m recommending and I think Gail, too, is recommending that you find a carrying case that they like, you know, and it’s easy to identify so that they can start to take care of it themselves. Be really careful about batteries and chargers. I’ve been hearing horror stories in the news about batteries and chargers. You know, a lot of us use light boxes and they need to be charged. Some of them. Just make sure you have the correct battery and charger together and make sure that it’s always attended. Don’t need them alone. Like don’t plug in the battery to charge it and then go to go to the store or go to bed. Make sure you know you’re aware of what’s going on with the battery. 

And, try to get involved to the greatest degree you can with your child and your technology. You know your iPad, learn how to use Voiceover. Whatever your child is doing, see if you can get involved and make it interesting and fun and, like it’s just something the family does, you know? It’s just a great tool and you know, you have to learn how to use it and take care of it appropriately. 

Gail

So, on the screen here I want to point out that we want to share a page with you from the website preventingblindness.org. And we’re actually going to provide a link at the end of the presentation for you. So, I’m not going to go over it too much. But the main point is children, you know, kids are using screens more and more and more, and the older they get, the more they use them and there are some red flags that you want to be aware of when those screens are beginning to affect your child vision. So, you’ll see the red flags on the top of that page and you will see some solutions for how to rest, take breaks, how to position the screen and things like that. But those are very, very important because children vision can change very quickly and you want to be on the lookout for problems that are related to screens so we will be giving you that at the end, and we can move to the next slide which is Contacting the School.

So, you’re going to want to be a good advocate for your child and you want to sort of strike the right note as an advocate. And there’s several things you can do which are easy and available to you. So, one of the things that’s really obvious, it’s join the parent teacher association if you can. This is a place to meet other parents. You can address any issues that were questions that other parents might have about your child, how they learn, if they’re curious, is it safe to invite them over.  Oh, if we want to go to the park. Are they able to do that? Things like that, you can often be a wonderful advocate as a parent teacher association. 

Along the same lines, if you can, try to make yourself available to go on class trips, because a class trip is also a wonderful opportunity to share with others how your child sees and navigates the world and any accommodations they may use. You know, people grown-ups and children are curious about canes and how to use them and so on and so forth. And you might be able to model for other parents and the other kids how to work with your child. And how your child uses their cane or other accommodations. So part of that is when you’re comfortable with your child, you can help other children to be comfortable with your child. So those are two easy things to try to slip in and be part of.

Know your rights. You do have rights and we’re giving several websites for you at the end you can take a look at. Finally, this is really, really important, I think. Don’t write off extracurricular activities for your child You would be surprised that it’s just a very few accommodations there is no reason that your child cannot participate in drama, chorus, sports like wrestling, debate club, yoga, dance classes, chess, computer, all of these things will help your child to become part of the school community. So keep your mind open to those – don’t hold back. 

Our next slide is about visiting the school, and you’ll see on the screen here a very simple tactile map of a classroom. I want to encourage you, if you have an ONM you want to make sure that your ONM is probably working with your child right now to make sure they know where their classrooms are. Because you want to work in August before the September flood of kids is in the school. , you want to be contacting the O&M now or if you don’t have an O&M or your child is a toddler going to preschool or kindergarten, you want to bring your child to school. You can do this yourself and you want to slowly, together, go in, find the classroom, note some of the major landmarks or things that your child is going to have to encounter on the route to his or her classroom. 

You can be a model for your child. Since you’re not going to be sure where to go, you can model asking for help, following directions, using simple, simple mobility techniques like trailing along the wall to feel where things are. So that you create a simple route and get your child used to the layout of the basic school. I know that when I work with kids in the summer, it’s kind of wonderful because the only people that are there are administration and staff, and they’re usually so happy to meet us and meet the student. It’s a familiar voice that your child will know, someone that will say hello to them that first day of school. It’s a wonderful opportunity for your child to meet some of the people they’re going to be interacting with. 

You will want to, if you can, familiarize your child with a simple classroom layout. Keep this very, very simple. We usually say the door is home base. So you start at home base and you return to home base. Where is the door, their desk, the teacher’s desk and their cubby? And you just want to give them a bit of the lay of the land so that they can begin to know what they’re going to have to navigate themselves. 

So, making a tactile map is fun and simple and you can use household things and arts and crafts supplies and foam shapes and you can do it almost like a little game. You know, here’s the water fountain, and then you after you pass the water fountain, what did we find? Oh, it’s the door to the auditorium. Oh, what did we find after that? Oh, there’s your classroom. So, that kind of interactive, making it a bit of a treasure hunt. 

So, then the next slide Nancy’s going to talk about.

Nancy

Meet the Teacher.  Like Gail was just saying, it’s really great if you can get to the school before the school year begins and meet the teacher and see if you can kind of develop some kind of a rapport like with the teacher. Sometimes teachers have never worked with children who have visually impaired. So ,they might not know anything about it, and they might, you know, be terrified or they might not know anything about it, but think they know everything about it. And so, you might have to go in there and advocate for your child. You know if your child is able to, you want your child to be able to advocate for him or herself.

So, when you meet the teacher, if you can plan a visit ahead of time. You want to be able to provide as much information about your your child vision as possible. Make it sort of simple and easy to understand, because you don’t want the teacher to be scared or feel like they can’t handle it in a way you’re advocating, but you’re also really kind of helping the teacher to being able to have you know your child spend the school year in a classroom that has sort of a level playing field. So the teacher isn’t treating your child differently from the other children to the extent that your your child begins to stand out as different, which is kind of traumatizing for children sometimes. 

So, you want to be able to give your teacher a copy and information about your child’s diagnosis. So, you want to be able to tell your child teacher that they won’t be alone or have to deal with all of these issues on their own. They have you as somebody to help support them. They have a TVI hopefully coming into the classroom at least once a week and hopefully maybe in an O&M instructor to come in and help them out. Those teachers will be able to help your teacher and help your student. 

You want to sort of be able to explain a lot of what you have on your functional vision assessment that we talked about in the beginning, the first slide? You want to be able to explain how your child sees or doesn’t see You want to be able to explain if your child is going to be a braille reader or a print reader or some combination of braille, print and/or auditory learner. So, they can understand that your child is going to need braille or large print or bold letters. They have to sort of begin to understand that so that they can be an effective teacher for your child you wanted. 

Explain that maybe there’s certain seating that’s better for your child. Like, if your child has no vision on their right side you want to be able to make sure the teacher understands that when they’re sitting on the right-hand side of the classroom, they have more accessible vision on their left side. So you know, if she could possibly put your child in the spot, it’s preferential for the specific needs of your child, that would be great. 

You also want to ask for a locker or cubby that’s easy to find. , you know, if there’s a long line lockers you want to ask if your child can have the locker on the very end or at the very beginning so it’s easy to find. When you meet the teacher, you want to be able to explain to her that your child can’t see things like, if you’re going to be watching, they’re going to be watching a video. So, you going to leave the teacher to explain and describe exactly what’s going on during, videos or demonstrations. Anything that’s visual has to be described to children who can’t see. So, the teachers don’t always understand that. And it helps, you know, when they hear it and sometimes hearing it once isn’t enough, they’re going to maybe have to hear it like two, three, four, five – you know, a lot of times sometimes. 

It’s also really important that the teacher understands that if your child can’t see, they can’t – she asks the class, for instance, raise your hands if you know the answer to this question. The teacher can’t just point to your child and and not use their names. So it’s really important that they understand that they don’t use body language with your child. If they use their name or they use a verbal description or you know, they have to learn to be more verbal. And more descriptive. 

If your child’s teacher is still really not sure and would like to learn more. There are a couple of websites we’ve provided for you with at the Lighthouse Guild e-learning page, and there’s another website called Teaching Students with Visual impairment which is also really, really helpful for teachers who, you know, have little or no experience with children who can’t see. So, I recommend that if you can give them that information. 

And then, maybe most important of all, you want the teacher to understand that you want your child to more or less be treated like everybody else. You know you don’t have your child become a target. You don’t want your child to be the one who gets special treatment from the teacher, because then you’re kind of leaving the door open for bullying, and you really don’t want that to happen. So try if you can to, you know, kind of be friendly with your child’s teacher and develop a good communication with them and and talk to them once a week, once every couple of weeks and make sure that they are filling you in on how your child is doing and in the classroom and how much they’re participating and do they have friends and, you know, things like that. 

So you have to meet them ahead of time in like right now, August, and tell them about your child. And then you have to follow up and make sure that things are going in the right direction. 

On the next slide. Just so you know, there are a few links or web pages pages for – they’re pretty basic. Most people know about them, but you know, in case you don’t know about them, here they are. Bookshare, Bard, APH,and PTACS.  These are sources of large print, braille and audio books for your child in case your teacher, your TVI maybe you know isn’t available for the first month of school or something like that happens. You want to be able to at least give your teacher some kind of resources so that so that they’ll have something to start with. 

They won’t be able to say well, I can’t do anything for you. Sorry. You know, because you know. Yes, you can, help me, help us and, you know, get my child registered with Bookshare then books will become available to my child. So anyway, those are just a few resources for you to have to back you up. 

Gail

The final slide. I think this is the best one – Shopping. Again, here’s an opportunity to have your child make decisions for themselves based on what’s best for their vision. So, again, you’re trying to foster self-advocacy. You want your child to understand how their vision works, and so having them make decisions and choices and encouraging them.  Be clear which lunch box is better for you. Is it this one? Do you see this one better or this one? Things like that. So, the whole idea which color stands out, bright colors, contrasting colors, all of those things you want to try to get your child to be able to understand what works for their vision and you could do that through shopping. 

The other thing is when you’re choosing your child’s school supplies like pens and things like that, don’t spend money on things that they can’t see. So, if a Bic pen writes in align that they can’t see, go for a Sharpie or a Flare or something that that that will make sense to them because they have to be able to read what they wrote or see what they drew. 

You want to use brightly colored folders and for older children where you have to start to have subject folders, use bump dots and stick-on things or hole punches to make something tactile that they can easily find in addition to using color and high contrast. 

We have a website for you, if you don’t know it already, called MaxiAids, which has all kinds of things. They sell everything from magnifiers to canes to stick on dots to all kinds of things that will help you in this. 

That’s the basic presentation and I know I saw a couple of really wonderful questions pop up. So we’d love to be able to get to those. On the last slide is Nancy’s contact information and my contact information and we just want to say that we are so happy to answer emails from any of you. So, please feel comfortable writing us after the presentation and asking us questions. 

Nancy

I know I usually don’t think of my questions right away. Usually, it takes me awhile to sort of process it all so, please. If you have any, you know, even if it’s six months from now and you know you just want to know some feedback about something or you know there’s something that comes up later on down the line, feel free to reach out to me or Gail.

Gail

So, Nancy, do you want me to read these questions aloud? 

Nancy

Yeah, I’m on the phone so I I can’t see them at all.

Gail

OK, let me start. From Z – I don’t know custom bound – who does the functional vision assessment? Is it the TVI? And the answer is yes. 

Nancy

Right. The teacher of the visually impaired will do your functional vision assessment because what it does is the TVI is somebody who looks at – it’s an assessment that’s done over usually you know it can be done over a day or a week or a month or sometimes their shorter, or sometimes they’re longer.  Basically, it’s to understand how your child uses their vision.  And it’s so different for every child. The TVI will want to see your child in a lot of different settings like they’ll want to see how your child does during close up you know desk work. And then they’ll want to see how your child does on the playground.  And then they’ll want to see how your child does in the lunchroom.  

It’s all related to how they’re functioning using their vision. Can they read the clock in the classroom? Can they see the print on the regular size textbook.  Can they see the lines on the on the notebook paper? You know, so the functional vision assessment will explain things like that hopefully and they’ll use language that everybody can understand. It’s not just written for a vision professional. It should be written so that parents can understand it.

Gail

We have two questions here from Kim, and this is actually very, very important. What you’re asking Kim is, your daughter is a dual media learner and she’s going to 2nd grade in an ICT classroom. She is halfway through grade two braille. Congratulations. That’s great. If she’s being pulled out to work with her TVI so she’s not fully integrated. So how do we effectively set up learning goals for her, a dual media learner, so that her classroom teachers and peers can include her and allow her to complete certain tasks in braille? Like writing when her TVI is not present. 

So, I’m going to go back to making sure your second grader participates in everything she can after school as well. There isn’t much in second grade, but at least to get her started she has to learn braille. So, there’s nothing you can do about that. But, it would be nice if you could somehow make the braille interesting to her peers. And her teacher, you know, if she could share what she’s learning with her classmates, and if you could somehow get the teacher to understand that you’re a little concerned that her pullouts are affecting her socially among her peers. 

Maybe the teacher can integrate her braille and the things that she doe, bring it back to the classroom to be shared. And Nancy, you probably have a lot to say about this, too.

Nancy

Well, I’m not sure what exact situation is. And maybe we could talk in e-mail, you know? You could e-mail me and you could talk more about this, but it’s sort of sounds like maybe the TVI could be seeing your daughter during times when, it could be maybe you can work on when the TVI is seeing your child, in other words, so it’s not interfering so much with class time. I’m not sure when that would be or you know exactly what’s going on, so it’s kind of hard to to answer that question really without knowing a little bit more details. 

Gail

We also have a question. Would the TVI help with teaching the child how to read and write? My son has OCA1. 

Nancy

Yes, the TVI should be helping learning to read and write. Definitely, absolutely. If he’s able to read it, I mean, I’m not sure how well, he’s doing cognitively and you know, and if his skills are up to it he should be learning to read and write, yes. 

Gail

And the TV I is a central part of that – is a key part of that. Because I mean, Nancy, correct me if I’m wrong, but the TVI makes reading and writing accessible to the child.

Nancy

Exactly. That’s really huge part of their job. Yeah. I mean, if the child is a reader. 

Nadia

Thanks for answering that. Just a little concerned because I think his school mentioned the TVI would only come maybe once a month, maybe every other month. We don’t have weekly support so I’m going to actually see if there’s something maybe I can – I don’t think they have funding for it, but maybe something I can do privately. 

Nancy

I think so. There are options to do things privately. This is another case maybe we should talk privately, because I think I’d love to find out more about, you know, what is available and what and where you are and you know all those kinds of things, you know? But once a month, you know, I I don’t know. 

Nadia

It’s Canada. 

Gail

You’re in Canada? 

Nancy

Do you know about Molly Burke? Go Google Molly Burke.  She’s Canadian and she lost her vision when she was 14. 

Gail

So, Nadia, you also asked who is supposed to provide or create the IEP? 

Nadia

Yes, because we don’t. 

Nancy

Do you have IEPs in Canada?

Nadia

We have IPPs –  individual performance plans. Is that the same? 

Nancy

That sounds like it. 

Nadia

Okay, but it’s more focused on his goals like self-help skills and behavioral. Well, I guess it’ll change or update for reading and writing once he’s in kindergarten, I guess it will get updates. 

Nancy

He’s how old is he? 

Nadia

He is five. 

Nancy

Is he interested in books then? 

Nadia

Yeah. So, like, he knows all the letter sounds. He’s starting to blend the letters. So, we’re trying to do, like, start to learn how to read at home and things like that. But writing is very bad. So we just actually updated his prescription and now he has bifocals, which is very uncommon they said so for his age, of course. 

Nancy

I’m not sure how you know how it’s vision is and what his acuity is but large markers, you know, large bold lined paper should help.  Even coloring and drawing.  Just learning those fine motor skills are so important.  Does he get occupational therapy, too?

Nadia

He does.  I do that at home.  They don’t provide that at school because it’s not a public school. I think that’s part of the problem. It’s called charter. But I mean, I can e-mail you.

Nancy

Okay, great.  I’d love to talk.  And look up Molly Burke when you have time. 

Nadia

Yes, I will. Thanks. 

Gail

So, we have two questions that sort of go together, I think. One is from Kim and one is from Christy.  From Kim –  My daughter’s behavior sometimes gets flagged as inappropriate when it stems from her not being accommodated and included. What are some strategies to help explain and persuade students and teachers to verbalize what they are doing using more descriptive words and be more inclusive at school. 

Nancy

That’s a good question. It’s so hard sometimes to get people to understand and it takes a lot of tries. Sometimes people have to hear and see it like many, many times, right Gail?

Gail

I don’t know if this is possible, Kim, but often I was asked if it was, you know, a caring teacher and I was working with a good TVI, we would do sensitivity trainings where we would put goggles on the other kids that mirrored, you know that helped them to see what this our student saw and didn’t see. So, it was it was a sensitivity training for the classroom and for the teacher. Everybody put them on and tried to get from one place to another, find their seat, you know, all of those things and and it made it so clear suddenly that, oh, if I don’t say the child’s name, they don’t know I’m talking to them, you know, all these simple things. 

And there are whole sets of goggles that simulate different visual impairments that a lot of TVIs at schools have them. We would use them or we could even make them. We learn how to make them in school. You know, if you have tunnel vision or things like that. You can’t follow someone moving very quickly, all kinds of things like that. To get to get people to verbalize and describe. 

Nancy

Sometimes it’s just a matter of not knowing how to do it and needing to see how it’s done. It’s sometimes hard for people to do it. It’s a learning curve. It’s something that, you know. I mean, I’ve known people who just never really got it.  You know, my brother doesn’t understand visual impairment at all. I mean at all. And he’s my brother. 

You have to be persistent, and you have to be understanding.  And they don’t understand.  They’re not understanding. So, it’s going to take awhile and a lot of patience and you know, we have to model for them how to verbally describe things. You know, some people just don’t really know how to do it. They don’t understand it. It’s a skill. 

Gail

How old is your daughter? 

Kim

She’s six. She is going to be in second grade. All everything that you’ve been saying is so helpful and I love that you brought up the sensitivity training. I think that’s something that our TVI and O&M is going to do in the Fall with the staff and hopefully with the students as well. 

Gail

I want to say, she’s second grade. She could begin to say simple things like, I can’t see that. 

Kim

Oh, definitely. And she advocates for herself really well.  She says, I’m visually impaired, I’m legally blind. I need to, you know, take a closer look. She’s doing really well in school, it’s just that because she’s doing so well, a lot of people keep on forgetting what her vision impairment is.  Then it becomes like, oh, she’s being a little bit too invasive in peoples’ personal space, right? And it becomes a behavior thing. So, she gets frustrated and it kind of spirals from there. So, we have to keep on reminding everybody that it’s actually, she has to be close to people to see what they’re doing, just kind of be in their spaces or else she’s not included in whatever they’re doing. 

Nancy

You might want to talk to your TVI about it and have your TVI work with your daughter about how to, when is she too close to other people, you know, when is it appropriate? You know, work on those kinds of things too, right. You know, so you can work on both angles. 

Kim

Yes. Yes. Thank you. 

Gail

And Christy had say a comment about her grandson. I noticed that in public places, adults seem to realize that my grandson has atypical vision and they are usually very polite and say nothing about his vision. How do I help other adults feel comfortable without talking over my grandson when I’m with him without his parents? First of all, how old is your grandson

Christy

My grandson is 1 1/2. And I don’t want to talk over his head about him because he has excellent hearing, you know? That’s what I mean by talking over. 

Gail

Talking about him in front of him.

Christy

Right. I don’t want to do that. Yeah, it’s not up to me to explain it. But, you know, at a swimming pool, you know, people talk and kids play and people notice, but they say nothing. And so, I’m looking for hints. 

Gail

He’s probably not verbal enough to explain it himself. 

Nancy

So it probably doesn’t bother him at all, right? 

Gail

You can say what needs to be done to accommodate him to the adult. Or you can explain it to the adult and then you could charge your grandson. What’s your grandsons name?

Christy

Liam. 

Gail

That’s my son’s name! And then you could turn and say, right, Liam?  Is that how’d like it? So in other words, you’re including him. He’s not verbal enough to say it himself. But you can check in with him. Does that make? 

Christy

Yeah, I you know, I I guess I’m the one. I know that I’m the one when I have him, like, at the pool with me to help facilitate a parent sitting there. You’re walking down the steps, he’s coming down the step. There’s another little child. So, instead of silence is what happens, you know? I just. He’s, he’s verbal, he can swim with his little swimmies on and he talks and you know, I I just don’t know how to help them just respond as they normally would. I don’t know, maybe somebody else has had that experience. 

Nancy

I think if you sort of model for them how you know how to talk to your grandson and you know how to act around him. I mean, if you’re comfortable with him, they’ll be like, oh, okay.  There’s no problem here.

Christy

Because I’m his grandmother and he likes my old hand when he sees me. That’s his thing with me. He takes my hand and we walk around and I’m a sucker for that instead of his mother making him be independent. So we’re walking around the pool and he’s meandering. You know, most little kids walked at this and walked that, but he may meanders. Then he touches the wall and, you know, he does sensory kinds of things and we chit chat. And so, it’s noticeable because it’s different. It’s not atypical. So, I just need to just talk like I would normally talk with any stranger, parent, children. 

Nancy

That’s what I would do. People don’t really know how to act and if they see the way you’re acting and they’ll be like, OK, you know, I guess that’s what we do.

Christy

And that’s right, because that is the way it is. 

Nancy

It’s the easy way to to go and sometimes that’s the right way to go, you know.  If you’re  comfortable everybody hopefully around you and if they’re not, then you know what? You know, it’s sometimes it’s just a matter of, you know, exposure and desensitizing, you know, so if people see your, your child, your grandson once, you know, feeling, exploring the wall tactilely, then they see a second time, they’ll be like, oh there he is feeling the wall. Oh yeah, he doesn’t every time. Oh yeah. 

Christy

Right. That’s how he learns what a tree is.  He touches the bark.

Nancy

Exactly. Don’t feel bad about those things at all. And the more comfortable you are, the more comfortable I think people around you will be. 

Christy

Alright. Thank you. 

Gail

Maggie, do we have time for two more questions? 

Maggie

Yeah, I think we could do the last two questions and then we can wrap it up and any other ones and you can send through an e-mail. 

Gail

Okay, this is from Helen. My son is going to a new school for grade 9, four classes a day. The resource teacher has offered to introduce him to each of the classes and to ask classmates to always say their names when they speak. What do you suggest is the best way for a student with a visual impairment who is a teenager to start out in a new class? 

Nancy

I would get the names of the other students ahead of time. The more information you can have ahead of time the better and if there’s some other student in the class that you know he knows then great. Get to meet the teacher ahead of time.

Helen

Sadly, they say they can’t even share a class list due to confidentiality. So yeah, and he’ll know some of the kids, because he went to the same elementary school and he’s just been out for seven and eight. But it’s hard in high school and he’s going to meet so many different kids in a day. 

Nancy

Well, that’s going be a rough start in the first week or so. It’s going to probably be hard, but it sounds like it’ll workout because he already knows some of the kids from previous years.  And then that’s where the extracurricular activities come in and just to socialize with other kids is so important. 

Gail

Is he a cane user?

Helen

He is but I don’t think he’ll use it at the school. He’ll use it to get from home to the bus to school. 

Gail

But he’s going to hide it when he gets to school.

Helen

He probably won’t need it in the building.

Nancy

If you know any of you the other teachers in the school and as long as the teachers have a head up heads up and they are knowledgeable and experienced and sensitive, they can be there for him and and help out. I mean, teenagers are tough, right Gail?

Gail

 I did a lot of work with teenagers, and I’m going to say that it really comes down to how comfortable they are with themselves, and that’s not something you can just snap your fingers and have it happen.  But, if he can learn to be comfortable and accepting of his vision, others will follow suit and it really comes down to that. The more awkward he is about his vision, and this is a stage a lot of kids have to go through. It’s just coming to terms with who they are. And the vision is part of it, but it’s not all of it, you know? And when we would be doing mobility, a lot of times with my teenagers, I couldn’t believe they could hide an entire campaign in their sleeve. I mean, it just was so amazing to me. But I had one boy who was severely visually impaired and he was just comfortable with himself, you know? And it wasn’t always. This didn’t happen until he was more like 16. And people would come up and say, oh, God bless you. And all this and all that, you know, all kinds of comments meaning well. And he would just say, I’m good, don’t worry, I’m good, I’m fine. And he was able to move through these awkward situations. 

Nancy

And the TVI should be able to help out with these things and also, their counselors and social workers and if I had a teenage son  I wouldn’t hesitate to, you know, offer whatever support was out there. And also those outside interests are so important. You know, if music is his interest or, baseball or certain books are interesting or science is interesting, or that’s where the extra curricular, when you find other people who have similar interests with – it’s the same as any typical teenager, you know, really. We just have an additional ability. And as everybody knows, everybody has something,  some problems to deal with, so you know the, the extracurricular and the other interests, you know, just making a friend, you know, that’s what gets you through in my opinion. 

Helen

Thank you. 

Gail

Another thing is to help him practice how to talk about his vision. So that he’s clear and comfortable with talking about it and that will help little bit. 

Nancy

Sometimes there are role models, you know. I know that I’m not real big on social media, but there are, people out there who are blind, they’re visually impaired, who are really good role models, who might have similar interest to your, you know, teenager who is slightly lost. That that might change everything for him, you know? And sometimes jobs are the thing that really gets you through because when you have a job and responsibility and then you get paid for it. It’s like, you know, huge when you’re teenager.

Gail

We have a question about – we’ll take this as the last question. So the school uses a lot of handouts that students have to fill out. Apart from using a CCTV, colored, bold lined paper and enlarging the handout, are there other ways to make the handouts accessible to a dual media learner? 

Nancy

It depends on what the source of the handout is. Sometimes they’re available. There are online sort of handouts, and sometimes they’re accessible with Voiceover or you can make them larger on on the iPad.  You can you connect them larger on a computer. Or bolder on the computer or Xerox machine. Things like that. But when teachers have handouts, they usually have them in advance, so if they can give you the material in advance, so you can make the adaptations in advance, that’s usually helpful, too. But I would find out what the source is of the handout and then see if you can get – I don’t know if you need large print or Voiceover. I’m not sure what kinds of adaptations you’re making with braille or what you’re using. At least you you should be able to get the handouts in advance. So your child’s able to do the class work when the other children are doing it to the greatest extent possible. 

Gail

And we have, this is a comment more than a question from Lisa. Be careful about the comment of learning braille if her skills are up to it. Our daughter TVI didn’t think our daughter could learn full braille, so she provided a customized braille for her. It wasn’t until we sued the school district and moved her to a school for the blind that she was taught all the contractions.

Nancy

You know each TVI is – it’s like anything, there are good people who are really good at what they do and people who you know are not as good and we’re still learning or whatever the case might be. So, its entire importance that the parents, sort of, you know that it sounds like person who wrote that comment was, you know, had a different opinion than the TVI so you know, when you have a different opinion from the TVI, it’s of course you know you have to have a good relationship with your TVI and you have to make sure that they’re making the right accommodations and adaptations for your child. Just because there’s a TVI or O&M specialist available,  it doesn’t mean that they’re getting exactly what they should be getting. It just means that they’re getting something. So, it’s up to the parents and the child to, you know, speak up and say, I I think I need something different.  This isn’t working for my child. And kudos to that family, because you have to follow up on all of these accommodations to make sure that your child is getting what you think they need. 

Woman

I’m the person that wrote that comment, I was just going to state that this is a TVI that teaches the TVIs – very experience but just didn’t believe in our child and what she was capable of. And we had a very good working relationship with her. But what do you do when they still don’t believe in your child and so, that is I think what happened and then the problem is that everybody listens to the TVI ’cause they think oh that persons got 25 plus years experience. So the whole school district then listens to that TVI and then you have a real problem on your hands ’cause then you’re trying to convince lots of people on IEP team. Yeah, she can do it. I know she can do it. Especially when disabilities are involved, right? Then it gets even more complicated because the TVI may not know about those other disabilities. They mostly really only know about the TVI part. That’s what they’re trained for. 

Nancy

Yeah, it’s it’s complicated and it’s hard, It’s like going to a doctor and you know the doctor diagnoses you with one thing, but you think it’s another. But, don’t give up. You’re the parent and it’s your child, and you know you’ll have a TVI for maybe a year, and then you’ll have a new TVI or, you know, things change and hopefully it doesn’t come down to a  lawsuit, but you know. Sometimes it does, so you don’t know. Know your rights, as we said in the beginning. 

Gail

I just wanted to make sure everybody was able to. I’m just going to read these last comments and then we’ll sign off. For handouts, this is from Helen, my son scanned them into the iPad Pro with an app called PDF Expert or Clara Pro, and he could then make the handout as big as he needed and filled it in with the Apple Pen or keyboard and it worked very well for my son. So, I think that’s something to know about. 

So, the notability app is another app that is mentioned here in the chat, so just to make sure everybody got that.

Nancy

It’s great to know. 

Gail

Thank you so much, everybody. 

Nancy

I feel like parents often know more than TVIs. It’s so important that parents speak up. Do your homework and don’t be a wallflower and speak up. But also being able to listen, you know, because the information comes from all different people in all different ways. Sometimes I don’t know as much as I think I know, and sometimes I know more than I think I know. So, you just have to kind of speak up. 

Maggie

Thank you so much Gail and Nancy for joining us tonight, and as Carly mentioned earlier we will be sending out the recording to everyone along with the handout. So. if you do have any additional questions that come up, please feel free to reach out to Gail and Nancy directly.