“Next.” He had heard the two students in front of him order.
The class had spent the morning at a museum in a neighboring town and stopped at a small local bakery for lunch. One of the students had low vision. Up close, he could read many things with magnification, but information posted across a room was a different story.
He had ordered his own lunch plenty of times before. At school, the lunch menu was available online, where he could access it. His classroom materials were enlarged or available in formats he could use. When his family stopped at familiar chain restaurants, he already knew the menu and what he liked to order.
Ordering lunch wasn't new. This bakery was.
The menu was a black board with white lettering behind the counter. It probably looked charming. To him, it was a blur of black and white too far away to read.
His classmates had been looking over the choices while they waited in line. He had heard the two students ahead of him order, so he could choose one of those and keep the line moving. Except he didn't want either one.
Now the employee was waiting, and his classmates were behind him.
What would your student do?
When Access is Already Built in
At school, we put a great deal of effort into making sure students with visual impairments have access to the curriculum. Materials may be enlarged, available electronically, or accessed through assistive technology. Teachers and other staff learn what works for the student, and over time many of those supports become a routine part of the school day.
A student may be very successful in an environment where materials have already been prepared and familiar adults know what support is needed. Outside of those familiar environments, the student may need to recognize an access problem, decide what tool or strategy could help, communicate what is needed, or ask for assistance.
Those skills may not be obvious when everything is working as planned.
The Expanded Core Curriculum
For students with visual impairments, the Expanded Core Curriculum, or ECC, provides a framework for skills that may not be taught through the general curriculum. In North Carolina, VI directs specially designed instruction for students with visual impairments, including blindness, in unique skills related to their visual impairment.
The nine areas include compensatory or functional academic skills, including communication modes; orientation and mobility; social interaction; independent living; recreation and leisure; career education; assistive technology; sensory efficiency; and self-determination.
Although those areas are identified separately, students often use several at once. At the bakery, accessing the menu could involve sensory efficiency, assistive technology, or another compensatory strategy. Communicating with the employee involves social interaction. Recognizing that the information is inaccessible and deciding how to respond draws on self-determination.
The student isn't thinking about which ECC area he is using. He just wants lunch.
Functional Skills in Ordinary Moments
A student arrives in class and discovers his electronic magnifier isn't working. His general education teacher wants to help but is unfamiliar with the equipment and hesitant to change anything. Rather than risk damaging it or changing a setting, the teacher decides to wait for the Teacher of the Visually Impaired.
Until the TVI arrives, the student goes without his magnifier.
The problem may be as simple as replacing a battery in the remote, but the student has lost access to instruction while waiting for someone who knows the equipment.
For a younger student, an adult may appropriately handle equipment maintenance. As students grow, however, they can learn to recognize common problems, troubleshoot familiar equipment, and communicate what assistance they need. The skills and responsibilities will vary based on the student's age, abilities, and readiness.
This also creates opportunities for the educational team to consider which routine problems students can learn to manage and which ones classroom staff can safely address without waiting for a specialist.
Asking for help remains an important part of that progression. Independence does not mean solving every problem alone.
Beyond Direct VI Instruction
The Teacher of the Visually Impaired brings specialized knowledge to identifying and explicitly teaching skills related to visual impairment. Functional skills, however, are used throughout the student's day and beyond the school building.
A student may learn to use magnification during direct instruction and then encounter an unfamiliar situation where they must decide whether magnification is the best option. A student may know how a piece of technology works but have little experience troubleshooting it. A student may know the words to request assistance but need experience using them with unfamiliar people.
Classrooms, school activities, field trips, home routines, and community experiences all provide different opportunities to use these skills. Families, teachers, related service providers, and other members of the educational team can reinforce skills that have been explicitly taught and provide opportunities for students to use them in natural situations.
As students grow, functional instruction can grow with them. The skills needed by a preschool student will not be the same as those needed by a middle school student preparing for more independence or a high school student thinking about college, employment, transportation, and community life.
How Equalize Sensory Services Can Help
Equalize Sensory Services provides vision services to support students and school teams, including assessment, consultation, direct services, and instruction related to the Expanded Core Curriculum.
If your school or district needs additional support identifying or addressing the functional and ECC needs of students with visual impairments, contact Equalize Sensory Services to learn more about our VI services.