Critically examine how students with Visual Impairments should be supported in a mainstream school.
Introduction
The type of SEND that has been chosen for this essay is Visual Impairment. This has been chosen due to the fact that I have a visual impairment, therefore I have personal experience of what is needed to support others with this type of SEND in mainstream school. The NHS suggests that there are around 2 million people in the UK living with a visual impairment, of which around 360,000 are registered as blind or partially sighted. (NHS choices 2015) Around half of all children with a visual impairment also have an additional disability. (Dutta 2013) There are many different types of Visual Impairment, some can be treated, but others can’t (Centre for parent information and resources 2015). There are different factors that can bring on a Visual Impairment, most people will suffer some kind of sight loss as they reach old age, this is the most common cause of an impairment, some will suffer accidents that affect their vision, car accidents and playing with guns are common causes. Others are born with an eye condition. Most children who have a visual impairment are diagnosed at an early age through an optician or a paediatrician. (Rahi and Cable 2003) This essay will focus mainly on Primary school age children. Educationally blind learners have a level of sight that is inadequate to learn visually, and so rely on their other senses. The child does not have to be completely blind to be classed as ‘educationally’ or ‘legally blind.’ (RNIB 2010; Vision Aware 2016) Legal blindness is defined as visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with best correction possible. (Vision Aware 2016) The main themes are access, inclusion and health issues.
Key challenges/Needs of the student
Access
The first challenge that children with a visual impairment will face is actually getting to school. It may be that the child will require specialist transport to safely travel to and from school. (RNIB 2016) The child may not feel safe walking to school due difficulties with traffic and speed perception. Steps and curbs may also cause an issue due to difficulties with depth perception, they may not even realise that steps are coming up as for some people with visual impairments, it might look like a slope rather than steps. (Vista society for the blind 2010)
Inclusion
Once in school the child might need help to find the correct rooms for their lessons. This is not such a problem in primary schools as the children tend to stay in one room for all of their lessons, but if not managed properly, this could be a major difficulty at secondary school. During lessons the child will need to sit at the front of the classroom so that they can see board and see what the teacher is presenting or writing. The pen colour that the teacher uses on the whiteboard could be crucial to the child seeing what has been written. A black or dark blue pen is highly recommended as it gives a good colour contrast. Children with visual impairments may struggle to see other colours, red may be viable for some, but not for others. Green is not a good colour to use as it’s quite light, and reflections on the board from outside make it difficult to see. Most schools will see these types of adaptations as part of the governments ‘reasonable adjustments’ policy. (Riddell and Weedon 2006)
Depending on the severity of the impairment, the child may need a Teaching Assistant to sit with them and write down on a small whiteboard that the child can keep on table what the teacher has written on the large board for the rest of the class. The child may also need work to be enlarged to a size where they cannot just read the words, but also read the words easily enough to understand the text as oppose to using all of their energy to just read the text. (Lusk and Corn 2006) Most members of staff usually photocopy the work on to A3 paper but sometimes, it’s more effective to just enlarge the text on A4 paper. (Early support consortium, 2012) The child’s handwriting may also be large and quite scruffy. This is caused by the fact that the child may not realise how to form the letters properly which makes the writing scruffy, but is also large enough for them to read their own writing. This can sometimes be misdiagnosed as dyslexia. (RNIB 2016; British Dyslexia Association 2016)
A child with a visual impairment may also need some support at break and lunch times. This might sound strange may need help finding the dinner hall, they then may need support navigating through the hall due to sticking out chairs, rubbish that’s been left on the floor which is a slip hazard and the fact that the dinner hall will be very noisy. If the child is having a hot dinner they will need help finding which queue to wait in as some schools have more than one serving hatch depending on what meals are being served on that day. They will also need help to find the correct money to pay for their dinner. They may even need support to work out where different types of food are on their plate or tray. (Early Years Consortium, 2012) The child will now need support to navigate the dinner hall to find a place to sit down without tripping or bumping into anything and losing their dinner. Once outside the child will need help to find their friends as from a distance, they will not be able to pick out individual people. While outside, the child will need somebody who his highly visible and stays in one place that the child can go to if they have a problem. The Early Years Consortium states that it’s important to remember that “many everyday tasks can be more tiring for children with visual impairment, either because they are working hard to use their remaining vision, or concentrating hard to bring together bits of information from their other senses to make sense of what is going on around them. School years place increasing demands on these children.”
Health issues
A visual impairment is usually just one of a few different health issues, (RNIB 2016) these co-morbidities can include intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, epilepsy and heart conditions. (Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind or Visually Impaired 2008). Blindness in combination with hearing loss is known as deaf blindness. Therefore the child will need time off school for opticians and other hospital appointments which may affect the child’s education. The school should have provisions and support in place for when this happens. A good dialogue between parents, teachers, senior staff, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs) and health professionals is essential as they can put in place support, provisions and funding so that the child can enjoy their time in education, make friends and access the curriculum in the same way as their peers and achieve the best grades that they can.
Key challenges faced by practitioners
The main effects of visual impairment include central or peripheral vision loss, poor image sharpness, low contrast sensitivity or adaptability to light, and impaired eye movement or colour loss, but not all visual impairment is the same and that they don’t all cause the same level of vision loss. (Dutta 2013) Teachers have to realise that just because they may have taught one child with a visual impairment, it does not mean that they have taught them all. Dutta (2013) states that adopting this mindset means that members of staff should consider how the child’s level of useful vision can be maximised. Considering the practical implications for the child is vital and the distinctions in their educational needs will have a direct impact on the teaching and learning approaches required. This can be made easier by meeting the parents of the child and by reading and more importantly, acting on advice by eye care professionals such as opticians or consultants. (NHS England 2016) It may not be enough to simply supply the child with a TA, there may be certain activities that the child is simply unable to do. (Dutta 2013) Due to the reduced level of vision, these children often have poor fine motor skills which means that they may struggle to complete simple tasks that others take for granted such as tying their own shoe laces.
Educationally blind learners have a level of sight that is inadequate to learn visually, and so rely on their other senses. Teachers should consider how much sight, if any, the child has and how useful is it, how competent the child is with Braille and tactile skills, how competent the child is in moving around the classroom independently. (Vision Aware 2016) The child does not have to be completely blind to be classed as ‘educationally’ or ‘legally blind.’ (RNIB 2010; Vision Aware 2016) In North America and Europe, legal blindness is defined as visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with best correction possible. (Vision Aware 2016) This means that a legally blind individual would need to stand 20 feet (6.1 m) from an object to see it with corrective lenses and with the same degree of clarity as a normally sighted person could from 200 feet (61 m). People with average acuity who have a visual field of less than 20 degrees, the norm being 180 degrees, are also classified as being legally blind. Approximately 10% of those deemed legally blind, by any measure, have no vision. The rest have some vision, from light perception alone to relatively good acuity. Low vision is sometimes used to describe visual acuities from 20/70 to 20/200. (Vision Aware 2016)
Teachers should be aware that the child may face difficulties during P.E. lessons. During ball games the child may not see the ball coming towards them resulting in the ball hitting them. (Hastings 2008) This could potentially cause a physical injury depending on the type of ball being used and where it hit them. Being hit in the face could cause more damage to the eyes. A differently coloured ball may not make a difference outside due the open space and brightness of the sun. If the child hasn’t seen the ball once it passes upwards of their head height, the chances are that they won’t see it come down either, leading to a greater chance of the ball hitting them. (Hastings 2008) Schools may be reluctant to include children with visual impairments during P.E. lessons but small adaptations to the way games are played could be enough to give them the opportunity to join in. (Lieberman and Wilson 1999; Winnick 2011)
Partially sighted children still work primarily through the visual medium, and make up the majority of learners with visual impairment. (Dutta 2013) Their needs vary considerably and many work with normal print, which can create difficulties as they don’t want to be seen as different and don’t want to make a fuss. This means that their needs may be underestimated. (RNIB 2010; Dutta 2013) Enlarging worksheets straight on to A3 paper may not be the best technique here as the text quality isn’t as good, trying to enlarge the text but still keeping A4 paper may be better here. (Early Support Consortium, 2012) The children themselves may not fully understand what their needs are until they reach secondary school. Dutta (2013) states that teachers and staff should consider whether the child’s level of sight is stable or variable and under what conditions, how much the child’s field of vision is restricted, what size or style of print is comfortable for the child student and does the child have a particular preferences for the learning environment in terms of lighting or choice of seat? The Early Support Consortium (2012) and the RNIB (2012) also agree with this.
Some teachers may be inclined to have different expectations of children with visual impairments because it has been classed as a disability, but there is no direct evidence to support a link between visual impairment and intelligence, children with a visual impairment just have additional barriers to overcome. (Dutta 2013) More than a third will have some additional needs that may affect their learning and can affect a number of areas, such as the speed of working, communication skills environmental and spatial awareness, and social interaction, with a reduced ability to recognise body language and facial expressions. As a result, students can suffer from lower self-confidence which can have a negative impact on learning. (Dutta 2013)
Meeting the challenges
Inclusion is key to the successful education of children with visual impairment. According to The Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education (2013), inclusive education means disabled and non-disabled young people learning together in ordinary school provision, with appropriate networks of support. They should have access to the same information at the same time and, if possible, in the same way. Local Authorities should provide a Qualified Teacher of the Visually Impaired (QTVI) to visit the school and give advice for teaching the child. (Dutta 2013) Inclusion was a term which was first used in the Warnock report (1978) which made recommendations about bringing children with disabilities and impairments out of special schools and into mainstream schools. The teacher should also try to organise regular meetings with the parents discuss what type of support has been given, whether or not the support is actually working and what more could be done to improve the child’s school life. (Dutta 2013) Advice from opticians and eye care consultants should be read and acted on as they will provide the school with an in depth report on the type of visual impairment the child has, the amount of vision and suggested improvements to make the child’s time at school easier.
A child with a visual impairment should be singled out as little as possible and the changes that are made for them should seem like a normal routine to the other children. The child should be seated at the front of the classroom so that they can see the board. Blue or black pen should be used when writing or drawing on the whiteboard as they give a good colour contrast. (RNIB 2001; Scottish Sensory centre 2016) Worksheets and handouts should be enlarged to a size where the child can comfortably read the text without straining their eyes, this will mean that they will have the time to form an understanding of the text as oppose to just reading the words. This should be a minimum of size 14, but may need to be larger than this depending on the severity of the impairment. (RNIB 2001; Scottish Sensory Centre 2016) It’s important that teachers make the most of specialist support that is available. Most teachers won’t have the skills to teach specialist areas such as Braille, but QTVIs can visit and work closely with schools to advise how to meet children’s needs. Every local authority has a vision impairment service which includes at least one QTVI. (RNIB 2016)
The classroom environment will have a significant impact on the success of teaching and learning of a visually impaired child. On top of dealing with health and safety issues, it is important to consider the room’s sensory nature. (Brown et al 2011) The school might have had an audit conducted by a QTVI to suggest improvements, but there are other points to consider such as keeping the classroom tidy to allow for easier movement, keeping frequently used resources labelled and in the same accessible place, the level of lighting, using real objects to support teaching and storage space for any special equipment. (Brown et al 2011; Dutta 2013)
Resources may need to be modified so the child can assess them as visually impaired children learners often require extra time to process information and complete tasks, so using the simplest formats can help them. Make time to modify resources before lessons to include, for example, larger print or bolder colours. Pre-created versions can be found in a wide range of Braille materials, audio-visual resources, and tactile pictures and diagrams is available from various educational suppliers. (Dutta 2013)
Conclusion
With the right support, a child with a visual impairment can achieve as well as anybody else in the education system given that teachers and other staff understand the needs of the child. Every visual impairment is different but there is some general advice to follow to ensure that the child is included in the school community. All information should be produced in plain language and in a minimum type size 14 point. Obviously the type size will vary depending on the severity of the visual impairment. Use clear, easily readable font. Some teachers use swirly font in PowerPoint presentations and word documents to try and keep the children focused but this just makes the text harder to read. (Bowman et al 2001) Using a background of contrasting colour is really helpful for pupils with a visual impairment although be aware that black and white may produce too much glare. Black and yellow has been shown to be effective as has blue and yellow. Justify all type on the left so the child can easily see where each line starts. Don’t print sentences in block capitals as research suggests it’s easier to recognise the shapes of lowercase letters. (Hu 1962; Legge et al 2001) If requested, information should be provided in an alternative format. This could include as large print, audio or braille. (RNIB 2016) The child may struggle to use a computer or other device during Computing lessons, however there is software that can help with this. Some devices have built in systems that will talk to the user and tell them what is on the screen and read the text to them. (Vista society for the blind 2016) Provide any service in a flexible way using, where appropriate, meeting times and telephone conversations with the child’s parents. Ensure that the classroom and school is fully accessible to people with mobility or sensory impairments and provide publicity materials which tell the parents or carers of the child the type of support that can be offered. A good working relationships with other service-providers who can help, could be essential to ensuring that the child achieves the highest grades they can and enjoys the time they spend at school. Finally, all staff should be provided with disability equality training, not just for visual impairment, but for any type of disability that teachers and TAs may come across during their career.
References
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