Google links for CHCEDS426A - Facilitate learning for students with vision impairment



The Range Statement relates to the unit of competency as a whole. It allows for different work environments and situations that may affect performance. Add any essential operating conditions that may be present with training and assessment depending on the work situation, needs of the candidate, accessibility of the item, and local industry and regional contexts.

Vision impairment refers to:	Vision impairment in educational terms is any diagnosed condition of the eye or visual system which results in reduced visual functioning for learning Disease, damage or injury causing vision impairment can occur to any part of the visual system, i.e. the eye, the visual pathway to the brain or visual centre of the brain Vision impairments that require support include: Distance visual acuity of 6/18 or worse: visual acuity figures for distance are expressed in the following way: the top figure indicates how closely a person needs to be to a letter size which a person with normal vision can see from the distance indicated by the bottom figure for example, a person with visual acuity of 6/18 would need to be 6 metres from a letter which could be seen normally 18 metres away Restricted visual fields which adversely affect visual functioning: the visual field is the total area, left and right/above and below, which a person sees while looking straight ahead some eye conditions cause visual field defects and affect the ability of a student to function in the environment eye conditions can affect different parts of the visual field if the damage is in the central region, the ability to see fine detail is impaired damage in the peripheral region, impairs the ability to move around the environment some conditions result in loss of half or a portion of the visual field in one or both eyes while others cause patches where vision is poorer A condition which results in deterioration of vision Damage to the visual centres of the brain causing reduced visual functioning A combination of any of the above continued ...

Vision impairment (contd):	Visual impairment may: be present at birth occur at any time from disease or accident be part of a medical condition or syndrome The majority of visual conditions in children are stable and vision remains relatively unchanged Some conditions, however, are progressive, resulting in reduced vision over varying periods

The following conditions are not vision impairment for educational purposes:	Normal vision in one eye (with no disease in that eye) Strabismus (known as squint, lazy eye or turned eye) Colour vision defect Visual perceptual problems Visual perception occurs in the brain and problems can range in severity in educational terms a visual perception problem is the inability to interpret written symbols no specific eye disease is known to cause such problems these children may have learning difficulties and require learning support Some conditions which affect the muscles of the eye

Orientation and mobility specialists:	Work specifically with students with vision impairment in helping them to explore their environments in a meaningful way In many cases, students do not know how to attend to significant information in their environment and must be taught to do this and to 'tune in', before they can explore The approach used is child centred and assists the student to develop skills which are appropriate throughout life These skills or strategies are referred to as 'Attention Directing Tools' (ADTs) and they empower the student to pay attention to those things that are appropriate for the individual student during exploration This, in turn, helps each student to learn about the immediate environment and to develop accurate and meaningful concepts in relation to people, traffic and the natural and built environment in general

Orientation and mobility methods and techniques used in supporting a student may include:	The 6-Step method in teaching route travel Oral descriptions of the environment Sighted guide (encouraging the vision impaired student to hold the arm of the support worker or another student) Enabling the student to gain tactile knowledge of the environment through maps and hands on experiences Establishing labels for environmental reference points important to the student Enabling the student to discover aspects of the environment without assistance WESST (weight, ends and edges, size, shape, sound, texture) - a technique for directing attention to the qualities of an object in order to facilitate recognition of the object in the future NBC techniques (NearBy Considerations) - a sensory awareness technique used to gain a more complete mental map of the environment Search grids Clock face descriptors for objects placed in the learning environment

Safe access:	Will be organised by specialist support staff or the teacher in charge of the facility The role of the education support worker is to ensure the environment continues to conform to the safety arrangements determined for the student/s

Appropriate people may include:	The student Parents/caregivers Orientation and mobility specialists Visiting specialist teachers Class teachers Learning support teachers Therapists Optometrists Education support workers experienced in working with the student

Adjustments to the learning environment may include:	Removing or placing protection barrier around very hazardous features (e.g. putting pot plants under stair wells to prevent student hitting head) Positioning the student within the classroom to make optimum use of his/her abilities (vision?) and available technologies Braille labelling of objects Providing access to specific assistive/adaptive technologies Providing class learning materials with tactile adaptations for the student Adjustments to lighting/glare Additional time allowed for reading tasks (usual allowance plus 1/3) Adjustments to materials and equipment

Terms that suggest some educational needs of students with vision impairment include:	Low vision - a term used to describe students who may have one or more of the following: reduced ability to see objects clearly at a distance reduced ability to see objects clearly at close range loss of vision in central or peripheral field Students with low vision will usually use print as their main learning medium Braille user - a term used to describe students whose severity of vision impairment requires them to use Braille, tactile and audio materials These students will be those with: no vision the ability to perceive only light and dark severely reduced visual acuity Braille and print user - a small group of students may use some braille and tactile materials and some print depending on the visual demands of the task Louis Braille was the inventor of braille, a world-wide system used by blind and visually impaired people for reading and writing. Braille is read by passing one's fingers over characters made up of an arrangement of one to six embossed or raised points or dots

Ways in which vision impairment may affect students' learning include:	Vision impairment interferes with the gathering of accurate information Around 80% of information received by the brain is received through the eyes Information that can be accessed in a glance by a sighted person will need to be taught to a student with vision impairment This has important implications for learning and for teaching students with vision impairment These students will require the following in addition to the teaching of the regular school curriculum: purposeful exposure to a range and variety of experiences in which they have the opportunity to interact with the environment through all the senses access to all information in an appropriate format teaching of specific skills that will allow them to access and control the environment independently

Additional instruction requirements may include:	To ensure access and participation in educational programs, students will require instruction in priority areas additional to, or different from, those of their sighted peers These priority areas may be provided within the class setting or in other environments and some of the following need to be considered for each student: (i) communication - braille literacy and numeracy, other braille codes (e.g. music, maths/ technical), listening skills, keyboard skills, handwriting, non-verbal communication (ii) orientation and mobility - body and environmental awareness, spatial knowledge and understanding, independent travel (iii) social skills - socially accepted behaviour, self-esteem, self advocacy, appropriate use of language (iv) concept development - specific experiences to develop concepts in all key learning areas and competencies (v) motor skills - fine and gross motor abilities (vi) use of technology - use of high and low tech devices, adaptive technology (vii) vision efficiency training - use of residual vision, training in use of low vision aids (viii) recreation skills - knowledge of and skills to access leisure activities (ix) activities for daily living - self care, organisation skills, time management (x) vocational and employment opportunities - time management, interpersonal skills, work skills

Implications of vision impairment for effective teaching and learning include:	The need to establish and maintain a supportive, safe environment that is emotionally, socially and physically inclusive of diversity Consideration of suitable groupings of students to support participation of students with vision impairment in teaching and learning activities Requirements to develop or acquire and use alternative (audio, sensory, tactile or large print) learning/teaching resources A need for technological resources and/or vision aids to meet the needs of students with vision impairment Staff who develop competency in the use of braille and suitable technologies

Students with vision impairment may require support:	In the playground During sport and play Within the class During student movements, particularly in unfamiliar areas and excursions With supervision during examinations In monitoring environmental conditions Through the preparation and monitoring of a consistent safe environment

Technological solutions for vision impaired students may include the use of:	Braille writers and embossers: Perkins Braille writer -a manual, portable, typewriter-like machine for producing Braille The user needs knowledge of braille symbols for letters of the alphabet and braille short forms of common words and mathematical symbols Thick paper is required for this machine, to support the embossing process Mountbatten brailler - an electronic Braille writer, notetaker and embosser: has built-in speech and an optional visual display unit requires the direct-input typist to have knowledge of the braille alphabet, short forms and symbols requires thick paper to support the embossing process Embosser - a printer which produces a Braille document from an electronic file Ricoh fuser - a machine that uses heat to cause a reaction between carbon and Swell Paper writing or drawings made with pencil or other carbon-based utensils will swell up when the paper is fed through the machine, creating an embossed document PIAF - Pictures in a Flash - a tactile image maker which uses heat-sensitive capsule paper to produce a tactile graphic Thermoform Braille duplicator this machine will produce braille on plasticised Braillon paper a paper master is required and only one page can be copied in a single operation materials produced on braillon are expected to undergo heavy use over protracted periods continued ...
Technological solutions for vision impaired students (contd):	Braille Notetakers e.g. Braille Note and Pac Mate - sophisticated portable computers with multiple features and Braille displays Computer software such as: Duxbury braille translator this program enables text to be converted to braille and output from an embosser knowledge of braille and duxbury codes is necessary for the production of accurate braille JAWS screen reader this program enables the user to have access to information about what is on the screen, keyboard functions, files, typed characters and words the audio function can be set at various speeds to suit student abilities headphones are usually necessary in order not to interrupt other students' work Zoomtext enlargement software this program enables the users to customise the print size of all that is displayed on a computer screen Open book a software reading package for computers Scanner-reading Machines e.g. SARA - use optical character recognition technology to scan text and provide an audio output E Beam - transfers information from a white board to a laptop computer

Suitable resources may include:	Tape recorders Headphones Digital audio players Talking calculators Tactile rulers or markers Tactile maps and graphics Braille compasses Concrete objects Enlarged or embossed worksheets Overhead projector Low vision aids: Optical aids: spectacles magnification devices closed circuit TV tinted lenses Non-optical aids: lamps dark lined books for writing dark pens or pencils hats or shades typoscopes - any device used to isolate words, letter or lines while reading or writing reading/writing/typing stands which provide an angled working station to assist with posture illumination control / glare reduction

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CHCEDS426A - Facilitate learning for students with vision impairment

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Elements and Performance Criteria

Required Skills

Evidence Required

Range Statement