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Appendix D: Expanded Core Curriculum for Blind/Low Vision Students
- Compensatory or Functional Academic Skills, Including Communication Modes
Compensatory and functional skills include such learning experiences as concept development, spatial understanding, study and organization skills, speaking and listening skills, and adaptations necessary for accessing all areas of existing core curriculum. Communication needs vary by student, depending on degree of functional vision, effects of additional disabilities, and a given task to be completed [or performed]. Students may use Braille, large print, print with the use of optical devices, regular print, tactile symbols, a calendar system, sign language, and/or recorded materials to communicate. Regardless, each student will need instruction from a teacher with professional preparation to instruct students with visual impairments in each of the compensatory and functional skills they need to master. These compensatory and functional needs of visually impaired students can be significant, and are not addressed with sufficient specificity in the existing core curriculum. - Orientation and Mobility
As part of an expanded core curriculum, orientation and mobility is a vital area of learning. Teachers who have been specifically prepared to teach orientation and mobility to blind and visually impaired learners are necessary. Students will need to learn about themselves and the environment in which they move—from basic body image to independent travel in rural areas and busy cities. Existing core curriculum does not include provision for this instruction. It has been said that the two primary effects of blindness on the individual are communication and locomotion. An expanded core curriculum must include emphasis on the fundamental need and basic right of visually impaired persons to travel as independently as possible, enjoying and learning from the environment through which they are passing to the greatest extent possible. - Social Interaction SkillsAlmost all social skills used by sighted children and adults have been learned by visually observing the environment and other persons and behaving in socially appropriate ways based on that information. Social interaction skills are not often [or are rarely] learned casually and incidentally by blind and visually impaired individuals as they are by sighted persons. Social skills must be carefully, consciously, and sequentially taught to blind and visually impaired students. Nothing in current existing core curriculum addresses this critical need in a satisfactory manner. Thus, instruction in social interaction skills has become a part of expanded core curriculum as a need so fundamental that it can often mean the difference between social isolation and a satisfying and fulfilling life as an adult.
- Independent Living Skills
This area of expanded core curriculum is often referred to as "daily living skills." It consists of all the tasks and functions persons perform, in accordance with their abilities, in order to lead lives as independent as possible. These curricular needs are varied, as they include skills in personal hygiene, food preparation, money management, time monitoring, organization, etc. Some independent living skills are addressed in existing core curriculum, but they are often introduced as splinter skills, appearing in learning material, disappearing, and then re-appearing. This approach does not adequately prepare blind and visually impaired students for adult life. Traditional classes in home economics and family life are not enough to meet the learning needs of most visually impaired students, since they assume a basic level of knowledge acquired incidentally through vision. The skills and knowledge that sighted students acquire by casually and incidentally observing, interacting with, and responding to their environment are often difficult, if not impossible, for blind and visually impaired students to learn without direct, sequential instruction by knowledgeable persons. - Recreation and Leisure Skills
Skills in recreation and leisure are seldom offered as a part of existing core curriculum. Rather, physical education in the form of team games and athletics are the usual way in which physical fitness needs are met for sighted students. Many of the activities in physical education are excellent and appropriate for visually impaired students. However, in addition these students need to develop activities in recreation and leisure that they can enjoy throughout their adult lives. Most often sighted persons select their recreation and leisure activity repertoire by visually observing activities and choosing those in which they wish to participate. The teaching of recreation and leisure skills to blind and visually impaired students must be planned and deliberately taught, and should focus on the development of lifelong skills. - Career Education
There is a need for general vocational education as offered in the traditional core curriculum as well as the need for career education offered specifically for blind and visually impaired students. Many of the skills and knowledge offered to all students through vocational education can be of value to blind and visually impaired students. They will not be sufficient, however, to prepare such students for adult life since such instruction assumes a basic knowledge of the world of work based on prior visual experiences. Career education in an expanded core curriculum will provide the visually impaired learner of any age with an opportunity to learn first-hand (for example, the work done by a bank teller, a gardener, a social worker, an artist, etc.). It will provide students with opportunities to explore strengths and interests in a systematic, well-planned manner. Once more, a disadvantage facing the visually impaired learner is a lack of information about work and jobs that the sighted student acquires by observation. Because unemployment and underemployment have been a leading problem facing adult visually impaired persons in the United States, this portion of an expanded core curriculum is vital to students and should be part of an expanded curriculum for even the youngest of these individuals. - Technology
Technology is a tool to unlock learning and expand the horizons of students; it is not, in reality, a curriculum area. However, it is added to the expanded core curriculum here because technology occupies a special place in the education of blind and visually impaired students. Technology can be a great equalizer. For the Braille user, it allows a student to provide feedback to teachers by first producing material in Braille for personal use, and then in print for teacher, classmates, and parents. It gives blind persons the capability of storing and retrieving information. It brings the gift of a library under the fingertips of a visually impaired person. Technology enhances communication and learning, as well as expands the world of blind and visually impaired persons in many significant ways. Thus, technology is a tool to master, and is essential to blind and visually impaired students as part of an expanded core curriculum. - Visual Efficiency Skills
The visual acuity of children diagnosed as being visually impaired varies greatly. Through the use of thorough, systematic training, most students with remaining functional vision can be taught to better and more efficiently utilize their remaining vision. The responsibility for performing a functional vision assessment, planning appropriate learning activities for effective visual utilization, and instructing students in using their functional vision in effective and efficient ways is clearly an area for an expanded core curriculum. Educational responsibility for teaching visual efficiency skills falls to the professionally prepared teacher of visually impaired learners. Bringing together all of the skills learned in an expanded core curriculum produces a concept of the blind or visually impaired person in the community. It is difficult to imagine that a congenitally blind or visually impaired person could be entirely at ease and at home within the social, recreational, and vocational structure of the general community without mastering the elements of the expanded core curriculum. What is known about congenitally blind and visually impaired students is that, unless skills such as orientation and mobility, social interaction, and independent living are learned, these students are at high risk for lonely, isolated, unproductive lives. Accomplishments and joys such as shopping, dining, attending and participating in recreational activities are a right, not a privilege, for blind and visually impaired persons. Responsibilities such as banking, taking care of health needs, and using public and private services are part of a full life for all persons, including those who are blind or visually impaired. Adoption and implementation of a core curriculum for blind and visually impaired students, including those with additional disabilities, will assure students of the opportunity to function well and completely in the general community.
Hatlen, P. (1996). The core curriculum for blind and visually impaired students, including those with additional disabilities. Austin, TX: Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Retrieved April 20, 2002 (http://www.tsbvi.edu/agenda/corecurric.htm).
