Techniques shared by teachers of the visually impaired and teachers of the

learning disabled

VALARIE MOSER, TVI, COMS BRENDA JAGER, TVI, COMS

A Review of Shared Strategies

A comparison of the visual difficulties exhibited by students with learning disabilities

and students with visual impairments.

What visual difficulties may look like in

a Student with LD or a Student with VI

DEFICITS IN: ocular-motor skills visual-perceptual skills

spatial orientation, figure ground, visual discrimination, visual sequencing

visual motor (gross/fine) speed of visual information-

processing visual memory

DEFICITS IN: ocular-motor skills visual-perceptual skills

spatial orientation, figure ground, visual discrimination, visual sequencing

visual motor (gross/fine) speed of visual

information- processing visual memory

LD & VI often demonstrate similar behaviors

(Sacks & Silberman, 1998)

Frustration Difficulty identifying letters Lack of judgement of spatial relationships Poor eye-hand coordination Difficulties in language and mathematics

Students with Learning Disabilities

• Have a visual impairment which even with correction, adversely affects educational performance (IDEA, 1997) A visual impairment is generally defined medically as an acuity and /or field loss.

80% of legally blind individuals can see some light, color, and objects

A large percentage of students with VI use vision as their primary learning source of information.

• 50-80% of students who are LD may show deficiencies in basic visual skills (accommodation, convergence, focusing, binocular coordination) (JAOA, 1998)

• Some students who are LD experience visual processing deficits as an information processing variation.

Students with Visual Impairments

LD Primary Intervention

• Complete educational assessment and appropriate remediation of learning strategies (esp.. reading skills).

VI Primary Intervention

• Achieve best corrected vision through medical intervention and functional visual assessment

Shared Strategies (www.ldonline.org)

• Enlarge print size• Use a visual window ruler or finger to isolate

relevant print or problems and to reduce or block background

• Use multiple senses read aloud from chalkboard

• Modify worksheets• Darken or highlight line• Kinesthetic feedback with a raised line• Simplify page• Divide paper into distinct parts• Teach study and organizational skills