Including Children with Visual Impairments in the Early Childhood Classroom

Abstract

The practice of inclusive education-or inclusion-within general education classrooms is becoming more prevalent within early childhood settings. To successfully deliver classroom curriculums, promote learner growth, and meet the goals of all students served within inclusive settings, teachers must have a basic understanding of the unique learning needs of all students, including those with visual impairments. Because students learn best when the teachers who educate them first understand their needs, this chapter is designed as a basic starting point for early childhood educators who have limited to no background in working with students who have visual impairments. The goal of this chapter is to give early childhood educators a basic understanding of visual impairments, questions to ask when serving children with vision loss, and to show how accessibility can be approached in a way that is meaningful to students with visual impairments.

Novice Teachers' Experiences of Teaching Visually Impaired Learners in the Foundation Phase: A Case of Inclusive KwaNyuswa Rural Schools

“…This finding from the study suggests that, it is important to empower visually impaired learners to become independent and successful. This finding corroborates the work of [14,15] who hold the view that visually impaired learners are to be empowered, however, teachers are to have basic understanding of their unique learning needs in order for such to be achieved. In other words, it is significant for teachers of visually impaired learners to know their goals, and work towards achieving them.…”

“…[36] took the argument a step further and found that visually impaired learners tend to rely on their senses of touch, hearing, smell, taste, movement and residual vision to gather information from their learning environments. A similar observation was made by [15], suggesting that teaching materials for students with visual impairment may not always be needed for classroom activities. Planning for the visually impaired starts with using proper lighting in order to be considerate to those learners with low vision or light sensitivity.…”

“…In many countries, such as Australia, Canada, Finland and the United States of America, learners with visual impairment attend mainstream schools [15,16,17]. In the US, learners with visual impairment have been included in the general education classroom since way before the 1975 official implementation of the so-called Education for All Handicapped Children Act (IDEA) [18,19].…”

“…Teachers of all ages should be capable of handling specialised instructions geared towards promoting learning for learners' unique abilities and learning needs [26]. One of the widely publicised injunctions in education states that to be successful in delivering curriculum, promoting learners' growth and prioritising the critical goals of the visually impaired, teachers must have a basic understanding of the unique learning needs of all learners, including those with disabilities [14,15]. Within an inclusive environment, there is a high probability that teachers may encounter learners with a variety of visual impairments [27].…”

Assesment of the QuickSee wavefront autorefractor for characterizing refractive errors in school-age children

“…Tackling visual impairment in childhood is a major global concern because it affects a child’s learning process, self-perception, life skills and overall development [ 1 ]. The World Health Organization reported in 2018 that nearly 1.3 billion people worldwide had vision impairment, the bulk of which are located in low- and middle-income countries [ 2 ].…”