Curriculum for visually impaired children

The Integration of blind students into regular classrooms (1950) brought with it an era of belief that the only need a visually impaired student had was adapted academic material so that she/he could learn in the regular classroom. The only difference acknowledged by many teachers was the media and materials used for learning. But it isn’t the only need, they need an adapted curriculum.

There were early efforts to include visually impaired students in regular classrooms that attempted to provide "...the opportunity to be equal..." without recognizing the student's "...right (and need) to be different..." So, until now, there hasn’t been a right curriculum for them.

What Hatlen, P. (2007) tried to create, was a Core Curriculum and an Expanded Core Curriculum including information for blind and visually impaired students. Some of the points of both of them are the followings:

Core Curriculum: it includes English language arts other languages, mathematics, health physical education, economics business education, vocational education history.

Expanded Core Curriculum

· Assistive technology/technology

· Career Education: provide the visually impaired learner of all ages with the opportunity to learn first-hand the work done by the bank teller, the gardener, the social worker, the artist, etc

· Compensatory/Access Skills: Children 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.

· Independent Living: daily líving skills. These curricular needs are varied, as they include skills in personal hygiene, food preparation, money management, time monitoring, organization, etc.

· Orientation & Mobility: Students will need to learn about themselves and the environment in which they move, the inconvenient is that there’s a need of teachers who have been specifically prepared to teach orientation and mobility.

· Recreation & Leisure: these students need to develop activities in recreation and leisure that they can enjoy throughout their adult lives, so there’s a need to create activities in physical education appropriate for visually impaired children.

· Self-Determination

· Sensory Efficiency

· Social Interaction: It’s been considered one of the most important. Social interaction skills are not learned casually and incidentally by blind and visually impaired individuals as they are by sighted persons, it’s really important to provide them social skills.

Halten, P. (1996). The Core Curriculum for Blind and Visually Impaired Students, Including those with Additional Disabilities. Perkins School for the Blind, 28, pp. 25-32. Revised November 2007.