Approaches to Develop Curriculum for Children Visual Impairment

CRE PROGRAMME Date: 21st- 23rd Nov. 2013

Topic : Approches To Develop Curriculum

AAKANKSHA, Lions School for the Mentally Handicapped,

Avanti Vihar, Raipur &

REHABILITATION COUNCIL OF INDIA, New Delhi

WELCOME

To the individuals with disabilities and their family who have touched my life and remind me that social justice is

not yet achieved

Approaches to Develop Curriculum

for

Children with Visual Impairment

Rajnish Kumar AryaConsultant

Special & Inclusive Education, Raipur

About this Presentaion

1. Overview

2. Understanding of Visual Impairment

3. Identification & Assessment of CWVI

4. Aids & Appliences used in Teaching

5. Approches to Develop Curriculum/ Curricular Adaptation

1. Overview

Overview I "Inclusion," "full inclusion" and

"inclusive education" are terms which recently have been narrowly defined by some (primarily educators of students with severe disabilities) to espouse the philosophy that ALL students with disabilities, regardless of the nature or the severity of their disability, receive their TOTAL education within the regular education environment. (AFB)

The right to inclusive education is a civil right that nurtures appropriate social development. Inclusive education provides children with special needs the oppourtunity to learn in an environment that offers them the oppourtunity for friendships and role models.

For children without special needs it is the opportunity to learn about, and be accepting of defferences, and learning to be sensitive to need of others. (Barua, 2013)

Overview II

Today a large percentage of students visual disabilties spend over 80 percent of their school in general eduction classrooms. Nearly 88 percent of low vision and blind students receive their education at a neighborhood school, possibly with the support from a resource specialist or itinerent teacher. (OSEP, 2008)

Overview III

A policy of inclusion needs to be implemented in all schools and throughout our education system. The participation of all children needs to be ensured in all spheres of their life in and outside the school. Schools need to become centers that prepare children for life and ensure that all children, especially the differently abled…. (Arya, 2013)

The National Curriculum Framework 2005

2. Understanding of

Visual Impairment

It is used to describe any kind of vision loss, ranging from someone having no sight at all to someone who has partial vision loss,

In other word, It is a umberala term which includes both children who are blind or those having low vision.

Visual Impairment

According to the PWD Act 1995, it referes to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions:

Total Absence of sight; or Visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200*

snellen in the better eye with correcting lenses;

(*it requires them to stand 6 meter or 20 feet from an object to see it as well as someone with perfect vision who could see it 60 meter or 200 feet away) or

Limitations of the filed of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse.

Blindness

The PWD Act 1995 means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potentially capable of using vision for the planning or excution of a task with appropriate assistive device.

Low Vision

But this defination of PWD Act 1995, is not

clear

“A person with low vision is one who has impairment of visual functioning even after treatment and/or standard refrective correction and has a visual acuity of less than 6/18 to light perception or a visual field less than 10 degrees”. (WHO, 1992)

3. Identification & Assessment of Children with Visual Impairment

may be continually swollen or red cloudy film may be unusually sensitive to light may be crossed may exhibit a lack of coordination in

directing the gaze of the two eye  may shake or move eyes are not able to follow parent’s face pupils are excessively large or small eyes do not appear to be evenly lined up,

they cross or turn inward may wander randomly            

The Eyes

that s/he experiences dizziness, headaches or nausea following close work

that s/he cannot see well or that s/he has blurred or double vision

that her/his eyes itch or burn        

Complaints by the Student may be

does not appear to focus with central vision

frequent rubbing of the eyes excessive frowning, shutting of one eye, or attempting to brush away a blur

squinting or contorting face in attempts to see distant things clearly

excessive blinking; tilting head forward or sideways when looking at near or distant objects

holding books or objects very close to eyes or far from eyes

 The Student's Behavior may be I

making frequent changes in distance at which book is held

stumbles over small objects; runs into obstacles

fatigue or restlessness following limited schoolwork

non-participation or dislike of games requiring distance vision

poking of eyes     cover or closes eyes when looking at detail

The Student's Behavior may be II

difficulty with reading or other work requiring close use of the eyes

difficulty or inattentiveness during chalkboard, wall-chart, or map lessons

withdrawal; non-participation in group activities

tendency to lose place on page while reading difficulty copying from the board inability to finish homework in a timely

manner difficulty with copying from the board inability to finish homework in a timely

manner 

Trouble With Schoolwork may include

Mild Visual Impairment  Acuities ranging from 20/70 to 20/80 (both

eyes) Moderate Visual Impairment  Acuities ranging from 20/100 to 20/200

and/or field loss of more than 40%

Classifying the Severity of the Visual Impairment  I

Severe Visual Impairment  Acuities ranging from 20/400 to 20/600 and/or

field loss of more than 60% Profound Visual Impairment  Acuities ranging from 20/800 to light perception to total blindness and/or

field loss of 80%

Classifying the Severity of the Visual Impairment II

Limited oppourtunities for incidental learning

Limitatin in the range and variety of experiences

Limitations in the ability to get around and interacting with the environment

Limitations in interactions with the environment

Special Needs of CWVI

4. Aids & Appliences used for Teaching

For Children with Complete Vision

Loss

Braille interliner/ Braille Wooden Slate

Braille Frame/ German SlateStyllus / PenPocket Frame

Writing Devices

Taylor FrameAbacusTalking CalculatorNumber BoardBraille ClockSpur WheelGeometrical Shapes/ Figure

Mathematical Devisces

Raised Relief Plastic Maps

Relief GlobesBraille Atlas

Geography Devices

Three Dimensional Raised Relief Plastic Charts

Science Devices

It is an upward writing machine for writing on one side of the paper, enabling the Braille to be read as it is written. This machine can be compared to a normal tyewriter with a major difference that it has only nine keys, three for paper setting and six for the embossing, the brailler embosses combinations of six dots in a Braille cell.

Brailler

The material recorded on cassettes/CDs has emerged to be the most popular mode of imparting education to visually impaired persons. As Braille books are very heavy and many newly blind persons are not able to learn Braille easily, talking books are emerging to be the most viable alternative. For listening to the talking books, the conventional cassette player with the compact cassettes with a playing time of either 60 or 90 minutes is generally used

Talking Books

For Children with Low Vision

Black Pens / Black Felt PensExercise Book/ Note Books with thicker lines of good contrast e.g. black

Writing Stand

Writing Devices

Reading Slit/ TyposcopeHand and Stand Magnifieres (According to need of the Child)

Reading Stand

Reading Devices

Large Print Books

Talking BooksTelescope

Other Devices

5. Approaches to Develop Curriculum / Curricular

Adaptation as per the need of CWVI

It is a design PLAN for learning that requires the purposeful and proactive , organization sequencing, and management of the interactions among the teacher, the students and the content knowledge we want students to acquire..

Defination of Curriculum I

According to G. Hass, “The curriculum is all of the experiences that individual learners have in a programme of education whose purpose is to achieve broad goals and related specific objectives, which are planned in terms of a framework of theory and research or past and professional practice.”

Defination of Curriculum II

In India schools are governed by several boards of education. Apart from national boards, such as the CBSE and ICSE, there are several others with smaller jurisdication- such as those at the state level, (in case of Chhattisgarh, Chhattisgarh Shiksha Mandal, Raipur). Each one of thesse boards prescribes a curriculum that is given to schools to follow. (Kapur, 2011)

Curriculum and Schools

Most of children with Visual Impairment require adaptation in curriculum and assistative devices to access the genearl education and succeed at school.

The adaptation should not change the original concept of the curriculum used because the objective of adaptation is to provide the some learning experiences to both normal and CWVI.

For providing same experiences, compensatory activities should be planned in such a way that the child gets a wholistic picture of the concept taught in the regular classes. The objective of the instructional materail should remain same for both normal and CWVI.

Principles should be kept in the mind while adaptation I

Modification in the instructional material should not distrub the majority of normal children in IED classes.

The adaptation in instructional material and methods is done in the light of the educational needs of disabled child studying in the IED class.

A possible stratgey of adjustment in the instructional material can be outline the proposed teaching and learning points, analysising the needs and type of adjustments at various level, prepration of supportive materials and planning of group atcivities

Principles should be kept in the mind while adaptation II

More auditory and tactile aids should be given to compensate for visual deficits.

More verbal cues should be provided while explanning the cooncept in class.

Three dimensional teaching and learning aids should be providd ti the children to provide a whole experience of the concept.

Guidelines for Adaptation I

The management of the class should be determined in the light of child’s limitation .

A multisensory approach should be used to provide complete learning experience to the child.

The teacher should take care of words in instruction like ‘see’, ‘look’ etc. and at the time of use of these word a special attention may be given to the CWVI e.g. By calling the name of any CWVI, deal the point or facts as well as provide the tectile TLM to him/ her

Guidelines for Adaptation II

Basically based on MODES

ModeficationOmissionDuplicationSubstitution

Rules for Curriculum Adoptation to CWVI

Some Adaptaion should be done as per the nature

of the subject. It is as follow-

The student with Visual Impairment should be provided language book in Braille, or enlarged print along wiht the tape recorded version.

Most of the teachers use oral-aural method of teaching. Some of them write on the blackboard which may pose difficulties. The teachers should be encouraged to speak while writing.

The teahers should also inform the students regarding the text being used in the next few days so that s/he can bring only the required text to classroom as the Braille Books are bulky and the students need to read and write.

Language

Non-verbal content which includes pictures, maps, globes, diagrams etc. may pose problems. It can be taught by using supplementary material in Braille, Tectile Aids, and verbal discriptions of the graphic material.

The Visually Impaired Students can be included in all activities like disscussions, stories, singing, actual visits to palces etc.

Some concepts need to be explained more in deatil because of lack of experience.

Environmental Studies (EVS)

The students with Visual Impairment would not face any problem with the verbal content.

The Geography mostly and History partially relies on maps and globes. These textbooks may contain graphs, diagrams,and tables that related relevant data.

It is important that The students with Visual Impairment must be given the concept of Maps from an early age.

Social Sciences

Braille Books are not available and also depend upon a different Brailled Code which again causes difficulty.

In addition to Textbooks, educational aids are important for learning mathematics.

Oral Mathematics need to be practiced and use of calculaotr with speech outputs, enlarged displays is helpful.

Teachers should give only representaional samples of home works and very long assingments as the child may required a long time to do the computational work

Mathematics

Children with Visual Impairment need to be taught using the multisensory approach that involves all modalities other than vision.

Science

Refrence

A.F.B. () The American Foundation for the Blind's Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute, Education Work Group http://www.afb.org/section.aspx?FolderID=3&SectionID=44&TopicID=189&DocumentID=1344

Arya, R. K. (2013) Education of Children with Special Needs: A Critical Analysis with Special Reference in Chhattisgarh State of India; published in Europena Academic Research in Volume: I Issue : VI / September, 2013 www.euacademic.org/UploadArticle/59.pdf pp 831-854

Barua, M. (2013) Curricular Adaptation for Children with Autism, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: Confluence, Inclusive Education, August 2013, Vol.14

Bhushan, P.; Rawal, N. (2000) Visual Impairment Hand Book, Ahmeddabad: Blind People Association (India)

Govt. of India (1996) The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 (No. 1 of 1996), Ministry of Law, Justice & Company Affairs, New Delhi: The Gazette of India.

Julka, A. (2013) Curricular Adaptaion for Visually Impaired Children; Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: Confluence, Inclusive Education, August 2013, Vol.14

Kapur, A. (2011) Transforming Schools - Empowering Children, New Delhi: Sage Publications

Sharma, P. L. (1988) A Teacher’s Handbook on IED Helping Children with Special Needs, New Delhi: National Council of Eductional Research & Training

Smith, D. D. & Tyler; N. C. (2010) Introduction to Special Education Making a Difference, Ohio: Merrill

Students With Visual Impairment: A Hand Book, North Carolina Dept. Of Public Instruction 

World Health Organization (1992) Management of Low Vision in Children

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