Low-incidence disabilities occur relatively
infrequently in the general population.
All sensory impairments can have an
impact on how a student learns.
A major factor in determining how the
student communicates and learns is the
age of onset.
Visual Impairments
Visual impairment is a low-incidence
disability.
Children use their sight to learn and no
two children see the same way.
Congenital vision loss occurs before or at
birth.
All visually impaired students require
individualized and specialized instruction.
The relationship between the student's
vision, learning, and how their disability
affects their educational performance is a
visual impairment.
Functionally blind students have very little
vision and learn primarily through
auditory and tactile senses.
National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments
http://www.spedex.com/napvi
The National Association for Parents of
Children with Visual Impairments (NAPVI)
is a nonprofit organization of, by, and for
parents committed to providing support
for children who have visual
impairments. This site has a list of NAPVI
chapters, publications, a parent
directory, and useful links.
Lighthouse International is a leading
resource worldwide on vision impairment
and vision rehabilitation. The Lighthouse
distributes FREE information regarding
vision loss. Links include research,
products, publications, and vision
resources.
Hearing Impairments
There is a difference between hearing impaired and deaf.
Hard of Hearing refers to those who
have hearing impairments that affect
educational performance but allow some
linguistic information to be processed
aurally, with or without amplification.
Deaf refers to students who
have a hearing impairment so severe they
are unable to understand speech even
with amplification.
Students can also have dual-sensory
impairments. These students
communication, developmental, and
learning needs are so severe that they
cannot be educated in special education
for only vision, hearing, or multiple
disabilities due to the nature of the
dual,concurrent disabilities.
Deaf-blindness is a dual-sensory
impairment.
These children do have some functional
hearing and/or vision.
Assistive Technology for Vision Impairments
Computers can be equipped with hardware to support software that reads the screen aloud.
Resources for Vision Impairment:
American Printing House for the Blind, Inc. (APH)
http://www.aph.org/
The APH is a nonprofit organization that
promotes the independence of the visually
impaired by providing specialized
materials, products, and services needed
for education and daily living. APH
provides technical support for its
electronic products.
Assistive Technology for Hearing Impairments
Cochlear implants are electronic devices designed to provide enhanced sound detection and the potential for greater speech understanding to children with severe or profound hearing loss in which hearing aids provide no benefit.
Hearing aids provide sound amplification.
Did you know a child as young as 4 weeks
old can be fitted with a hearing aid?
Assistive Technology for Hearing Impairments
Captioned Media Program (CMP)
CMP provides a FREE loan program of
more than 4,000 open-captioned media
in the form of videos, CD-ROMS, and
DVDs. Materials may be borrowed by and
for anyone who has a hearing impairment.
http://www.cfv.org/
Speech-to-text transcription or translation
is becoming more prominent because it
offers a hearing impaired student access
to real-time presentations. This
technology allows the student to be
included in the general education
classroom. A trained captionist types the
teacher's instructions and students
comments into a laptop computer using a
shorthand code.
The Nemeth Code of Braille Mathematics and Science Notation allows visually impaired students access to mathematics.
Materials for other academic areas such
as Science and Social Studies must be
presented to the child in Braille if they are
a Braille reader.