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VIDBE-Q Volume 64 Issue 2
Sarah Merimee, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Special
Education, Murray State
University, smerimee@murraystate.edu
Kelly Brown, TVI, COMS, Oldham County
Schools, kelly.brown@oldham.kyschools.us
Erin Marvin, M.S., CCC-SLP, Oldham County
Schools, erin.marvin@oldham.kyschools.us
The most significant challenge, by far, facing educators of all
disciplines when it comes to students with co-occurring visual, hearing,
and/or cognitive impairments is student engagement. How do we engage
these students so that they are active participants in academic and
vocational tasks, and active learners across the school day? After all, no
matter how great the lesson, if they are not engaged, they are not learning.
As a classroom teacher, speech language pathologist, and teacher of the
visually impaired (TVI), we all worked with students with severe multiple
disabilities, including visual impairments in our school setting. We all
encountered the difficulty in keeping these students engaged. Often our
students would fall asleep, hang their heads, or be looking around the room
Promoting Student Engagement through Partial Symbols and
Story Boxes