VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 4
assistive technology, independent living, social interaction, recreation and leisure,
career education, orientation and mobility, and self-determination are all related.
To navigate daily activities, ECC skills cannot occur independent of one another.
To successfully tackle life's demands, learners with visual impairments must
possess the ability to demonstrate successes across all areas of the ECC, applying
various combinations of skills that are based on the ever-changing tasks they
encounter.
At the university level, we prepare our Florida State University TVI
graduates for this important work not only by teaching content within each area of
the ECC, but also by providing these future TVIs with practice opportunities to
infuse these essential life skills into the daily home and school routines of learners
with visual impairments.
Beginning in their first semester of our teacher preparation program, faculty
stress what we believe to be an essential characteristic required of an effective
TVI: flexibility. Because of the varied needs of learners with visual impairments
and the necessity for TVIs to frequently navigate within the constructs, schedules,
and environments of families and school personnel, demonstrating flexibility by
remaining professionally agile is crucial to meeting the changing needs of these
learners. The quality of flexibility also affords these future TVIs the openness to
capitalize on teachable moments: those spontaneous and unplanned opportunities
