VIDBE-Q Volume 66 Issue 1
Becoming a Culturally Responsive VI Professional
To initiate the process of becoming a culturally responsive professionals,
TVIs and O&Ms can assess of their own cultural beliefs, attitudes, and norms.
There are cultural differences around concepts such as time, personal space,
attitudes towards elders, and appropriate touch that can impact interactions
between students and their teachers. The first step in developing cultural
competency is recognizing those differences. With this understanding, VI
professionals can begin to build their cross-cultural knowledge of their students,
which involves learning from their families and other informational resources.
When VI professionals increase their cultural competency, they are able to widen
their understanding of their students' different ways of being and knowing.
Building cultural competency also lays the groundwork for students' cultural
knowledge base, language, and literacy practices to become conduits for their
instruction in areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum for Blind and Visually
Impaired Youth (ECC). CRP is a powerful pedagogical tool that can be applied to
teaching and learning disability-specific skills and knowledge in the ECC. For
example, authentic, culturally diverse reading and writing activities can form the
basis of a tactile/braille literacy program with CLD students, including those who
are English learners. Culturally responsive instructional approaches and materials
can also be used to facilitate the development of tactile/abacus math skills and
