Division on Visual Impairments

VIDBEQ.66.2.Spring.2021

A quarterly newsletter from the Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Visual Impairments containing practitioner tips for Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists, and other professionals.

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VIDBE-Q Volume 66, Issue 2 32 to drive communication goal development and support the collaborative educational team to design a path toward symbolic communication and language. Expressive communication modalities for students with CVI should be selected and adapted to reflect a balance between the student's conceptual and expressive language development, and sensory access/goals appropriate to their current visual functioning. A "balanced communication plan" is one that incorporates both the sensory access of the child (CVI phase and characteristics, preferred learning channels) with their communication level access (pre- symbolic/symbolic, pre-linguistic/linguistic). Incongruent AAC programming reflects a "mismatch" between expressive communication levels and sensory access needs. In an "unbalanced communication plan," on the one hand the AAC modality may be appropriate from a communication standpoint, but visually inaccessible (e.g., an eye gaze system for a student with CVI in Phase I, who is currently unable to establish eye-to-object contact/prolonged visual fixation). On the other hand, the modality may be visually accessible, but inappropriate in terms of communication development (current expressive levels) (e.g., a complex 2-D high tech AAC system adapted for a student in Phase III, but the child is currently a pre-symbolic communicator). The goal of AAC programming for students with cortical visual impairment is to create a match between what is appropriate

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