VIDBE-Q 2025 Volume 70 Issue 1
service providers, allowing itinerant educators to feel more supported (AOTA,
APTA, ASHA, 2014).
Recommendations
To ensure that students with visual impairments receive a free, appropriate
public education, TSVIs and O&M specialists must engage in regular workload
analysis with their administrator(s). The number of students served by each TSVI
and/or O&M specialist may vary based on the workload analysis results. An
effective workload analysis should address the following.
● Ensuring a manageable, equitable workload begins by accurately
determining student needs using a caseload analysis (Sapp et al., 2013;
Toelle & Blankenship, 2008). TSVIs and O&M specialists should use the
student's most recent evaluation results to determine student strengths,
needs, and service times. This information should be explicitly reflected in
the student's IFSP or IEP.
● When calculating student service time, TSVIs and O&M specialists should
consider their full scope of practice (e.g., direct instruction, collaborative
consultation, preparation, etc). TSVIs and O&M specialists should use
objective tools with evidence of reliability and validity based on student
need (i.e., Visual Impairment Scale of Service Intensity of Texas (VISSIT)
(Pogrund et al., 2019) and O&M VISSIT (Pogrund et al., in press), Vision
