VIDBE-Q 2026 Volume 71 Issue 1
Samantha Eyley
Samantha.eyley@perkins.org
Graduate of Florida State University
I sort of fell into the field of vision education. In high school, I took
American Sign Language (ASL) to meet my language requirement and completely
fell in love with it. That experience stayed in the back of my mind, and for a long
time I thought I would eventually do something in Deaf education.
When I started college, I honestly was not sure what my major was going to
be. I knew I wanted to do something more with ASL, but I learned quickly that
Deaf education was not an option at my university. After talking with my guidance
counselor, she suggested two possible paths. The first was speech-language
pathology, which I explored briefly but realized was not the right fit for me. The
second suggestion was visual disabilities education. She asked if I had ever
considered the "opposite of deafness," and I had not. At that point, I did not know
Finding a Pathway into the Field of Low Vision
and Blindness
25
