Division on Visual Impairments

DVI Quarterly Volume 58(4)

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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are areas of opportunity for growth? What places him/her in the magical comfort zone where learning is active? Who is Eli? Let's use the example of one of my students to illustrate my point. Eli is a 4th grade student whose personhood is based in humor, imagination, and joy of storytelling. (Of course there are a million other things I could list here, but I will simplify.) Between his 1st and 2nd grade years, Eli developed symptoms which yielded a diagnosis of a rare, progressive neurological disease, which affects vision, hearing, processing, and balance/ motor skills. He has very limited, fluctuating residual vision. Before losing his vision, Eli was an advanced reader for a 1st grader, excelling and embracing his love for reading chapter books. Eli defaults to humor as a defense mechanism when he does not understand something or is not motivated/interested. What can I do with what I know about Eli to engage him and build trust to an active learning status? "We must speak their language and dance their dance." With Eli I use a very easy, comfortable, humor-based communication style peppered with references to stories, specific memories, songs, jokes, and names of important people in his life. It has become clear that music and humor have proven exceptionally effective in making concepts 49

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