Winter 2012
summarize the research findings and outline implications for practice. The challenge for educators is to take these implications (i.e., what to teach) and determine the strategies and materials needed for meaningful inclusion in the student's educational program (i.e., how to teach). Teacher of students with visual impairments have access to a wealth of adapted materials for their students, and when the material does not exist, many take this as an opportunity to create something new. The following mini case study illustrates this point.
Mini Case Study Tom is an itinerant teacher of students with
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visual impairments. He is currently serving a braille- reading student in the second grade named Clara. Clara's classmates are beginning a unit on time in mathematics, and Tom is familiarizing Clara with a tactile analog clock. Tom notices that when counting the hours/minutes, Clara often re-counts time intervals in the circular array (i.e., counts minutes/hours that she has already counted). Tom decides that Clara needs support in counting strategies. A quick Google Scholar search using the keywords "counting strategies" and "visual impairment" furnishes a 1988 article by S. P. Sicilian entitled "Development of Counting Strategies in Congenitally Blind Children." Sicilian concludes that
