The Expanded Core Curriculum
A Position Paper of the Division on Visual Impairments and
Deafblindness
Council for Exceptional Children
Submitted April 7, 2016
Sandra Lewis
Students who are blind and who have low vision, including
those with multiple disabilities, do not have the same opportunities
as students with unimpaired vision to take full advantage of learning
through vision. Vision allows individuals to observe their own
behaviors and the impact those behaviors have on the environment;
it also allows individuals to observe the behaviors of other people
and objects and the effect those behaviors have on both people and
objects around them. Just as importantly, vision is the primary
sense through which individuals synthesize the information that they
receive through other sensory channels and make sense of that
input. Without the advantages to learning that vision provides,
children with visual impairments are presented with challenges to
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