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VIDBE-Q Volume 63 Issue 2
Visual Impairment & Blindness, 106(6), 339.
Susan Yarbrough
Doctoral candidate
Florida State University
sey09c@my.fsu.edu
Rationale and Methods
Professionals have long acknowledged children with visual impairments need
unique educational opportunities outside of those provided to their peers with typical
vision. Hatlen (1996, 2004) formally conceptualized the expanded core curriculum (ECC),
when he delineated nine areas of instruction critical to the education of children with visual
impairments: compensatory access, social skills, recreation and leisure, assistive
technology, orientation and mobility, independent living skills, career education, visual
(later sensory) efficiency, and self-determination.
Support for ECC instruction is widespread among both parents and teachers of
students with visual impairments (Lohmeier, Blankenship, & Hatlen, 2009), but despite its
acknowledged importance, researcher consensus reveals children with visual
impairments are not receiving sufficient instruction in the ECC (e.g., Lohmeier et al., 2009;
Wolffe et al., 2002). Some authors have suggested schools for the blind as a source of
expertise in providing instruction in the ECC (e.g., Wolffe et al., 2002), yet existing
knowledge about schools for the blind is limited (McMahon, 2014).
The Expanded Core Curriculum and Schools for the Blind:
Application for Practitioners
