LESSON Learners with Difficulty Seeing

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OBJECTIVES:
• Define visual impairment.
• Differentiate the types and causes of visual impairment.
• Create a learning plan with application of Universal Design for learning.
• Demonstrate orientation and mobility in assisting learners with difficulty seeing.
• Write short-story using basic braille.

Introduction

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~Helen Keller
Vision plays a vital role in learning and it is utmost important that teachers should know
and understand the visual abilities of their students. Some students having visual loss or
blind can be mistaken for having intellectual disability or learning difficulties. When visual
impairment is not addressed at school, it can lead to learning difficulties and behavior
problems, as the student misses important information, struggles to keep with other student,
loses confidence and becomes frustrated. This module will help you to be equipped with
essential knowledge about visual impairment and its types that can be of aid in handling
learners with difficulty seeing in a regular classroom set-up.

Instruction: The following pictures in this activity will test your

visual skills. In the space provided, write your answers for each
question.

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1. What did you see first? A hat, an elephant or a snake? ________________________________
2. What did you see first? Old man and woman, two musicians singing or a chalice?
______________________________________________________________________________

3. How many faces do you see in this picture? ____________________

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Analysis
After you succeed on the previous activity, retrospect and answer
the following questions:
• During the picture observation, have you noticed first the whole picture or
the details of it?
• What made you notice first the mentioned subjects in each picture?
• The correct answer for the third picture is ten. Was your answer below or
beyond 10? If your answer is incorrect, what do you think is the factor for
giving such answer? If your answer is correct, what helped you to look
for the exact number of faces?
Abstraction

Visual impairment, vision loss or low vision refers to any loss of ability to gather information
by seeing might be considered a visual impairment. The absence of sight leads to the reorganization
of the sensory mechanisms. Blindness makes the person dependent on other senses like audition
or hearing, feeling or touch, olfaction or smell and gustation or taste. Total blindness is the
inability to tell light from dark, or the total inability to see. It is a severe reduction in vision that
cannot be corrected with standard glasses or contact lenses and reduces a person’s ability to
function at certain or all tasks. People who are born with severe visual impairment commonly
caused by genetic and/or birth complications are called congenitally blind. If a person has a
normal vision during birth and acquired severe visual impairment at the age of two, they are called
adventitiously blind. Other leading causes of blindness include:
• Macular Degeneration
• Glaucoma
• Cataracts
• Diabetes Mellitus
• Infections
• Vitamin A deficiency
Refractive errors is the inability of the lens to focus an image accurately. These include the
following:
• Myopia (nearsightedness) occurs when the eye is too long and the rays of light from
distant objects are not focused on the retina.
• Hyperopia (farsightedness) occurs when the eye is too short and the rays of light from
near objects are not focused on the retina.
• Astigmatism occurs when a person is suffering blurred vision caused by uneven curvature
of the cornea and lens. This curvature prevents light rays from focusing correctly on the
retina.
Color blindness is the reduced ability to perceive or distinguish between certain colors, usually
red, green, blue and yellow. It is a hereditary defect that is more common in males than females.
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Contrast sensitivity describes the ability to distinguish one object from another. A person with
reduced contrast sensitivity may have problems seeing objects in the fog because of the decrease
in contrast between the object and the fog.
Many types of visual impairment are inherited and cannot be prevented. However, some visual
impairment can be prevented. These are some tips on how to avoid acquiring such impairment.
• Students should be educated to never throw stones, sticks or other small or sharp objects
at other children.
• Students need to be educated about keeping chemicals such as lime, cement, petrol and
other cleaning products away from their hands and eyes.
• Students and parents need to be educated about hygiene, especially keeping eyes, faces
and hands clean.
• Children should always be taken to a health clinic if they have any kind of eye problem
or irritation.
• Children and mothers need a diet that is rich in Vitamin A.
• Girls should be vaccinated against rubella (German measles)
The learning needs of blind and visually impaired children can be divided into three categories:
• Needs that are met by adapting the curriculum;
• Needs that are met by changes in methodology; and
• Developmental and educational needs that are unique to these children.
Once the primary medium for learning has been selected, teachers should keep in mind that some
children can use both tactile and visual materials, and that all children can and should use auditory
materials. In other words, a Total Communication Approach for children with visual
impairments should be employed. When assisting a learner with visual impairment, the
orientation and mobility skills should be applied. Orientation is the ability to mental map people
have to move through the environment and mobility refers to the ability to travel safely and
efficiently from one place to another. Orientation training involves teaching learners with visual
impairments to understand their environment and to recognize their surroundings and their
relationship to them. Assistive devices such as eyeglasses, contact lenses and cane are also a
great help in assisting learners with visual impairment. Braille System is used as a writing tool by
a lot of teachers who are teaching learners with visual impairment. Example of braille system
alphabet is shown in the picture.

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Classroom practices and routine activities should be observed when handling learners with visual
impairment. Some of these are the following:
• Speak to the class upon entering and leaving the room or site
• Call the student by name if you want his/her attention.
• Give verbal notice of room changes, special meetings, or assignments.
• Offer to read written information for a person with a visual impairment, when appropriate.
• Identify yourself by name, don't assume that the student who is visually impaired will
recognize you by your voice even though you have met before.
• If you are asked to guide a student with a visual impairment, identify yourself, offer your
services and, if accepted, offer your arm to the student's hand. Tell them if they have to
step up or step down, let them know if the door is to their left or right, and warn them of
possible hazards.
• Orally, let the student know if you need to move or need to end a conversation.
With the advent of inclusive education, more learners who have visual impairment are enrolled in
regular classes. A special education teacher should work closely with the regular teacher so that
the child can fully participate in class activities. These following rules will help you in making
your learners with difficulty seeing feel comfortable in both regular and self-contained classroom
setting.
1. Do not hesitate to use words “look”, “see” , “see you later” or “look here”. It may sound odd
but for the learners with difficulty seeing, those words connote either by manipulating or touching
an object or looking very closely to it with use of other senses.
2. Encourage them to socialize with other students. Let her introduce her/his self in the way he/she is
comfortable with. Instruct the other students to talk directly to them and not through you.
3. Include the child in all class activities. Ask the special education teacher in your school on how
to effectively modify instructions and activities for the child to have a full and active participation
in class.
4. Leading the class gives integrity and pride to the students. Extend that opportunity to them.
5. Do not excuse the child from school rules and regulations and even in classroom disciplinary
rules.
6. Encourage the child to move around the classroom to get the materials he/she needed. You
may assign a student buddy to assist him/her in class activities.
7. Give verbal instructions and prompts. Do not just nod and say “yes” instead. They cannot see
your facial expressions.
8. Provide space for his/her extra materials like stylus and slate, cane, braille typewriter and others.
9. Open topics about visual impairment and inclusion in the class. You may integrate it with the other
subjects. You acceptance of the child will serve as a positive example for the other students.
10. The child may exhibit mannerisms like rocking, flapping the finger in front of their eyes or
poking their finger into the eye. Consult a special education teacher on how to deal with these
behavior.

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Application
Let’s test your practical skills!
Practical Skills 1: Write your name on the space provided below. Under each letter of
your name, write its corresponding braille character using the Braille System Alphabet
as shown in the abstraction.

Practical Skills 2: Choose a short poem or you may create your own. Write that literary piece in
the left box. Provide its corresponding braille system translation in the right box respectively.

Practical Skills 3: Create a learning plan with application of universal design for learning. Read the
given level of performance to set properly the condition. After creating the learning plan, make a simple
classroom structure along with its rationale, and an outline of instructional materials you will be using
in the actual delivery of such learning plan. Use separate sheets if needed.
Practical Skills 4: Search the internet on how to demonstrate proper orientation and mobility
in assisting learners with difficulty seeing considering the given conditions stated below.
1. Walking with the learner in a narrow space
2. Walking with the learner and taking turn to avoid road block
3. Crossing the street

Present Level of Performance:

• The class is composed of 35 regular learners and 2 learners with
severe visual impairment, 1 learner with myopia, 1 learner with
hyperopia and 1 learner with astigmatism.
• The classroom is well-lighted146 and there are 2 students in each desk.
RETROSPECTION
Instruction: Do the following activity and answer the following questions.
Close your eyes tightly for few hours. Better still, cover them with an eye shade or a piece of dark
cloth so that you cannot see anything at all. Then, walk around the house and look for familiar
things that you see every day in the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. Next, do the
usual activities you engage in every day such as cleaning the house, cooking, changing your clothes
and others.
Questions:
1. How well did you do the usual activities?
2. How did you solve them?
3. What did you feel about the whole experiences?

Good job! You have successfully completed the activities and tasks for lesson 3 on learners with
difficulty in seeing. Now, are you ready to move to lesson 4 on learners with difficulty in
communicating? Enjoy and keep working!