I am a new special education teacher, developmental delays. I have a student that needs a lot of help and I need input. J. is a 1st grader, 7.0, Chronological Age, scoring grade equivalents of 1.5 on GI; K.7 on Reading Recognition; Reading Comp; Mathematics 1.4; Spelling K.6; Overall Total Test K.9 on the PIAT-R, administered last week. He is on medication for ADD; PT & OT for minor difficulties and was born with a scratched cornea at birth, (wore eye patches, both eyes for 6 wks). He has eye involvement; nystagmus, hyperopia and astigmatism. The difficulty I am having is I am doing minor revisions in his IEP because he transitioning into the 1st grade from K and needs more time on his IEP. His parents want him in the classroom as much as possible; his teacher believes he needs to be out of the classroom more. He has trouble transitioning from board to paper; counting on fingers for math back to his worksheet, looses his place; test-taking on unlined paper. I know there are some simple things; however, I would like even more ideas. I’m not familiar with his visual diagnosis, but believe there is more going on visually than the medical aspect, perhaps a visual perception problem. Any ideas would be extremely helpful in making revisions to present to the parents. This is my FIRST IEP meeting!!!!
Linda, Your report omitted one key data…what is his corrected visual acuity?
The nystagmus means that his eyes oscillate..there are a range of causes which require neurologic analysis. The end result however is that vision will be blurred. . The hyperopia means that he is long sighted. Think of normal sight as being on the horizon, short sight as being at rest at a closer position (too short) and long sight as being at some virtual position out into space (too long).
Astigmatism means that his corneii, the part of the eyes that contact lenses cover are not curved like a soccer ball but more like a American or Australian football.
Being long sighted and astigmatic does not necessarily mean that vision is poor. The nystagmus does. I don’t think I have a seen a child with nystagmus who has better than 6/12 (50%) vision.
In my experience, copying material from the board is seldom a visual problem (provided of course that the child has sufficient vision to read the board in the first place). Reading from the board usually involved converting the visual information to auditory memory. It is often helped by reading aloud and then writing down what you have said..this is one of many reasons why phonic skills are so important.
The practitioners who may have some insights to offer in such a case would be a Behavoural Optometrist. If the vision is poor, the Blind Institutes and the Low Vision Clinics attached to the eye clinics of hospitals may have a range of magnifying devices that may create images of print large enough for recognition.
If teaching is to be directed into his priority areas of need, it would be useful to know just what basic skills he has at the moment. To that end you could download the free diagnostic test at www.theharrisontest.com and contact me again from that site.
Byron Harrison