Teaching Students with Sensory Impairments
Technology and Medical Interventions
Margaret Griffin, M.Ed.Stud.
State Coordinator, Vision Impairment Service
Tasmania, Australia
II. Assessing Students' Technology Needs
All students require a comprehensive assessment in order to select appropriate
learning tools. A Learning Media Assessment (LMA) is one way of evaluating
learning tools that may be appropriate for students with vision impairment in
terms of determining their current and future needs. At the heart is gathering
critical evidence of how students use different senses to interact with their
environment. It assists educators in analyzing this evidence to confirm the
student’s primary learning medium. A strong multi-disciplinary team is required to
have input into this process. As a consequence the LMA identifies:
 Learning strengths and medium options
 Educational needs
 Data relevant to determining students' primary learning medium – vision
condition, stability of vision, functional vision skills, stamina and efficiency in
current learning medium
 Future directions and learning pathways
 Contextual and family considerations
 Technology solutions, purposes and options (M.C Holbrook, & A. Koenig,
Renwick Centre Conference Paper, November, 2001).
The LMA is described in detail in Corn & Koenig's Learning Media Assessment of
Students with Visual Impairment (1995). It provides a systematic methodology for
collecting and analyzing the data necessary for effective decision-making.
Further work by Corn and Koenig (1995) provides educators with other
assessment tools to evaluate the effectiveness of different Print Media for
students with low vision.
Current research indicates that the process
underpinning LMA must be one of ongoing evaluation to ensure that students
with visual impairment are provided with quality learning options responsive to
changing needs and individual purposes.
A. Student Participation
Students with visual impairment who have taken an active role in the assessment
of their needs through the LMA require opportunities to network with other
students who are using specialist technology. Peer support and peer tutoring
can be used extensively to develop students' capacity to use their technology
effectively. Some students may be the only one with a visual impairment in their
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particular grade or school. For this reason specialist resource teachers can
arrange camps, seminars and workshops which provide the opportunities for cooperative learning. In this state (Tasmania 2003 - 05), there have been a series
of structured camps and workshops which are designed to:
 Build skills with particular equipment such as the Braille Note, Prisma
Video Magnifier, or ScannaR
 Create user networks and enable students to find applications such as
email to sustain ongoing informal contact
 Provide students with learning experiences which give them the
opportunity to utilize technology within broader everyday life
 Provide students in rural/remote areas with direct contact with other
students with visual impairment and the time for shared dialogue and the
interchange of ideas on how their technology works within their program.
This photo shows two students with visual
impairment participating in a regional
workshop on the Braille Note undertaken in
Tasmania in 2004. The sessions were lead
by Ramona Mandy, National Blindness
Products Consultant for Humanware in
Australia. As a leading company
representative and also an experienced and
regular user of the Braille Note, Ramona
was able to personalize learning to each
student participating in the workshop.
At the same regional workshop, students
experiment with independently using the
ScannaR. The ScannaR is a flat-bed
scanner that will scan and read any text
document. The hard drive capacity will
record up to 500,000 pages of text. It has the
capacity to link directly to a Braille Note for
file transfer of scanned documents. This
means that student have instant access to a
Braille document in a portable manner. In
Tasmania (2004), a ScannaR was placed in
the regional library, so that students with visual impairment could visit the library
select texts, independently scan documents and then transfer a Braille file to their
Braille Note. More information on the ScannaR is available on the Humanware
website cited earlier in this chapter.
B. Positive Outcomes of Technology
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Some of the positive outcomes of access to a variety of technology tools and the
skills to utilize these effectively have been noted by students and their supporting
teams (Tasmania 2004 -5). These include:
 Students are now able to move more fluidly between different learning
mediums and focus on success with their learning.
 Students who are primarily Braille users indicate that access to refreshable
Braille and the ability to download material into Braille via their Braille Note has
increased their success and significantly increased their participation in all
aspects of the curriculum.
 Resource teachers believe that this approach which encourages students to be
multi-skilled is in line with the requirement of flexibility and problem-solving that
are such an integral part of curriculum delivery.
 Support teams believe that the focus is always on building lifelong learners
who are proactive and empowered decision-makers, confidently able to
articulate their technology needs and use it for fulfilling roles in life.
 Early access to technology has influenced students’ readiness to take on more
sophisticated solutions.
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