Finding Common Ground

Students with visual-Spatial deficits

Download Finding Common Ground - Visual

You will be given the following as a work page to use.

Divide the table below into three columns:

Exceptionality

Students who will definitely have difficulty with vision or the processing of visual spatial information

Students may or may not have difficulty with vision or the processing of visual spatial information

Then go through the list of Exceptionalities and fill in the table.

Behaviour Exceptionalities

Intellectual Exceptionalities

Gifted

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MID

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Physical Exceptionalities

Neuro-Muscular

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Vision Impaired

Communication Exceptionalities

Hard-of-Hearing

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Autism

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Speech Impaired

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Language Impaired

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Learning Disabled

Type #1 Language Delayed or Language Learning Disability

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Type #2 Non-Verbal Learning Disability - Visual-Spatial Deficits

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Type #3 Small or Large Muscle Difficulties

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now think of a lesson you have taught and determine how you could have differentiated your instruction or made accommodations for students who had difficulties of this kind?

Can you improve these deficits or should you use the student's strengths and accommodate for their weaknesses?

The following is a list of all the technologies available in our lab. After researching and experimenting with each, determine which would or would not be applicable to students with visual deficits. Justify your answer.

Clicker5 - writing support and multimedia tool

CoWriter 4000 Solo - editing supports

Write: Outloud Solo - text-to-speech support

Premier Literacy Suite - suite of 10 tools to support reading and writing

AlphaSmart - portable word-processing tools

Intellikeys - customizable touch keyboard

Premier - Literacy Suite - suite of 10 tools to support reading and writing

Kurzweil - digitize text and read using text-to-speech

Screen Magnification Software

ZoomText - enlarge display and read outloud

JAWS - translates text to audio output

Intellikeys - customizable touch keyboard

Dragon Naturally Speaking - translates spoken language into text

Kidspiration - graphical mapping tool

Inspiration- simple graphical mapping tool

Smart Ideas- graphical mapping tool

How can you use these technologies in class to not only differentiate instruction for specific students, but using the principles of Universal Design, make you classroom and lesson inclusive for all students?

Are there other technologies one can use for Universal Design, or other ways of making visual materials accessible to all? (Remember that some students may have visual-motor or hand-to-eye coordination difficulties and therefore have difficulties with such things as copying notes from the board.)