RESOURCES

Perkins school for the Blind serves students on campus, provides resources and training internationally and via e-learning, assistive technology products, and the oldest library with over 530,000 items in braille. I used this resource throughout the semester for teaching ideas, communication ideas, and insight from seasoned educators from the many videos posted on the site. I think this tool is an excellent resource for student, parents, and educators.

I found this resource through another TVI colleague of mine when she posted it on Facebook and said that she was going to do it with her student. I think this resource would be a great way to inspire braille readers and writers to correspond with each other and express their feelings, make a friend with a visual impairment and talk about what it is like, and use it as an activity in orientation and mobility as they go out into the community to visit the post office.

I have used this resource, written by a TVI in Atlanta, to gain ideas for lessons for my students, adaptation ideas, ECC ideas, and technology ideas. I like how the TVI keeps the site up to date with new technology postings and links all on one page. This resource is great for both TVIs and O&M specialists and I have shared it with many other colleagues.

Focus Families is an online support group for parents, grandparents and professionals who have or are working with children with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia and Septo-Optic Dysplasia. This a great resource to keep up on current research, gain support from other families, share stories, and learn more about ONH/SOD. I used this resource while writing my initial observations on my case study student with SOD as it shared some insight into specific characterstics from personal parent observations.

The Communication Matrix is an assessment tool designed to pinpoint exactly how an individual is communicating and to provide a framework for determining logical communication goals. I used this website to document the communication skills of my case study student. I think this tool would prove to be useful for IEP meetings to succinctly articulate how a child is currently communicating. This tool is useful for both parents and professionals.

This book is an excellent resource for teachers of student with visual impairments and orientation and mobility specialists working with kids with multiple impairments. I used this resource when working with my case study student, and it helped me to better understand ways I could communicate more effectively. This resource has many examples and is easy to read, understand, and implement the strategies quickly with your students.

I think Vision Aware is a great resource for people who are blind or visually impaired to use for employment ideas, educational and training services offered. I used this site when a student I was observing wanted to locate a mentor to speak with about a career that he was thinking about.The mentor was also visually impaired, and very helpful to this student and gave the student insight into the field.

NINDS goal is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. I used this resource for a definition of ONH/SOD. This site will publish current research and scientific discoveries to the public and health professionals.

The National Consortium on Deaf Blindness has collected information about interveners across the country, recommendations for improving services, all in an effort to promote positive outcomes for children who are deaf-blind and improve the quality and availability of intervener services. This resource was utilized in my class, and it was my first introduction to interveners. I found it to be a very useful website and referred to it a few times during the semester to access information and gain knowledge based on a student I met while subbing at TSBVI.

A website for both professionals and families whose children may have sensory processing disorder. This site contains many resources, treatment ideas, Q&A, and research. I think this source can be useful for both parents and professionals to gain ideas for treating kids who may be having symptoms of SPD. I used this resource to help explain the need for vibration to soothe, organize, and orient a child to their body in space who may have SPD.

The Iris Center is a resource that addresses instructional and classroom issues to help teachers with RtI, behavior, collaboration, instruction and leadership to name a few. I used this resource to learn about collaboration with other team members in a typical school setting. The Iris Center could be very useful to educators who need support and instruction in facilitating learning for struggling students or students with disabilitites.

Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) is a center for educational services for all blind and visually impaired students in Texas. TSBVI is a statewide resource to parents and professionals This is a valuable resource to use for the most current information in the field of blindness and visual impairment. I use the TSBVI resource as a starting point and base of support when searching for information for all of my students who are blind or visually impaired.

Liliworks is a website for professionals, parents and educators. Lilliworks provides education, outreach, supply of equipment and continuing research. The Active Learning principle is "Everyone Can Learn." This resource is extremely valuable to help teach children with significant disabilities to become active learners in their own space and in their own time. I used this resource when doing my own research after an Active Learning observation with a 2 1/2 year old, and in writing a paper.

This resource provides suggestions for teachers and therapists to teach social communication skills to students with visual impairments and autism.This resource was easy to understand, and helped me apply the communication skill levels to my case study student to better understand what she could do and what she was ready to do.

This resource is an online community created by the American Foundation for the Blind and the National Association of Parents of Children with Visual Impairments. The site provides resources and support for parents, giving them a place to share ideas and stories. I used this resource during some of my research throughout the semester, and for guidance in assistive technology ideas for my students.

Paths to Literacy is a joint project between Perkins School for the Blind and Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to support educators and families, and help provide them with literacy resources for children who are blind or visually impaired. I have used this resource as an itinerant teacher to obtain lesson planning ideas for my students. This is a great resource because it is constantly being added to with new ideas everyday. The site is interactive as well, and you can comment or ask questions about the activities.