Chapter 2
Program Components
The BVEP has four books, three of which are bound together: Guidebook, Evaluation book, and Instruction book. The fourth book is the Perceptual Skills Evaluation. For quick and easy reference, all four books are described on page XII.
The Guidebook should be read prior to evaluation and instruction.
The step-by-step process of the Visual Efficiency Evaluation includes:
- A tool to analyze visual performance in tasks that occur regularly throughout the day in a variety of environments
- A tool to identify gaps in typical visual development
- A separate procedure book, titled Perceptual Skills Evaluation, to evaluate visual perceptual skills using common objects and pictures of those objects
- Evaluation objects: books, hats, spoons, and toy boats
These tools and materials can be used to prioritize tasks and skills to be targeted for instruction. Subsequent administrations can be used to measure progress. It is important to understand that these tools are for assessment only. None of them should be used as a standalone teaching sequence.
The Instruction book provides tools for the implementation of the intervention methods described in the Guidebook. Interventions should be applied in priority activities as determined by the Visual Efficiency Evaluation.
Tools for the evaluation and instruction of sensory efficiency skills
TVIs serve a diverse population. Knowing which tools to use for the evaluation and instruction of a given student is vitally important. The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) is committed to providing educational products that help teachers address instruction in all areas of the ECC. See Table 2.1 Tools for the Evaluation and Instruction of Sensory Efficiency Skills listed on the next page.
The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Web site (www.tsbvi.edu/recc) provides an annotated bibliography of materials from a variety of sources in all ECC areas.
Table 2.1 Tools for the Evaluation and Instruction of Sensory Efficiency Skills
Product | Use for | Provides |
---|---|---|
Barraga Visual Efficiency Program |
Students with ocular impairments and cognitive levels of development 3 years and up. Addresses vision only. |
|
The Sensory Learning Kit | Learners with visual and multiple impairments at the sensorimotor level of development, birth-2 years. Addresses all sensory channels. |
|
CVI Complexity Sequences | Students with cortical visual impairment (CVI) and other students with low vision who have difficulty with background complexity | Ten sets of eight cards that present sequences of images designed to refine the ability to identify a target in the presence of increasing amounts of background information |
ToAD: Tools for Assessment and Development of Visual Skills | Students transitioning from recognition of three-dimensional objects to two-dimensional pictures of objects | Sets of objects and pictures of objects with increasing levels of visual complexity covering a variety of visual perceptual skills |
Envision I and II | Students learning to use low vision devices |
|
Light Box: Levels I, II, and III | Students learning to attend to lights, colors, and movement and who benefit from high contrast, light enhanced presentation of symbolic representations |
|
FVLMA: Functional Vision and Learning Media Assessment | Pre-academic and academic students in grades K-12 | Procedures and tools for evaluation of functional vision and assessment of learning media |