About the Author
Mildred (Millie) J. Smith is a private consultant who works with students who have visual and multiple impairments. Since her retirement from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI), Millie conducts workshops, gives private consultations, and is a respected author/consultant to the American Printing House for the Blind (APH).
After teaching high school English for 2 years, Millie returned to school and completed her Master of Education in Visual Impairment and Emotional Disturbance from the University of Texas at Austin. Her graduate internship was working as a specialist in school programs for emotionally disturbed students at Children’s Psychiatric Hospital at Austin. Like many vision teachers, Millie started out as an itinerant teacher of students with visual impairments, working in the Dallas Independent School District. Millie then returned to Austin and began teaching at TSBVI. During her 27 years at TSBVI, she worked as a resource teacher, a classroom teacher, and as an outreach teacher trainer. She has taught classes focusing on visual problems of exceptional children at the University of Texas at Austin and served on the Advisory Board of the Special Education Department, Program for the Visually Handicapped.