The term vision impairment is used to cover a range of vision levels and conditions that includes all blind and partially sighted people. A child or young person is thought to have a vision impairment if they have an eye condition that cannot be fully corrected using glasses. In many classrooms there are learners who may have visual acuity worse than 20/40 or 20/60. There is often a wide variation in the degree of disability experienced by learners with vision impairment and, therefore, the amount of support they require. Where a learner does not have access to the same visual experiences and cues as their peers, their learning opportunities can be reduced.

This course looks at the impact that vision loss can have on a learner’s life and shows how you can make your practice more inclusive for these learners, offering practical assessment ideas and intervention strategies.

This course responds to the information needs of the whole community centred around supporting the child/young person with a vision impairment. You will learn how to assess the needs of a learner and go on to develop a support plan consisting of SMART goals and interventions, which you will implement and later review to determine how well it has met the learner’s developmental needs.

The target age range is compulsory education (4-18 years), but the course may benefit those in early years settings too. Parents and carers benefit from raised awareness of their child’s needs. Advisory teachers, therapists and educational psychologists gain access to evidence-based CPD resources that can be used to strengthen capacity in their local authority and schools. Schools can use this course to train individuals or groups of teachers and teaching support staff as part of a school’s improvement plan or a whole-school initiative. NQTs/RQTs also build a secure knowledge of the graduated approach at the start of their career.

Our courses are structured into four sections. Click on the section headings to reveal page titles and some example content.