These are 10 tips you might find helpful in teaching a blind or visually impaired person:
- In order to meet the needs of a patient, specific supportive tools may be acquired. For example, a vision professional may prescribe magnifying lenses and various optical tools to make learning easier.
- Individuals with low vision often have very well-developed hearing, sense of smell, taste, and touch. This helps them acquire more information from their surroundings.
- Working with blind people, one must not relate to non-verbal signs and body language such as gestures or facial expressions. Instead, one must identify themselves clearly, and announce their presence.
- Working with blind and visually impaired patients, one must employ descriptive speaking as much as possible; this will help the learners have a better idea of their tasks and procedures.
- Tactile learning is vital during work with low vision or blind individuals. It can be employed to teach them a number of procedures and tasks to help them recognize objects better by arranging them in certain ways.
- When printed visual materials are used for low vision persons, the font size and details of the demonstration need to be selected accordingly.
- It is important to select the color scheme most suitable for the patients. Individuals with different kinds of impairments can respond better to black ink on a white background or white ink on black background.
- Lighting is crucial for visually impaired patients to be able to recognize the symbols. Even if the color scheme and font size are selected properly, insufficient lighting can become a major obstacle to learning.
- Educators must position themselves appropriately. For example, avoid standing their back to the window.
- Leaving the room, an educator is to inform the learner and say “goodbye.”