by Kimberly Avila, M.A., COMS
College is an exciting time for learning, growing and achieving goals. Virtually everyone who attends college, regardless of age or background, goes through a period of transition during which his or her lifestyle must adjust to accommodate the requirements of higher education. People who are blind or visually impaired must deal with these challenges along with an additional array of transitional issues that can be particularly challenging. In a 1993 study, the American Foundation for the Blind found that students with vision impairments are less likely than their sighted peers to finish college. Could the particularly difficult transitional issues which visually impaired students must cope with be a contributing factor to this disheartening statistical reality? Why are people with vision impairments less likely to finish college than their sighted peers? And what can blind and visually impaired students do to alleviate the added stress that results from coping with their visual impairments?
I am a teacher of visually impaired high school students. I wanted to explore the particular challenges college students with visual impairments encounter so I could assist my students to prepare themselves for college. As a result, I conducted a study during the summer of 2001 surveying 23 adults who are blind and visually impaired who have had at least some college experience and dealt with the challenges of higher education. Participants were asked to provide input on how upcoming college students can prepare themselves for a smooth transition. A continual dialogue has developed with several of the adults who responded to my original survey, which has enabled me to clarify some of the survey results and to expand my knowledge about the difficulties visually impaired students can encounter during the process of transitioning to college.
Correspondence, including the distribution of surveys, was accomplished electronically and at meetings of blindness consumer organizations. Surveys reached all over the United States and beyond, including a rehabilitation program in New Zealand. Participants were quite diverse in age, background, ethnicity and differed in the amount of years they attended college and degrees earned. Some respondents were current college students; others are successful professionals, business owners, homemakers, members of the Peace Corps, graduate students, farmers and current consumers of rehabilitation programs.
The responses to the survey were interesting, yet not surprising. As participants described what areas they could have been better prepared in for a smoother transition, I was reminded of the “Expanded Core Curriculum” Phil Hatlen published years ago. The Expanded Core Curriculum defines areas in which students with vision impairments should receive specific instruction, and includes: compensatory skills, including communication models; visual efficiency skills; social skills; independent living skills; recreation and leisure skills; orientation and mobility training; vocational education; and assessment and training on assistive technology.
Long before I conducted my survey, the Expanded Core Curriculum had been defined and identified as part of the National Agenda. However, according to my study, these areas are still being neglected and students are not getting what they need to prepare them for a smooth transition to college. In the 1998 National Agenda; Report to the Nation by the American Foundation for the Blind, researchers concluded that schools were not allowing adequate time for instruction in and did not have qualified personnel to teach in these areas. Five years after this report was published, these sad circumstances still seem to be very much the norm.
Consistently, respondents identified a need to receive instruction in all of the above-mentioned categories. Moreover, EVERY participant identified an intense need for instruction in the use of adaptive technology in order to be successful and independent in college and beyond. All respondents remarked that training in the use of assistive technology is a heavily neglected area that has been a crucial factor impacting their success in college. Several participants stated that they had to pay a large amount of money and spend an excessive amount of time to learn the technologies while in college, which ultimately affected their academics, work and social lives. Below are just some of the statements made by respondents emphasizing the need for adequate adaptive technology instruction.
“Adaptive technology, this is the bulldozer that levels the playing field.”
— Undergraduate student who is also employed
“There is no way ANY college student will make it through school without technology. A blind or visually impaired person must have these skills in order to have a fighting chance in school, and to be independent.”
— Undergraduate student
“Technology is needed to set the student at an even playing ground. It is vital in a quality education.”
— Information technology consultant
“Technology can, and will, make the difference between some semblance of independence and total dependency. Further survival may come down to the issue of adaptive technology.”
— Doctoral graduate student
“...OCR’s, screen magnifiers, screen readers, good computer skills; I am struggling to learn these skills just to be competitive.”
— Business owner and former Peace Corps member
Other areas which the respondents felt were crucial for rehabilitation teachers and educators to focus upon were self-advocacy and social skills, including working with readers and others who routinely provide assistance to disabled students. Several participants remarked that they felt very alone moving to college from high school when they realized they had to rely exclusively on themselves for taking care of their every need.
“We must learn that we cannot totally rely on services which are supposed to assist us, because there are limited resources and service providers. In order to show that we are independent thinkers and able to take care of ourselves, we must learn how to rely on our self-advocacy skills in order to make gains in employment, etc.”
— Graduate student
"Confidence, communication, advocacy, working with people, problem solving, knowing what you want and creating a plan to obtain your goal, these are the crucial skills students with vision impairments must have in order to succeed in college.”
— College professor
“Social skills go along with fighting the misconceptions and stereotypes some have about blind people. Eye contact should be taught at an early age, and kids should also be taught that ‘blindisms,’ like eye poking, rocking, etc. are not appropriate. I am not saying that one should try to look sighted; it is just that we need to look our best and present ourselves as confident figures when seeking employment and college admissions.”
— Graduate student
“Confidence, Confidence, Confidence.” — Business owner
“Self-advocacy is a very important self-confidence and identity builder.”
— Rehabilitation teacher
“Knowing how to direct readers around a library, knowing how to communicate with those who do not understand my blindness, coming up with reasonable accommodations with my professors, these are things I really had to work on in college.”
— Business owner
When responding to questions related to orientation and mobility and travel, all respondents emphasized how important good cane travel skills were to their independence and success. However, in almost every survey, participants consistently remarked that one of the most challenging aspects of being blind was not being able to drive. Some respondents discussed in depth how difficult it was to attend college on a campus that had several mobility obstacles, such as busy streets which cut through campus and several difficult to follow paths around the school. These physical factors put a barrier between these students and their college education.
In regard to independent living, personal care and home management, respondents shared a variety of perspectives. Some felt that the training they had received from their families or rehabilitation programs in home management was adequate. Others indicated that they had minimal rehabilitation teaching and limited family support, which affected their preparedness to manage their personal lives, finances, home and the like.
“If a young person going off to college does not have a sense of balancing a checkbook and paying bills, disaster could result. I think so many parents do not allow their blind children to handle their own money, but this is something kids must learn.”
— College student
“I am glad I had the opportunity to learn how to take care of a home while still living at my parents’ home. I could not imagine learning all of that now with everything else going on.”
— College student
“Families cannot shelter their blind children from the world, hoping it will go away. Kids will grow up, and the best way to help them is to let them help themselves. Parents who do everything for their children are not doing them a favor. Let them have experiences, and let them make mistakes. It will hurt them a lot less if they make a mistake with a small allowance, or a minor cooking mistake under your care, than it will if these mistakes are made for the first time outside of your home, when the consequences could be horrible.”
— Teacher
After reading the wide variety of responses, it was evident that some people encounter the most trouble in college because of a lack of instruction in all these areas. Despite the publicity on the importance of including the expanded core curriculum in students’ education and the continued findings that pinpoint exactly where discrepancies lie in preparing students for college and employment, thousands of people with vision impairments go to college without the basic tools they need to achieve their goals without undue challenges. Yet, as the national agenda stated, and the results of my survey confirmed, these crucial areas are still being neglected. I wondered why and so began researching why so many students are lacking important skills. I surveyed teachers, service providers, rehabilitation professionals and people with vision impairments to get a more conclusive understanding.
I found that most professionals in rehabilitation and education are aware that their visually impaired students and clients will face challenges in college. Yet, many professionals are simply unaware that many resources already exist to assist visually impaired college-bound students. For example, although the professionals may realize that their students must take the College Board tests, they do not understand the extensive amount of work it will take to get the accommodations in place for the tests.
Students and professionals know that students will receive service from the disabled student services offices on their campuses, but how are those services set up and who is responsible for what? It is known that while on campus, students must attend to their own needs, but how are students to advocate for their needs, work with readers and manage their personal lives while still maintaining academic standing that is required to actually stay in college?
In many cases, it was evident that the challenges these students would face began long before they started their first college class. Participants in the study often remarked that they did not realize they should have investigated the campus and surrounding community even before applying to evaluate the accessibility of the campus. Many respondents indicated that they were in for a rude awakening the first day on campus when they realized the campus was inaccessible to them.
It became clear in my study that students, parents, teachers and rehabilitation professionals need guidelines to teach these skills. As a result, I have begun to develop a special curriculum to prepare high school students to apply to and transition to college. My curriculum, which is entitled with the acronym EXPLORE, outlines the steps a person with a vision impairment may use to facilitate a smooth transition to college and beyond. EXPLORE can be used as an educational curriculum in a school or rehabilitation facility, or by a student alone, or with a parent. It can be adapted for non-traditional-aged students and those wishing to attend a community college program or other non-four-year degree program.
The EXPLORE curriculum has another phase of study ahead. I have begun to implement it with high school students I work with, and I plan to use it with upcoming juniors and seniors. After my students complete some college, I will ask them to respond to a survey about the training effectiveness of the curriculum. It is my hope to distribute a “beta-testing” version of EXPLORE to itinerant teachers, rehabilitation programs and adults with vision impairments to further assess and revise the program.
For more information about the curriculum, its philosophy and materials, please contact me at the following e-mail address: [email protected]. It is useless to lament the disheartening statistics about blind and visually impaired people who cannot “make it” in the academic or post-academic world unless we all work together to develop the strategies that can prepare our visually impaired youth to succeed with an arsenal of skills and self-confidence to rely upon. Let us learn from the students who so willingly shared their experiences and their advice and make the road to transition a smoother one for the students who will follow.