[blindkid] help needed with IEP goals

Mon Nov 24 19:21:19 UTC 2008

Hi, This may be hard to hear, but your daughter needs to be using a cane. It 
is vital to her success confidence, and independence. She must learn to be 
comfortable with the cane. She needs to learn it is a tool for her safety. 
She also needs to be learning non visual techniques for home. Falling in her 
home environment shouldn't be happening.

Second if her vision is this low I'd be considering beginning Braille 
instruction. Its ok if you want to teach her print, but teaching Braille 
will help her be far more successful in her academic life.

I agree the IEP team is off with their goals, but I would definitely 
consider the use of a cane, and Braille.

I say this as a blind adult who is about to finish a degree in Early 
childhood education with minors in special Education and reading 
difficulties.

Bran

"We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. 
Some take us forward, they're called dreams."
Jeremy Irons

Brandy Wojcik
Discovery Toys Group Manager and Educational Consultant

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doreen Franklin" <theconelady at yahoo.com>
To: "NFB/Blindkid" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>; "NFB/List" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 1:03 PM
Subject: [blindkid] help needed with IEP goals

We have been on this list and the info we have been reading has been 
invaluable to us. Thanks!

We are now looking for some help in rewriting our daughter's IEP goals. She 
is 4 and we have just pulled her out of the Head Start program for pre-k3 yr 
old kids (she has a b-day past their cut off date). Head Start was not 
working for several reasons, including some effects from her adoption and 
they have been affecting her attitude, sleep and eating. One of the problems 
we had was that she was not being "taught" pre-writing - how to hold a 
pencil and her paper, specifically for her eye conditions (born with 
congenital cataracts, removed in Guatemala, false lens put in in both eyes, 
also has nystagmus, light sensitivity, strabismus and is myopic/near 
sighted). I will now be home schooling her. Her TVI did not give the teacher 
any instructions for grip and paper, and the teacher herself told me to "let 
it happen" and that her grip would evolve.

"Developing pre-writing skills needed for writing" is her first short-term 
goal on the IEP. Her next 2 goals are for her to be able to IDENTIFY AND 
WRITE the alphabet AND her full name in capital letters with 80% accuracy 
thru activities. Her 4th goal is to complete tasks with 2 redirections in a 
30 MINUTES span. None of the goals were much more specific than the above 
statements.

Her next 2 goals are O&M; "using her vision, she will be able to walk up & 
down a ramp and steps with minimal assistance" ....but with an O&M 
observation, she is "doing this" so that this is NOT NEEDED as per the eval. 
She does not have O&M except on a "consult" only basis (meaning, that if her 
teacher or TVI see a problem, then he will be called in. (With us pulling 
her out, I am unsure how this will work.) In the meantime, we are seeing her 
hit/bump/trip into things for at least the last 2 months. I had been keeping 
a log prior to our last meeting; I have just restarted that log. She has not 
"seriously" hurt herself (and that is what the TVI/O&M continues to say), 
but I hold her hand when outside as she is only 4 yrs old. At home, she 
usually bumps her shoulder into furniture or the door jams. She has hit her 
head a few times when walking into the wall or getting off her stool in the 
bathroom, she has banged her forehead. She has fallen
 over a rocker leg and hit the couch. She does not have depth perception as 
several times on flat surfaces with contrast (2 different colored 
tiles/cement), she picks up her foot as though there is a step there. She is 
also "right on top of you" when talking to you. These are just a few 
examples of why we think we need O&M.

Our question though is .... what would be some "appropriate" VISION-RELATED 
goals for her? The goals above are not vision related and we are supposed to 
discuss the goals. My husband and I would like to come to the table with 
some appropriate vision goals instead of "learning to write her alphabet and 
name" with goals for a child in kindergarten (I have checked the pre-K state 
curriculum and the kindergarten curriculum). She is using the Handwriting 
without Tears curriculum at school and I already had it in my home to use 
with her. We will continue to work with the letters using clay and their 
wooden sticks to form letters. We are looking at a goal for her to be able 
to identify her letters using that curriculum.

I am looking at "visual memory" games so that she will be able to use her 
vision more efficiently as she gets older. That is one goal along with using 
the clay & sticks from Handwriting without Tears to form her letters. I 
would also like to expand on the pre-writing so that it specifically states 
she will be holding her pencil and paper correctly for her visual problems. 
I am asking for bold lined paper so that she is able to see the paper 
correctly instead of just the gray-lined paper she had gotten from Head 
Start; she had a hard time seeing the bottom line.

Unfortunately, the TVI and TVI/O&M people do not know how to work with a 
pre-k child as evidence several times in what they asked/told her (show me 
your house instead of show me the kitchen).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks ....
Doreen and David, Florida

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