Whenever I speak about my experiences with working with a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) while attending public school, people are often surprised by how many lessons my TVI taught me in high school, even though I did not see them very often. Even though I only met with them once a week (or less) and they rarely spoke to my classroom teachers, they managed to teach me a lot of things about college transition and gave me the tools to help me prepare for attending a four-year college. Today, I will be sharing eight things I’m glad my TVI taught me about college transition and preparing to attend university, and how it has helped me during my undergraduate studies.
Having to develop a thorough explanation of usable vision
A lot of my friends at college have “typical” eye conditions that cause low vision, such as glaucoma, retinopathy of prematurity, and retinitis pigmentosa. Someone who is familiar with visual impairment or low vision can look at that diagnosis and have an idea of how well a student can see, or what their usable vision might look like. This is not true in my case, because I have two different uncommon conditions that contribute to my vision loss: an eye condition called accommodative esotropia and a brain condition called Chiari Malformation (which was not diagnosed until after I graduated from high school)— both my eyes and my brain impact my level of usable vision. As a result, I get asked what I can see fairly frequently.
When I met my TVI and told them about my eye condition, they told me that they had never had a student with my eye condition before, and that I was not likely to encounter anyone who knew the condition well. I received many opportunities to practice explaining my functional vision level and how my individual conditions impact my ability to see, and it was fantastic practice for college since people frequently asked me those questions.
Related links
- Using PicsArt To Simulate Low Vision
- How I Explain My Brain With Chiari Malformation
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
- Learning To Explain Usable Vision
- How I Respond To Questions/Comments About My Eyes
- Having an Undiagnosed Chronic Illness in High School
- How I Talk To Professors About Photosensitivity
How to explain disability accommodations
At both of the high schools I attended, my teachers wouldn’t give me accommodations just because it said in my IEP that they had to. There would be days that I walked into class to find out that the teacher didn’t enlarge assignments for me that day, so I would have to talk to them and explain why I couldn’t read a certain assignment and give them specific instructions on how to fix it. My TVI told me that they didn’t want to step in during situations like this, since no one was going to “blindly” give me accommodations just because I said so after graduating. While I definitely wish this happened less often, I do appreciate the experience of learning to articulate what I needed.
Related links
- Common Classroom Accommodations For Low Vision
- Disability and Classroom Accommodations For Chiari Malformation
- Ten Spooky Inaccessible Assignments and How To Fix Them
- Eight Things You Need To Know About Your Disability Accommodations
- How To Explain Disability Accommodations To Professors
- Options For Attending College Classes Remotely
- Why You Should Get A Disability Services File
How to practice self-advocacy in multiple contexts
This ties in with my first two points, but self-advocacy is one of the most important skills that my TVI helped me to develop. Even though I didn’t realize it, my TVI gave me so many opportunities to practice self-advocacy in all of my classes and during my IEP meetings. This helped me to develop strong leadership and communication skills, since I knew that I was in control of my own accommodations and how I am treated in the classroom.
Related links
- Learning to Self-Advocate
- Common IEP Terminology For Low Vision
- Ways To Practice Self-Advocacy In The Virtual Classroom
- Dear High School Teacher
- Disability Accommodations For Graduation
- Tips And Advice For New Accessibility Advocates
- What If I Get Dropped From All My College Classes?
How to brainstorm solutions for accessibility barriers
I had very limited access to assistive technology in the classroom, so my TVI encouraged me to come up with ideas for how I could solve problems in the classroom with limited technology and funding. For example, I was having trouble seeing the board in one of my classes no matter where I sat, so we talked about different ways I could deal with the situation, such as standing up to walk around the room or copying notes from a friend. Ultimately, I asked them if I could use my phone as a makeshift magnifier, and they thought it was a great idea. I appreciate that they let me come up with my own ideas and accommodations to solve problems, while giving me some guidance to help me come up with a solution. This inspired a passion for finding ways to use mainstream technology as assistive technology as well as universal design for learning/UDL and inclusive design.
Related links
- Five Myths About Assistive Technology
- How I Use My Phone As Assistive Technology In Class
- Computer Lab Accommodations For Low Vision Students
- How To Embrace Assistive Technology With Limited Funding
- How To Make Things On The Board Easier To See
- Enabling Temporary Accessibility Settings For iPad
How to troubleshoot issues in the classroom
One day after a particularly frustrating freshman English class, I went to a planned meeting with my TVI. They asked how my English class was going, so I told them about the extremely small and inaccessible packet that I got in class, and how mad I was at my teacher for telling me to figure something out because they couldn’t stop class to make it accessible. Everyone else got their assignments in a format they could see except for me. I told them that the teacher was being such a mean person by not giving me my accommodations and that I wasn’t going to do anything in the packet until I got it in an accessible format, because this was all so unfair. They are discriminating against me because I have trouble seeing, after all!
This is a valid explanation of the situation, but it isn’t very constructive. After listening to me talk about the situation, my TVI looked at me and told me that no one cared about what I just said, and I needed to find a way to make things better, or else I would be receiving a zero and a failing grade in English. I wasn’t mad at the teacher, I was mad at the packet by not being in large print.
By the end of the meeting, I had adjusted my explanation of the situation accordingly. My teacher had given me a packet in an inaccessible format, and I was going to request that one of the paraprofessionals create a large print copy for me, or have someone retype it as a digital copy. Until then, I would ask a parent or friend to give me the information I needed for my homework that night.
Related links
- A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- Ten Lessons My TVI Taught Me
- Dear High School Teacher
- Five Things Your IEP Case Manager Won’t Tell You
- Ten Spooky Inaccessible Assignments and How To Fix Them
- Taking Online English Classes With Low Vision
- Taking Online History Classes With Low Vision
- Implementing Shared Folders For Accessible Materials
Understanding what goes into creating accessible materials
How do people with low vision get textbooks? This is a question I got to learn about firsthand, since there was an internal error in ordering my textbooks during my freshman year that meant that I didn’t get textbooks until the last week of the semester. As a result, I got to learn a lot about the process of ordering accessible materials, how they are created, and even where they are created, since my family got to talk directly to the people that turned textbooks into accessible print materials at AIM-VA (Virginia’s NIMAC agency).
In a wonderful turn of events, I later worked with AIM-VA as an undergraduate student, and their project director is one of my favorite professors of all time!
Related links
- Receiving Accessible Educational Materials With NIMAC and AIM-VA
- Behind The Scenes: How Bookshare Books Come To Life
- Why I Study Assistive Technology
- What To Know About College Assistive Technology Specialists
- How To Request Accessible Textbooks In College
- How I Read Research Sources With Assistive Technology
How to be independent in the classroom
I can’t recall a time that my TVI ever sat in the classroom with me or helped me to adapt an assignment during class time. There were definitely times that I wished I had someone who could help me with fixing inaccessible materials or to help me with other issues, but at times I’m glad that they allowed me to have so much independence because it was great practice for college— after all, no one sits in my college classroom and tells me how to make things accessible.
Related links
- How I Document Accessibility Preferences With Low Vision
- How To Describe Science Experiments For Visually Impaired Students
- How I Use My Phone As Assistive Technology In Class
- Five Things Your IEP Case Manager Won’t Tell You
- What’s In My College Backpack As A Low Vision Student
- How I Take Notes During Video Lectures With Low Vision
- How To Search For Study Resources Online
Bonus: emphasizing the importance of strong writing skills
This situation probably shouldn’t have happened, but I never interacted with my TVI during my senior year of high school until literally the last day of classes— from what I understand, they had no idea I was on their caseload because I had been taking virtual classes. They walked into my classroom, asked for my name, and then asked how I had been doing during my senior year and if I was going to college. It felt a bit strange to tell all of this information to someone I had never met before, but I was more than happy to share everything I had learned and how it could help other students in the future. They challenged me to write down everything I felt that a student attending my high school should know to be successful, and what skills I thought would help me in college.
One of the things I mentioned that I was considering starting a website about low vision and assistive technology, and they told me about how valuable that would be for students and professionals alike. They told me to work on developing my writing skills and gave me lots of encouragement to help others. Having strong writing skills has helped me in college more than I could ever imagine, especially when taking virtual classes.
Related links
- Learning To Type With Low Vision
- Low Vision Assistive Technology For Discussion Board Posts
- Ten Things I Wish My TVI Taught Me About Transition
- Online Activities That Help Prepare For College Transition
- How I Write Research Papers On Accessibility Topics
- My Experience With Virtual Classes in High School
Related posts that helped me prepare for college transition
- Five Things Your IEP Case Manager Won’t Tell You
- Ten Lessons My TVI Taught Me
- How My Guidance Counselor Helped Me As A Low Vision Student
- Disability Accommodations For Graduation
- College Interview Tips For Disabled Students
- Disability and Classroom Accommodations For Chiari Malformation
- What To Know About College Assistive Technology Specialists
- College Transition Archives | Veroniiiica
Published April 5, 2019. Updated January 2025