One of the quickest ways to see me duck or watch an object fall on the floor is to toss me an object and say “Veronica, catch!” As long as I can remember, I struggled with the traditional physical education curriculum in school, as the fast-paced environment and flying objects made me acutely aware of my visual impairment in multiple ways, including not being able to see my surroundings (visual), getting hit with flying objects (tactile/kinesthetic), and being yelled at for not knowing what I’m doing (auditory). When available, I benefited tremendously from accommodations and modifications for my gym classes, as well as adaptive PE in high school, but without these things in place, I often favored self-exclusion over figuring out ways to participate. Here are my tips for how I handled gym classes in elementary, middle, and high school, and different accommodations/modifications that we used.
Background: More about me
Before I get into this post, I thought it would be helpful to provide some more context about my visual impairment and school environment. I was diagnosed with low vision at the age of 3 as a result of accommodative esotropia (strabismus) and was diagnosed definitively as an adult with Chiari Malformation, a neurological condition that contributes to brain-based visual impairment. My vision loss has continued to change over time, and I experience vision declines that impact my distance vision, reading, and contrast sensitivity every 3 to 5 years, though some declines are more subtle than others— my visual impairment currently meets the criteria for Category 2 low vision. The primarily features of my vision loss include monocular double vision, blurred vision, decreased peripheral vision, and a lack of depth perception as well as photophobia. I can see about 3-5 feet directly in front of me with some degree of clarity, but factors like lighting, movement, and crowds make it more challenging for me to see or navigate my environment. As an adult, I started using a blindness cane to navigate unfamiliar environments. I wear prescription non-polarized tinted glasses with a lined bifocal at all times.
I attended Virginia public schools and graduated from high school in 2015. I always attended a mainstream public school in my home school district, and I did not have regular access to a TVI until I was in ninth grade. However, I had an IEP for visual impairment from kindergarten through 12th grade, minus a short period of time in middle school where I had a 504 plan instead. To my knowledge, no one on my support team/special education team interacted with my gym instructors until I received a failing grade in 8th grade PE, and then when I was referred for adaptive PE later on. Additionally, I was the only student in my school identified with low vision/visual impairment.
Related links
- Veronica’s Four Eyes: All About My Glasses For Low Vision
- Two of Everything: Living With Double Vision
- How I Explain My Brain With Chiari Malformation
- Ten Things To Know About Going To College With A Blindness Cane
Elementary school: Inclusion
My first gym teacher was awesome about creating activities every student could participate in. I never had to worry about being left out or being criticized for not being able to see, and considered gym to be one of my favorite classes. My teacher would often use items that provided auditory feedback, items that were oversized with bright colors, and small group activities that worked well for me and my visual impairment.
However, our school received a new teacher my fifth-grade year, and they used a curriculum that had a heavy emphasis on team sports. Instead of asking for accommodations or modifications, I just would strike out first so I could sit out for the rest of class, and didn’t think to tell anyone that I was struggling.
I learned that this approach wasn’t a good idea when I got hit directly in the eye with a volleyball during the last week of school, which knocked a muscle out of alignment and required me to have eye surgery four months later. I never wanted to step foot in a gym class or any sports-related activities again, but I still had many gym classes in my future. Still, my parents had to meet with the middle school to figure out how I would safely participate in PE in the future.
It’s worth noting that I still was physically active outside of school, where I participated in local summer camps involving swimming and outdoor activities, took dance lessons, and participated in taekwondo with my (sighted) brother. After the volleyball accident, I continued with summer camp activities and dance but stopped taekwondo due to the risk of further eye injury. I never attended any summer camps specifically for kids with disabilities or visual impairment.
Related links
- Dear Elementary School Teacher
- Ten Words To Know Before Your First IEP Meeting
- Dance Classes and Low Vision
Sixth grade: Exempt from PE
I started 6th grade three months after the volleyball accident, and had eye surgery that October. As part of the surgery, I had to avoid gym and open sports environments both before the surgery and for several months afterwards. Because of this, it wasn’t practical for me to take gym during my sixth-grade year.
Originally, the principal suggested that I take the health course with my class, and when they were in the gym, I could come to the main office of the school and file papers. My parents thought this was a terrible idea, especially because I have a print disability and can’t see well enough to file papers. Eventually, the school agreed to let me have a modified schedule, as long as I was willing to complete a county-mandated unit in the health class about gang prevention (which I had already completed a few months earlier in fifth grade, but apparently had to retake again as a sixth grader). I remember being frustrated over having to repeat the module and asking how many students who just had eye surgery join gangs every year, but I was glad to no longer be in gym classes.
My modified schedule was not the same as a shortened schedule, and I still attended school all day. Instead of having two elective classes one day and gym the next day, I had two different elective classes each day. For me, these classes were band, art, drama, and Latin. If anything, the modified schedule gave me twice as much work as the other students who only took two electives. However, I enjoyed these classes a lot and none of the other students noticed that I didn’t take gym.
Related links
- Art Classes and Low Vision
- Concert Band and Low Vision
- Participating In Drama and Theater Programs With Low Vision
- School Lockers and Low Vision
- How I Respond To Questions/Comments About My Eyes
Seventh grade: Inclusion again
Over the summer, my middle school installed what they called a fitness lab, which had exercise equipment. For seventh grade gym, students would spend three class periods in the fitness lab, three class periods in the gym, and three class periods in health. While I would often sit out in gym for open sports activities since I was still recovering from the eye surgery, I was able to participate in the other sections without additional modifications, other than large print for assignments or occasional assistance with operating exercise equipment. Something that helped tremendously was that our class was extremely small, with only about fifteen students (half the size of other classes), and that I was friends with many of the students in the class. This wasn’t a dedicated disability/adapted PE class, rather a smaller “mainstream” class where I was glad to have my friends there.
Some examples of gym activities I remember being able to participate in included a dance unit, yoga/stretching, and some running activities. I would often use my friends as informal human guides as we would run together, a strategy we came up with after I confided that I was worried I would run into a wall or that I would get disoriented due to the bright lighting in the room. This wasn’t something my gym teacher suggested, we just started running/walking together one day and no one questioned it.
Related links
- Dealing With Anxiety About Accommodations
- Eight Things You Need To Know About Your Disability Accommodations
- How To Modify Accessible Anatomy Graphics For Low Vision
- Dear Middle School Teacher
Eighth grade: Self-Exclusion
My teacher had to take a leave of absence during the 8th grade school year, so we had lots of different substitutes. None of the substitutes knew about low vision or teaching students with visual impairments, and I wasn’t sure how to explain my poor vision, or the fact I was experiencing a vision decline. When I started wearing prisms in my glasses, I found it impossible to run or dance without getting intense vertigo, so I had to sit in the bleachers for almost the entire class. I wasn’t allowed to do homework or play on my phone, I just had to sit there and stare at the wall. One of my best friends (who I am still close with to this day) would often strike out first in sports activities to come sit with me and talk, or help me explain to substitute teachers that I had trouble seeing and preferred to use my friend as a guide when possible.
Because I couldn’t participate in any part of the class, I stopped changing clothes for PE. My logic was that if I wasn’t going to do anything, why should I change clothes? Well, this logic led to me receiving a failing grade for the second semester and a D overall in 8th grade PE. While my parents and special education team understood my frustration, they were not amused and that I should have just listened to the teacher and changed clothes for PE even if I wasn’t going to be doing anything.
Related links
- Learning To Explain Usable Vision
- Ten “Odd” Things I Do With Double Vision
- Explaining Accommodations To Substitute Teachers
- Learning to Self-Advocate
- Ten Lessons My TVI Taught Me
- How My Guidance Counselor Helped Me As A Low Vision Student
Ninth grade: Online PE
My first-ever virtual class was an online 9th grade PE class offered through the virtual high school program in a neighboring school district. Originally, my home school district didn’t want to approve this class because it was from another district (though still in Virginia), but my parents persisted and I enrolled in the class the summer between eighth grade and ninth grade. Examples of activities in this class included:
- Learning the rules of different types of sports
- Watching videos
- Health education, similar to what is covered in a classroom health course
- Completing a fitness log with daily exercise, which for me included things like dance, going for walks with friends and family, swimming, going on the playground with my brother, walking around amusement parks/water parks, and activities at the local rec center
- Taking quizzes and tests on topics related to sports, fitness, and health. The final exam also included a timed running component, but I was exempt from this as I didn’t feel safe running in an unfamiliar environment or while surrounded by forty other students.
Ninth grade students in my home school district who were also enrolled in band would have gym/PE on “A” days and ninth grade band on “B” days. Since I was not taking PE during the school year and was considered an advanced band student, I was given the opportunity to audition for the Honors band, which had students in 10th-12th grade and did not follow the A/B schedule. I did not participate in marching band during my freshman or sophomore years.
Related links
- Tips To Stay Organized In Virtual Classes
- Tips For Staying Organized In Summer Classes
- Going To Amusement Parks With Low Vision
- Ten Tech Skills Every College Student Needs For Virtual Classes
- My Experience With Virtual Classes in High School
- Marching Band and Low Vision
Tenth grade: Adaptive PE and BYU Independent Study
In Virginia, high school students are required to take two physical education courses, where PE 2 is combined with driver’s education. I was not a candidate for a driver’s license due to both a visual impairment and secondary neurological condition, and my guidance counselor told me that I would not do well in the mainstream or virtual PE classes.
While doing research, my mom discovered there was an adaptive PE program in our school district, and I had never been referred because I briefly didn’t have an IEP in middle school. My middle school teacher didn’t believe that I qualified for adaptive PE without an IEP, which was not true, or that visual impairment alone did not qualify a student for adaptive PE (also not true). I was referred for adaptive PE services starting in tenth grade.
My adaptive PE teacher traveled to my high school twice a week for a semester in tenth grade and would pull me from study hall and/or parts of band to complete activities one-on-one. Since we couldn’t access a gym for activities, many of my adaptive PE lessons were held in the cafeteria, common area, or outside near the school parking lot. Examples of activities included:
- Running or walking around the school
- Floor yoga and chair yoga
- Stretching activities
- Dance or music-based activities
- Balance exercises
I would often get vertigo from doing activities with a lot of movement, or felt like my vision would “cut out” if I was doing a lot of running, jumping, or spending time in super hot/cold environments— years later, this was identified as a component of vision loss related to my then-undiagnosed Chiari Malformation. I also still was anxious about open sports and flying objects due to the volleyball accident, so my teacher had to be creative when finding activities I felt safe participating in.
What about health classes?
Since adaptive PE only covered gym and not health lessons, I took the health component of the class through the Independent Study program at Brigham Young University (HLTH 042), a self-paced online class. This class was recommended by the adaptive PE teacher and accepted as high school credit by my guidance counselor. I did not take any further health or PE classes after 10th grade, as I had fulfilled all of my graduation requirements
Related links
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
- Creating Custom Workouts With Amazon Alexa
- Audio Workouts and Low Vision
- School Cafeterias and Low Vision
- Health Education, Part 2 | BYU Independent Study
Epilogue: My thoughts on gym classes and low vision
My personal memories of gym class as a student with low vision skew more towards being negative, as I spent a lot of time pressured into self-exclusion and masking my visual impairment because so many of my mainstream PE instructors had no idea how to accommodate a student with low vision, and didn’t have any resources to learn about how to do so effectively. In light of this, I have a positive outlook on exercise and fitness as a whole, since I was exposed to social outlets that incorporated movement and fitness such as local summer camps and dance activities, as well as parents who serve as role models for lifelong fitness and incorporating movement/exercise into their days. I still enjoy being physically active by going for walks, doing home workouts, and doing activities with friends.
Years later, I still avoid any form of open sports, whether they are adapted for visual impairment or not, because I have trouble tracking moving objects with my eyes and also with my ears in fast-paced environments. If I could provide advice to my instructors, I would suggest that they incorporate options for using lightweight but colorful balls that can be thrown without someone getting hurt, placing students with visual impairments in smaller class sizes that still provide access to the mainstream curriculum, and talking with the student or their support team on the best ways to modify activities so that the student can participate.
Published March 21, 2017. Updated September 2024