Dear middle school teacher, here are ten things your new low vision student wants you to know, but may not realize

When I was working with a student preparing to transition to middle school, I worked with the student’s support team to come up with a list of ideas and strategies for setting up their future middle school classrooms with low vision accessibility in mind. Since…

Attending prom with low vision, photosensitivity, and migraines

When I first started high school, one of the first things I noticed was how spread out all of my classes were. In middle school, my classes were all within one specific hallway, and I could get from one class to another in two minutes…

I receive disability accommodations in college for two different medical conditions- an eye condition that causes low vision and a neurological condition called Chiari Malformation. Both my eye and brain condition cause me to experience light sensitivity, sometimes referred to as photosensitivity, and my accommodations…

How to tell college professors about your disability services file

One of the most popular topics in the accessibility space right now is accessible data visualizations and how to make graphs and charts accessible for people with vision loss- inclusive of blind, low vision, and visual impairment. Since this is such an emerging space, a…

How to include students with IEPs and 504s on class trips, with a special focus on low vision and blindness

When I was in elementary, middle, and high school, I often struggled to read diagrams that my teacher would show in class or print on a worksheet or exam. It wasn’t until college that I learned about creating and adapting accessible diagrams for low vision…

As a student with low vision, I didn’t realize how many visual details I would miss out on when watching videos for school until I watched a video with audio description for the first time in college. After learning how helpful audio description can be,…

When I visited Disney World and Disneyland as a college student, I wanted to check out the audio description devices at Disney Parks that provide visual descriptions of select attractions and an audio map for navigating the park. While there weren’t too many instances where…

When I was moving out of my dorm at the end of the school year and rearranging items inside a box, a staff member asked why I don’t take my blindness cane with me everywhere I go. They were wondering how I was able to…