Teaching Visual Impairment
A Vision Intervention Specialist (VIS) is also known as a “teacher of students who are visually impaired.” A VIS is an educator with specialized training in supporting the unique learning needs of children (infants/preschoolers through school aged students), who are visually impaired or blind.
A VIS in Ohio typically may work at a state school for the blind as a classroom teacher, within a public school district as a classroom/itinerant/consulting teacher, or for a MR/DD program as a consultant to classroom teachers.
VIS responsibilities may include teaching an elementary student who is blind how to read and write braille, making classroom adaptations for a middle school student who is included in a general education setting, introducing a magnification aid to a preschooler with low vision, or helping a child with visual and additional disabilities in learning daily living skills.
The Teaching Visual Impairments licensure-only program requires students to have a state-approved teacher licensure to be considered for admissions; this licensure can be in any subject area for K-12 education. This program is offered at OSU, pending funding from the Ohio Department of Education.