{"id":1221,"date":"2020-06-02T17:21:15","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T17:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/?page_id=1221"},"modified":"2024-12-06T16:42:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T16:42:06","slug":"usc-upstate-visual-impairment-program","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/usc-upstate-visual-impairment-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nUp Magazine<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Visual impairment program alums make a difference in education and research.<\/h2>\n

By Ashley Festa<\/h3>\n
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Many people find it difficult to walk a mile in someone else\u2019s shoes. Bethany Hastings took a walk in the shoes of a blind person for 24 hours \u2014 and learned just how difficult the simple act of walking could be.<\/p>\n

During her Orientation and Mobility class\u2019s 24-hour simulation of visual impairment, Hastings wore a special blindfold that creates total darkness for the wearer. Then, she went about her daily life, with her husband as a guide.<\/p>\n

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Bethany Hastings '18, MAT '22, teaches at Cedar Springs Academy on the campus of the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to the difficulty of completing tasks in her own home, such as cooking and laundry, and the challenges of navigating the outside world \u2014 walking in the neighborhood, going grocery shopping \u2014 Hastings also experienced the social hardships of being visually impaired.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an instance where someone addressed my husband rather than addressing me,\u201d says Hastings \u201918, MAT \u201922, a special education teacher at Cedar Springs Academy, one of the campuses at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind (SCSDB).<\/p>\n

Since 2002, USC Upstate has been preparing graduates such as Hastings for jobs working with people who have low vision or total blindness. Upstate is the only university in South Carolina to offer a graduate degree in visual impairment, and among just a few dozen nationwide.<\/p>\n

Professional training is critical to ensuring students with visual impairments get the specialized instruction they need to achieve at the highest level, says Tina Herzberg, coordinator of the visual impairment program and a professor in Upstate\u2019s education department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat's what I love about what we do,\u201d Herzberg says. \u201cWe are helping students to be as successful as possible, to reach their fullest potential. That\u2019s what we want for every child, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastings says through the program, she learned how to prepare her students to be successful both inside and outside the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can do this by teaching them self-advocacy skills, giving them real-life experiences, and teaching them how to use tools that will assist them in completing daily living tasks,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

An in-depth approach<\/h3>\n
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Leslie Borton M.Ed. '19 has continued to contribute to research on visual impairment while teaching.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 100 teachers have completed the visual impairment program since it was moved from the University of South Carolina to the Upstate campus in 2002. One of those is Leslie Borton, a 2019 graduate and the lead teacher at the South Carolina School for the Blind. USC Upstate has a close relationship with the Spartanburg-based school, and many alums and students work there.<\/p>\n

Borton says the hands-on learning experiences she had while a student helped her understand the different ways people experience and live with vision loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I got to work with a child with visual impairment, that was another piece of what I learned about this population,\u201d Borton says.<\/p>\n

Students in the VI program learn to read braille, create tactile graphics, transcribe a child\u2019s assignment, interpret eye reports, use assistive devices, and dissect the eyeball of a cow to understand the anatomy of the eye. They also learn to teach their students self-advocacy skills, such as how to explain their eye condition, when to disclose their visual impairment, and how to articulate what they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur graduates are well trained; when they leave here, they are ready to equip and empower their students for success in school and life,\u201d Herzberg says. She notes that the university has a 100% placement rate for graduates of the program.<\/p>\n

Scholarly insights<\/h3>\n

The VI program also contributes to the research on educating students with visual impairments. Herzberg was recently honored by the American Foundation for the Blind for her scholarship, and last year she worked with Borton to publish an article that grew out of a project Borton completed as a student.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeslie identified a gap in the literature, and I told her, \u2018You have learned something we don\u2019t have documented; if you write a research article about it, you can become part of that literature,\u2019\u201d Herzberg says. \u201cNow, teachers can look at what Leslie did to adapt a method of teaching braille and more easily use it with their students, rather than having to tweak a different method to make it fit their students\u2019 needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two are currently collaborating on another project: a systematic literature review of braille instructional techniques.<\/p>\n

Applied learning<\/h3>\n
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Tina Herzberg is coordinator of the visual impairment program at USC Upstate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Herzberg notes that another strength of the program is that working teachers can immediately apply what they\u2019re learning to benefit their students. Current USC Upstate student Megan Bryant works full time in Anderson School District 1 teaching students who have both intellectual and physical disabilities, including visual impairment. She particularly enjoyed her assistive technology class at Upstate, which included a fruitful visit to USC\u2019s SC Assistive Technology Program in Columbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to see the equipment they have to lend out for test trials, and we learned more about what technology would best serve our students,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cLearning about all those free resources was great, and my students could try these devices for free. I didn\u2019t know those things existed before this class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another student, Kate Andrade, teaches special education in Anderson School District 5 and wants to transition to focus on learners who are visually impaired. She says the VI program has helped her work better with some of her current students, many of whom are profoundly disabled. In one of her course projects, Andrade created adaptive puzzles for VI students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that I get to use the puzzles in my classroom with my students now,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really rewarding to see how much more confident I am in working with students with visual impairments.\u201d<\/p>\n

New needs to fill<\/h3>\n

This fall, USC Upstate launched a second VI concentration in orientation and mobility, a critically needed service area. Specialists in the field help people with visual impairments negotiate indoor and outdoor environments, use public transportation, and get comfortable crossing busy streets.<\/p>\n

In South Carolina in particular, where 19% of the population is 65 or older, demand is likely to increase for O&M services among seniors experiencing vision loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited about this new concentration because there is a tremendous need for O&M specialists,\u201d Herzberg says. \u201cWe want everyone with low vision or blindness to receive the services they need to live independent and successful lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visual impairment program alums make a difference in education and research. By Ashley Festa Many people find it difficult to walk a mile in someone else\u2019s shoes. Bethany Hastings took a walk in the shoes of a blind person for 24 hours \u2014 and learned just how difficult the simple act of walking could be. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1221","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/fall2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}