t reading performance, making the type and quality of treatment all the more relevant.4
Initially, one must define the make up of a visually limited child. Usually, it "may be defined as one whose visual condition is such that it interferes with his efficient learning unless curriculum adaptations are made."5 This may include eye training, focusing, varying degrees of blindness, as well as certain other impairments due to disease, poor learned behaviors, or genetic problems.
One must also address the psychological considerations when dealing with visual handicaps. Teachers need to be aware that various causes of vision problems have there own special problems. "Two factors connected with the onset of the visual impairment are of importance: the age at which it occurred and the way in which it occurred."6
Two predominant arguments are often presented as being the solution for visually impaired children. One, vision therapy, holds that it is the role of specially trained professionals to offer characteristic therapy outside of the normal classroom.7 This approach believes that the visually handicapped child needs more special attention than can be given within a normal classroom situation. Its argument has a basis that a teacher is not only not equipped professionally to handle the types of problems associated with visual impairment, but that the teacher would simply not have adequate time to devote to the child, even with the proper training. Similarly, optometric vision therapy is an individualized system in which a specific set of conditions and areas are marked for improvement.8
The question, too, becomes who should have and be able to manage visual training. Therapists often believe that since they not only have the resources but the expertise to properly diagnose the type and severity of the problem, they should be the ones to handle the amount and type of therapy.9 The therapy usually involves a series of trea...