In Part One, Vision Rehabilitation is explained as a service provided by specific agencies, with a link provided to those agencies in Florida. In Part Two, the term Vision Rehabilitation is used to refer to an occupation, a career for professionals who work at those agencies. Part Three explains the specific training that is provided to visually impaired persons by certified professionals in agencies that offer the service.
Vision Rehabilitation also refers to an occupation, a career. University programs prepare students to graduate in one or more of these specific areas:
- Vision Rehabilitation Therapist (VRT),
- Low Vision Therapist (LVT),
- Orientation and Mobility Specialist (OMS),
- Assistive Technology Specialist (AT), or
- Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI).
Vision Rehabilitation includes Teaching Orientation and Mobility to a person who is visually impaired or blind.
TVIs work with school age children through age 21. The other specialists work with all ages including the older population of people who are visually impaired or blind, which comprises about 90% of the total population living with severe vision loss. The teaching challenge between these two groups can be explained as the difference between teaching skills for the first time, or “habilitation,” which is the case with children, and teaching new skills to people accustomed to accomplishing tasks for decades by using sight. For this reason, the general term for these careers is “Vision Impairment Specialist.”
Children who are visually impaired are learning eating and ordering skills in a restaurant from Teachers of the Visually Impaired.
Upon graduation, Teachers of the Visually Impaired are licensed in the State where they plan to teach. The other four specialists can apply to be certified by the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals (www.ACVREP.org), which ensures:
- high standards,
- ethical service,
- commitment to consumers/people being served and their families,
- stronger program outcomes/practical results for people served.
Do you need to find a local service provider who employs these professionals in Florida? Click here: https://beyondvisionloss.org/florida-agencies-serving-the-blind-locations/
Interested in becoming a Vision Impairment Specialist? Call us: 305-898-2636.