Education for the blind and for the visually impaired

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The education for the blind and the visually impaired education are a summarized branch of special education and deal with special education and didactic-methodological issues of education of people due to a visual impairment a special educational needs have.

There are also areas of expertise from related sciences, e.g. B. diagnostic and psychological aspects related to the visually impaired as well as ophthalmology .

The term visual impairment is usually used as an umbrella term for the two terms blindness and visual impairment . It implies visual impairment, profound visual impairment and blindness. Both the blind and the visually impaired education deal with the effects of severe visual impairment, whereby the blind didactics focuses on the secondary senses (touch, hearing, etc.). The visually impaired didactics tries to use the "residual sense of vision" as far as possible through appropriate adaptations.

In addition to referring to medical and ophthalmological definitions, which usually describe functional impairments in vision, education for the blind and visually impaired is based on factors that go beyond visual abilities ( visual acuity , field of vision, light and color perception). When describing functional vision, external visual stimuli (color, contrast, lighting) and the individual prerequisites (cognition, perception, mental and physical constitution) of those affected are also taken into account.

history

After initial efforts in the 18th century ( Valentin Haüy , founder of the world's first institution for the blind, in Paris in 1784), education for the blind was established in the course of the 19th century. Through the establishment of various schools for the blind ( Johann Wilhelm Klein in Vienna in 1804, Johann August Zeune in Berlin in 1806, etc.), the framework conditions for institutionalized education for the blind were laid in the German-speaking countries, which were underpinned by practical and theoretical school textbooks (e.g. by JW Klein , Textbook for Teaching the Blind, 1819).

The first century of institutionalized education for the blind was marked by the dispute over a uniform writing system. Haüy, Zeune and Klein taught their students in high pressure, a sublime writing that was supposed to make the writing system of sighted people accessible to the blind. Problems did not only arise in reading. Only a fraction of blind people managed to acquire handwriting that was understandable to outsiders. On the basis of a cipher by Charles Barbier based on dots, Louis Braille developed a six-point writing system in 1825 that assigned a combination of dots to exactly one letter in black script. Despite its advantages for written communication among the blind, Braille was long rejected by leading educators for the blind (see above) because of its disintegrating effect. In German-speaking countries, it took until 1888 for Braille to become the sole writing system.

Initially, it was planned to prove the educational ability of blind children, who were mostly taught from the age of 10 in so-called blind model institutions. Elementary school teachers should use these to see how these children can be supported.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, blind and visually impaired pupils were taught together only according to the criteria for the blind. The reason was a hypothesis by JW Klein, according to which the rest of the vision must be spared. Only then did a separate promotion of the visually impaired slowly begin through the formation of outside classes at the institutions for the blind and, during the 1960s and 1970s, through the establishment of independent schools for the visually impaired.

Education

The course, like education for the blind and visually impaired, sees itself exposed to changes. An increase in the number of visually impaired children with several disabilities must also be addressed more intensively in the context of training.

Today, education for the blind and education for the visually impaired coexist on an equal footing in the school and university context. Seminars are mostly offered across the board and should lead to a broader perspective.

The study of education for the blind and visually impaired is possible at five universities in Germany: at the Humboldt University of Berlin , at the Technical University of Dortmund , at the University of Hamburg and at the University of Education (PH) Heidelberg . At the Philipps University of Marburg , in the winter semester 2010/2011, part-time further training for specialists in the field of "education for the blind and visually impaired" began as a master’s degree in cooperation with the German Institute for the Blind (BliStA) .

Students have access to specialist libraries for education , didactics and psychology as well as diagnostics for the blind and visually impaired . The training centers have teaching material collections that contain both historically interesting and current materials; Workshops in which specific materials of professional quality can be produced for the severely visually impaired and workplaces in which blind and visually impaired students and students of the subjects of blind and visually impaired education can practice computer-aided reading and writing.

The course content is divided into the subjects of special education and school education (didactics), psychology, diagnostics. In addition to this course content, the students also take part in pedagogy for the blind and visually impaired (including ophthalmology ).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Master's degree in “Pedagogy for the Blind and Visually Impaired” without conditions, accredited from August 27, 2010 on uni-marburg.de ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 26, 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-marburg.de