I reacted to three of these gaps, defining them and providing solutions. The first gap I became aware of was the failure of special education to address navigational disabilities. Children with severe impairments, mostly brain damage of various degrees and over different brain regions had difficulty moving easily and accurately through space. We addressed this gap by designing a community based education program that taught navigation to students identified with the disability. The second gap was a failure of special education to define vision and vision impairment broadly enough to help a very large and needy population of children with severe impairments.
Vision is a whole brain process.
It involves multiple brain organs and innumerable brain tracts. Severe damage to any part of the brain causes some kind of visual processing damage. As discussed above, the use of the medical model, an impairment based differentiation system, resulted in a failure tounderstand the width and depth of the need for services. We addressed this gap by creating a non-medical, family oriented, not for profit vision clinic. This clinic specializes in handicapped children, is housed in a center for severely disabled kids, and clinic staff work closely with disability specialists from the public schools.