New Mexico Administrative Code › Title 6 - PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION › Chapter 61 - SCHOOL PERSONNEL - SPECIFIC LICENSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR INSTRUCTORS › Part 10 - TEACHERS OF STUDENTS WITH BLINDNESS/VISUAL IMPAIRMENT B-12 › Section 6.61.10.7 - DEFINITIONS

Current through Register Vol. 35, No. 13, July 16, 2024
A.
"Assistive
				technology"
means any item, piece of equipment, or product system,
				whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is
				used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with
				a disability.
B.
"Aural
				literacy skills"
means listening skills that must be developed for
				students who have an impaired visual system. These skills provide a solid
				foundation for learning, reading, mobility clues, social conversation, and
				interpretation of a variety of auditory signals received from the environment.
				These skills begin to develop in infancy and need to be sequentially and
				deliberately expanded during the school years. Listening becomes particularly
				important in secondary and post-secondary schools, when Braille or print
				reading assignments become long and laborious.
C.
"Braille"
means a system of
				reading and writing that uses dot codes that are embossed on paper, developed
				by Louis Braille around 1829.
D.
"Braillewriter"
means a machine used to produce embossed Braille
				symbols.
E.
"Career
				education"
means a curriculum designed to teach individuals the skills
				and knowledge necessary in the world of work. This instruction may include
				field trips into the community to explore work opportunities and job
				requirements that would be gained by others with normal vision through
				incidental learning.
F.
"Compensatory skills"
means any technique, habit, or activity that
				must be developed to overcome a severe visual impairment; e.g., daily living
				skills, social and emotional skills.
G.
"Continuum of services"
means
				a full range of educational placements arranged in a stair step fashion, where
				one level of service leads directly to the next one.
H.
"Daily living skills"
means
				skills that enable a visually impaired student to live independently.
I.
"Educational placement"
means
				the location or type of classroom program (for example, resource room) arranged
				for a child's education; the setting in which a student receives educational
				services.
J.
"Functional
				vision"
means the presence of enough usable vision, giving the student
				the ability to use sight as a primary channel for learning. This term also
				means the total act of seeing and how the student uses sight to function
				educationally.
K.
"Functionally blind"
means a student whose primary channels for
				learning are tactual and auditory.
L.
"Least restrictive
				environment"
(LRE) means the environment, on the scale of a full
				continuum of services, where the student is given the maximum opportunity to
				learn.
M.
"Mobility"
means the ability to navigate from one's present fixed position to one's
				desired position in another part of the environment.
N.
"Nemeth"
means a system for
				reading and writing mathematical symbols based on the six-cell Braille cell and
				developed by Dr. Abraham Nemeth.
O.
"Orientation"
means the process of using the remained senses in
				establishing one's position and relationship to all other significant objects
				in the environment.
P.
"Residual vision"
means the amount and degree of functional vision
				that one retains despite a visual handicap.
Q.
"Social interaction skills"
means that persons with normal vision most often learn social interaction
				skills social skills incidentally. The visual cues are not available for
				students with poor or no vision. These skills must be taught from infancy to
				adulthood in order for persons with visual impairment to gain the necessary
				skills.
R.
"Tactual
				skills"
means tactual awareness must be developed in infancy and need to
				be sequentially and deliberately expanded during the school years. These skills
				will become an effective method of literacy as well provide a method to gain
				information. This skill will have a major impact on concept development and
				future learning.
S.
"Visual
				efficiency"
means how well a person can use sight.
T.
"Visual impairments"
is
				overall term that refers to all levels of vision loss.