Blindness and visual disabilities do not discriminate. Anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or creed, can face a lifetime of limited vision or no sight at all. For some, it begins at birth. For others, it can come with age,
Read moreVisual Disabilities faculty, students join in strong representation at IAER meeting
Rachel Newland found the NIU Department of Special and Early Education’s Visual Disabilities Program through a YouTube search. And in coming to the College of Education, she’s found a home. “Dr. Kapperman has been my primary guide; his interest in sex education
Read moreCongratulations!
Congratulations to these members of the NIU College of Education family! Q Hutchings, assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education (CAHE), has received ACPA-College Student Educators International’s Commission for Professional Preparation Teaching Excellence Award. The ACPA CPP Teaching Excellence
Read moreVisual Disabilities students impress with research at biennial conference
Gaylen Kapperman has attended countless professional conferences during his nearly half-century in academia. But the professor emeritus in the Department of Special and Early Education’s Visual Disabilities program is hard-pressed to remember a meeting room fuller than the one he encountered this
Read more‘Book of record’: NIU faculty, alums help write new ‘bible’ on vision rehab therapy
Sue Dalton, a longtime instructor in the Department of Special and Early Education’s Visual Impairments program, is the author of two chapters in the newly published “Foundations of Vision Rehabilitation Therapy.” Its publication is heralded as a landmark moment by practitioners in
Read morePerfect! COE licensure-candidates post 100% pass rate on edTPA despite waiver
Chris Gomes submitted his edTPA Feb. 23, two months before the Illinois State Board of Education decided this spring to waive that requirement for COVID-19. Passage of the edTPA, which measures a teacher-candidate’s competence in planning, instruction and assessment, is usually necessary
Read moreAll-College Meeting goes virtual, shares optimism for a ‘modified’ fall semester
Laurie Elish-Piper opened Tuesday’s All-College Meeting by quickly acknowledging the elephant in the virtual room. COVID-19 continues to impact the world, and returning to a new semester of teaching and learning will bring “challenges and situations that are quite different than what
Read moreGraduate student whips up a sweet recipe to teach children about visual disabilities
Elizabeth Hipskind stood in front of a room full of TVIs – teachers of the visually impaired – wearing an apron and prepared with a plastic tub of moist baby-wipes. Hipskind had come to the February conference of the Illinois Association for
Read moreVisual Disabilities wins federal grant to train specialists to support adults
NIU’s Department of Special and Early Education long has enjoyed U.S. Department of Education grants to train professionals to work with people who are blind or visually disabled. For more than 40 consecutive years, those federal dollars have supported NIU’s preparation of
Read moreCongratulations!
Stacy Kelly, an associate professor in the Department of Special and Early Education, is the recipient of the 2020 Exemplary Advocate Award from the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division on Visual Impairment and Deafblindness. The annual award recognizes “exemplary leadership and commitment
Read moreCongratulations!
Todd Gilson, acting associate dean of Research, Resources and Innovation in the NIU College of Education, has been named a Fellow of the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). His election to Fellow status is “a well-earned recognition of his contributions to
Read moreVisual Disabilities Program hosts expert for Cortical Visual Impairment workshop
Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is the leading cause of visual impairment in children in the United States, which naturally makes it a high priority subject for educators of current and future practitioners. “It’s huge and growing. CVI is a national health crisis
Read more