Current Issues in the Education of Students with Visual Impairments

Deborah D. Hatton, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Special Education and Director of the Program in Visual Disabilities at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include intervention research in visual impairment and behavioral phenotype research with students with fragile X syndrome. She received her bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Auburn University, her master’s degree in visual disabilities from Florida State University, and her Ph.D. in special education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt’s Program in Visual Disabilities in August 2009, Dr. Hatton was a senior scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she spent 15 years directing research and outreach projects funded by the U. S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health. Projects included The Early Intervention Training Center for Infants and Toddlers with Visual Impairments, Project Emerge: Understanding Early Literacy in Young Children with Visual Impairments, and The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Prior to her work as a researcher and faculty member in the field of special education, Deborah was employed as a general education teacher, an itinerant teacher of students with visual impairments, and an administrator of programs for typically developing students, as well as programs serving students with visual impairments. She helped establish the statewide early intervention program for young children with visual impairments, ages birth to five years, at the Governor Morehead School (GMS) for the Blind in Raleigh, NC and later served on the board of directors at GMS for 12 years.

• 1. Advancing the Education of Students with Visual Impairments Through Evidence-based Practices2. Three Areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum for Students with Visual Impairment: Research Priorities for Independent Living Skills, Self-Determination, and Social Skills3. Assistive Technology for Students with Visual Impairments: A Research Agenda4. Reading Comprehension for Braille Readers: An Empirical Framework for Research5. Teaching Skill Acquisition to Individuals with Blindness: A Systematic Review of Response Prompting Procedures 6. Communication Development of Children with Visual Impairment and Deafblindness: A Synthesis of Intervention Research7. Unified English Braille in the United States: A Research Agenda for Transition and Instruction8. Orientation and Mobility for Students with Visual Impairments: Priorities for Research