Visual Impairment

Heather Mason is Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Previously she worked both in mainstream education and at Priestley Smith School, Birmingham. She has worked extensively overseas and is an OFSTED inspector. Her PhD thesis developed a new assessment tool for blind pupils, the STIP (Speed of Tactile Information Processing). Stephen McCall is a Lecturer in Special Education at the University of Birmingham, School of Education. Previously, he taught at St Vincent’s School, Liverpool and was a peripatetic teacher for seven years. He has undertaken teaching and consultancy work in Eastern Europe, Africa and the USA. He has directed funded research into literacy for touch readers and among his publications is the Birmingham Braille Course.

• Implications of a visual impairment; blindness and low vision; the child and young person with a visual impairment; the special curriculum; access to the curriculum; the mainstream curriculum; principles of access; additional disabilities.