this is such a good idea for when a kid is tactually defensive to touch. adding the additional verbal descriptors is huge, and making that the norm is what I believe is the key to supporting all learners with their tactile development. I also think, and I have said in previous posts, knowing when to withdraw that help is key and is soooo difficult, because finding that balance between support and becoming a hinderance and reliance on you is the key to independence for the student. I have no advice or helpful words I am here in solidarity with the struggles of staff the step back.
Carrie
I loved your example of a strategy to work on the skill, while reducing the impact of his sensitivity to touch. It is very difficult to manage how much help is given by the support of the person working with him, and balancing it. This is always a concern…We do a para workshop 1x per year, with focus leading from interdependence to independence. It is always a dance. I am also going to try the pen as I had never thought of that if I find myself with a student with those concerms.
Rebecca,
I love the passion in your response.
I wanted to share an experience from a colleague who works with a kindergarten student who is blind. Prior to entering school, the student had very limited exposure to environments outside of his home, where experiences were naturally centered around his preferred forms of tactile exploration.
Through patience, encouragement, and a great deal of trust building, my colleague has gradually helped him become comfortable exploring new environments and experiences. One of the key principles guiding her work has been allowing the student to have the “authority” to decide when he is ready to engage with something unfamiliar.
This experience has reminded me that, as educators, we can sometimes feel pressure to keep students moving forward and may unintentionally encourage tactile exploration before a child feels ready. Respecting a student’s pace and providing opportunities without pressure can help build confidence, trust, and a greater willingness to explore over time.
Patty
- To what extent are current educational systems equipped to support the long-term development of tactile skills? What changes would you advocate for at the classroom or systems level?
I do not believe that current educational systems are fully equipped to support the long-term development of tactile skills, especially for students who are blind and also have cognitive disabilities. One challenge I have observed is that student difficulties are sometimes attributed solely to vision loss, which can delay discussions about additional cognitive or learning needs. As a result, students may remain in placements that do not fully address all areas of development, while everyone expects the TVI to close the gaps.
I have consistently advocated for hands-on learning opportunities, meaningful tactile experiences, increased independence, collaboration among school staff and families, and additional educational supports when students demonstrate significant learning gaps. However, these recommendations are not always implemented consistently or early enough. In some cases, concerns about a student’s learning needs are raised for years before additional evaluations, supports, or placement changes are considered. By the time the full extent of the student’s needs is acknowledged, often in the later elementary grades, significant gaps in tactile, literacy, language, and concept development may already exist.
The article emphasizes that tactile development depends on the gradual development of motor, sensory, and cognitive skills and that students must move through a hierarchy from concrete experiences to abstract symbols. I have worked with students who were exposed to braille and tactile materials since they were infants but still struggled with foundational concepts such as letter-sound correspondence, word formation, spatial concepts, and understanding representations. In these situations, the issue was not a lack of exposure but a need for instruction that addressed both visual impairment and cognitive learning needs. When foundational skills are not developed, students may acquire isolated or splintered skills while continuing to struggle with overall literacy and concept development.
At both the classroom and systems level, I believe there needs to be earlier recognition of learning needs, more comprehensive evaluations, and a greater willingness to consider additional disabilities when students are not making expected progress. While I regularly advocate for these supports, they are not always implemented in a timely manner. Students also need meaningful hands-on experiences and explicit instruction in foundational tactile concepts before they are expected to learn more abstract skills such as braille.
This article reinforced the importance of looking beyond exposure to braille and tactile materials and considering whether the underlying motor, sensory, and cognitive skills are actually in place. For some students, the challenge is not access to tactile materials but ensuring that instruction matches their learning needs and developmental level.
I really liked your reflection, especially your honesty about catching yourself slipping into hand over hand when you are trying to help a student learn something new. I believe many of us have done that without realizing it. Your plan to be more intentional about using hand-under-hand, waiting a little longer before stepping in, and allowing students to lead their own exploration will help build independence and confidence. I also agree that sometimes the best learning happens when we give students the time and space to figure things out for themselves. It is not always easy to do that.
Hi Julie!
You have such a great plan in place for your student. I have never heard of a braille support specialist, and it sounds like a fabulous idea. Having someone reinforce the skills you are teaching makes a huge difference for a student. Is this a paraprofessional that has been trained for this specific task?
How many students are on your caseload? Do you have other students who require this level of support, or is this a unique situation?
Jennifer
Jennifer
In our county when someone receives intensive braille instruction form a TVI (4-5 days a week) we ask the local district to provide a braille specialist. They take a class provided by the state which is 16 weeks which gives them a basic understanding of the code and how to produce the braille onsite. There is so much to braille in general ed, and there is no way we could get all of the materials in a timely manner. They are producing it on a computer. We provide all the instructional materials in terms of books and supplemental instruction, but they produce the daily stuff on a braille workstation that we provide on loan. The person is trained by the TVI how to produce the materials using duxbury and then when I am not there they reinforce and assist in creating materials. We also do a lot of on site training and they are with us when we are working with the student especially if they have never worked with a blind student. 2 times per year we bring all of them in from the county and do professional development.
I currently have 2 braille students and then weekly students that are direct. The feast are consultation. My number is at 32 right now, with my main time being with the one braille reader most often, and the other, who is pre braille learner.
Question #1: Breakdowns typically occur when all the players (teachers, families, specialists) aren’t on the same page. My experience has shown these players only meet once or twice a year during an IEP meeting. These meetings are stacked with school staff and a parent - meaning its top heavy (I have participated in several meetings where there was a Special Ed Director, OT, O&M, TVI, classroom teacher, Asst. Principal, myself, and the parent - that’s 7 to 1). Parents may be intimidated and overwhelmed by the information presented. More casual meetings should occur at minimum on a monthly basis with the parents and teachers agreeing on what goals should be focused on. To move through the process of exposure, experience and exploration all the parties need to understand the goals that have been established for the student. Collaborate with the parents to learn what goals they might need support with that may or may not carry over into the school environment. Work as a team for the “whole” child’s learning and independence.
To be honest they aren’t equipped to handle most things tactile, even with support. When you explain to a lot of staff how to support development of tactile skills in general they do not know what we are talking about. This tells us there is a LONG LONG way to go to having the system support long-term development of tactile skills. The things I would advocate for are sharing of knowledge and resources, showing the data behind development of tactile skills and their importance. I live by the “you don’t know what you don’t know” so we have to advocate for more knowledge dissemination and more training. And I know that’s hard, people don’t need more training, but for our kids everyone does. There is a lack of understanding how everything worlds and builds together, tactile skills to concept development, to reading and literacy and a million other things for our VI friends. Everything is designed to be visual in nature, and that’s not their fault, that is the way they and we were all trained, again if they don’t know, they can’t change it.
I have two students who are blind (light perception and some large object perception) that also have autism. I didn’t start working with them until they were in middle school. I think using the ETLP will help me determine what skills they are proficient with and where they are weak. This will drive my instruction for the two students.
One student is reading braille now, but at a much slower pace than what a typical 6th grader who is blind would be reading. After talking with the parents (and wondering what he did in previous years), it seems that he was tactually defensive and didn’t want to touch things. He was not curious and let people do too much for him. While he is finally starting to read braille he has some major weaknesses in identifying tactile drawings. He can with some guidance identify shapes, but that is about all. I have asked his mother to work on him matching real objects with some tactile drawings (shirt, spoon, etc.) We will continue to work on that when he comes back to school. He still doesn’t like to touch things, but he is getting better about the braille.
The other student was working on behavior issues and was homeschooled for a couple years. I would use the ETLP to determine what skills he has and what I need to work on explicitly.
I would have the paras that work with the students fill it out, a couple other teachers as well as the parents to see if skills are generalized or just specific to one environment.
You bring up some good points about not knowing things if you haven’t been exposed or taught things. When I get frustrated with staff, I have to remind myself. Their view of blind can be very limited. I also agree that it is hard to be able to take time to teach it, with everything else going on in school.
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That seems to be the case for me also. I would like to have some time with the parents to talk specifically about Braille and how they can reinforce at home. Unfortunately when I am only a teacher of service, I don’t get to always be there at the conference the whole time. I am going to try and be more available but we will see.
Emily, what an honest reflection — it really takes something to catch a habit like hand-over-hand when it happens so automatically!
Your coordinate plane example hit home for me. It’s such an instinct to just show a student where something is, but you’re right, that moment of tactile exploration is kind of the whole point. Even if it takes longer, that’s where the real learning and confidence-building happens.
The self-esteem piece you mentioned is important. If we’re constantly guiding a student’s hand without realizing it, we could be telling them we don’t trust them to find it themselves.
The shift you’re describing isn’t always easy, especially with the time pressure of a math lesson. There is alot of trust in the student’s process required. One thing I’ve seen work is building in a few minutes of exploration time before instruction starts, so it becomes part of the routine rather than feeling like lost time.
You raise a really valid point about the imbalance in how these meetings are structured. A 7 to 1 ratio is a lot, and even the most informed parent is going to struggle to fully engage when they’re sitting across from that many professionals at once. It’s not a great setup for collaboration.
The once or twice a year meeting schedule is one of those things that just doesn’t match the reality of how a child grows and changes. A lot can shift in a few months, and waiting until the next IEP to check in means things can fall through the cracks for a long time before anyone catches it.
Your idea of more frequent, lower-stakes check-ins makes a lot of sense. Not every conversation needs to be a formal meeting and can somtimes just be a quick monthly check in between the teacher and parent to make sure there is consistency.
The point about parents knowing things we don’t is worth sitting with too. They seetheir child in a completely different context, and some of the goals that matter most to a family might not even be on the school’s radar. Making space for that kind of input, outside of a formal meeting where they may feel outnumbered, could really change the dynamic.
Question 5: How might you apply the principles of the ETLP to better identify and support a student who shows uneven or “splintered” tactile skills? What would this look like in your current or future practice?
According to the article The Early Tactile Learning Profile, the ETLP tool was created to allow teachers and families to collaborate, ranking students as “yes” or “no” for tactical subskills. This information can then be used to drive future instruction.
As shared in the same article, “It is not uncommon for students who have visual impairments to exhibit some skills but fail to demonstrate mastery of similar or related skills.” I am currently in classes to become a teacher of students with visual impairments, but have worked as a teacher of service for students that have a visual impairment in addition to another disability, though the number has been few. When working with these students, I did see uneven or splinter tactile skills and most of the students preferred to use their vision for learning. However, looking back, I feel that having a more meaningful tactile approach to their learning, while paired with the visual, might have been more beneficial for at least some of them.
In my future practice, I could use the ETLP tool, with a team of adults that also work with the student, to more proactively gauge a student’s tactile skills and plan instruction based on the results. I also like how the tool provides resources to further assess a skill if the team is unsure, as well as resources to provide instruction to develop needed tactical skills. Again, because I do not have a lot of experience working with students with visual impairments, I sometimes feel overwhelmed or unsure of where to go next, so a resource like the ETLP would be very useful for me!
Good morning William!
I really enjoyed reading about your experiences with using guided touch with your students. I appreciate your honesty about how it is easy to slip into hand-over-hand guidance instead of under hand guidance, as I can use this practical knowledge this fall, when I start working as a teacher of students with visual impairments. The points in your summary are also spot on, as students that feel more in control while exploring their learning and environment do develop more confidence and independence, which is what we all want for our students!
Karen, I also wrote about the usefulness of the ETLP tool! As a special education teacher, I can usually identify gaps in learning, but don’t always know what resources and tools to use to fill in these gaps, especially for students with multiple disabilities. I love that the ETLP tool provides additional resources for the specific tactile sub-skills, which will help me design more effective instruction this coming year!
Julie,
We actually have something very similar. We have someone that produces all materials but they have not actually worked with the student one on one. I think that is a wonderful idea.
#1 Reflect on how educational teams (teachers, families, specialists) collaborate to support tactile development. Where do breakdowns typically occur, and what could strengthen this collaboration?
-Cohesive instruction, including strategies, materials and language is crucial in developing and fostering tactile development. Members of a child’s special education team should use the same strategies and language within their disciplines or areas. Our readings this week address exposure to various textures, shapes, structure, temperatures, and vibrations. When I am working with a student, especially if it’s weekly, and not daily, I build on what is happening in the classroom. For example, if the theme is polar bears, I would create tactile activities based on what the students are learning about polar bears, using same/similar materials and the same language. The readings this week also address experience, including within daily life activities, real life objects, everyday items and the world around the student. Providing experiences outside the classroom and outside the structured lesson helps to generalize the skills being taught. A student really hasn’t captured the essence of a subjects until he/she is able to generalize it to other environments/experiences. Parents play a very important role within their disciplines special education team. They know their child best and are with them more than the teachers. It is important that parents and families provide opportunities for hands on exploration in their home and community. These experiences are crucial in expanding tactile development. In my experience, breakdowns of this valuable type of instruction and collaboration occur when team members are not cohesive and may employ negating strategies. This can be confusing for a young learner. Repeated exposure and consistency is so valuable here. I work with many one to one aides and if not trained properly can really breakdown instruction especially if that aide is responsible for a hefty amount of one to one instruction. I have seen staff create some pretty significant learned helplessness with the student, not intentionally but not properly trained. I only use one to one aides as an example. Overdoing for a student can come from any staff member/teacher/, even parent.
- Reflect on your own use of touch when supporting students. In what ways might your approach unintentionally promote passive or controlling touch? How could you shift toward more active, non-controlling interactions, and what impact might that have on student learning?
I will use the example of my student who came to Kindergarten with no previous intervention. We were doing a lot of tactile discrimination with real objects and such and he did not have an aversion to touch. I felt pressure to begin introducing braille because his classmates were learning letters and sounds and putting them together to form syllables and words and he didn’t even know what braille is! So I was having him also work with different lines on paper, but he was so used to everything being done for him, he would not place his hands on the paper when asked. With his permission, I would place his hands and move them in the motion I wanted and we would talk about what he was feeling and what we were doing. I assumed that after doing this a few times, he would understand and do it himself. I was wrong! I kept doing this for him and realized that I had to just stop because I was controlling his movements and allowing his passive participation. He wasn’t internalizing any instruction that was given. He had this attitude about every single part of school.
To shift toward more non-controlling actions, I began to give him a verbal request to place his hands on the page, or whatever we were doing, and then I would wait for a bit. If he did not do it I would say, “I asked you to do something, what did I ask you to do?” He would repeat it then do it…or not. Then I would provide a hand under hand guidance, and eventually I could just tap his arm or hand when he didn’t respond to instruction.
I could see that as he began to take ownership of his own movements, he began to internalize instruction. For example, he would start at the top of the page, or move left to right on his own without explicit instruction.