The Current Issue:
TX SenseAbilities – Fall 2025 Issue
Featured Article
The Power of Collaboration: Strengthening Student Success Through Community Engagement
This article highlights how community partnerships empower students with visual impairments through hands-on experiences like Iron Chef, job shadowing, and Camp Lighthouse. By integrating the Expanded Core Curriculum with real-world opportunities, educators, families, and organizations collaboratively build skills, confidence, and independence, proving that it truly takes a village to raise a child. Image: Students and staff from Camp Lighthouse listen attentively to staff members from Horizon Industries during a tour of their production facility in Tyler, TX.
Family Wisdom
Interactions & Connections: Following a Child’s Lead in Conversation—A Texas Deafblind Project Video Guide
Connection isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential for every child’s growth and happiness. In this article, the Texas Deafblind Project team shares how simple, everyday interactions can become powerful moments of trust, learning, and joy for children and young adults who are deafblind, blind, or have low vision. Through real stories, practical tips, and easy-to-follow steps, people will discover how to follow a child’s lead, use the “serve and return” approach, and make interactions truly meaningful. Watch the video at the end of this article to see these strategies come alive and spark new ideas for your own connections.
Please Pass the Manners
This timeless article, originally written in 2001, discusses strategies and approaches for navigating dining skills and social etiquette for both formal and casual environments from a blind author’s perspective. Because incidental learning isn’t always a reliable option for learning many social etiquette norms for blind, deafblind, and low vision individuals, many families may find it daunting to provide guidance and instruction to their loved ones in this very important area. Reprinted with permission from the National Federation of the Blind, and originally published in Future Reflections (2001), this article was published a second time (2003) in The Braille Monitor, the flagship publication of the National Federation of the Blind. This article has become known as a classic among blind individuals, both young and old.
Pathways to Family Leadership: Turning Lived Experience into Collective Impact
Family leadership within the deafblind, blind, and low vision communities takes many forms—from championing for one’s child to shaping policies that impact families nationwide. This article shares the personal journeys of family leaders and family engagement partners whose paths evolved into roles that connect, empower, and inspire others. Framed by a working definition of family leadership, their stories highlight how lived experience, community connection, and collaboration can transform individual struggles into collective action. Together, they show that leadership is not a position—it’s a practice, and one that strengthens all of our communities. This is also a call to action: to invest in training, mentorship, and opportunities that grow the next generation of leaders—because when families lead, systems change!
Follow Your Dreams
Tali shares the story of her journey to becoming a paraprofessional. It highlights her path through the JOBS program and E4Texas, focusing on developing life skills, navigating public transportation, and completing an internship at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
A Blast In Breaking Barriers With Blind Soccer
Does it surprise you to hear that blind and low vision individuals play soccer? Does it make you curious to find out how or what that would look like? Well, you are not alone. Here’s a great article on the trailblazing players in Texas building traction on this fan-favorite sport.
Effective Practices
CVI Screening Tool Promotes Early Identification
Cortical/Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) is the leading cause of visual impairment in children. Early identification is crucial for positive intervention outcomes, especially given the brain plasticity in very young children. The Neonatal Assessment Vision European Grid (NAVEG) screening tool was developed to help screen infants and young children for CVI. It has ocular, motor, and perceptual visual components. The resulting score will determine whether a child should be referred to an eye care professional for further assessment.
Importance and Benefits of the Clinical Low Vision Examination
The author discusses the importance and impact of a clinical low vision examination for students who have low vision. The article provides detailed information on the components of the exam, how best to prepare for it, and addresses solutions for obstacles to receiving an exam.
You Want Me to Do What?!! Meeting Teachers Where They Are: Building Capacity for Support of Students with Visual Impairment in the Classroom
The authors provide strategies for creating effective collaboration between Teachers of Students with Visual Impairment and classroom teachers that result in increased student access to and success in their educational programs.
Overcoming Barriers to Orientation and Mobility Instruction in the Community: Strategies for Efficient Use of Time
This article examines the challenges and barriers encountered by Orientation and Mobility Specialists in providing students with a visual impairment adequate access to and training in community environments. It also identifies strategies for optimizing instructional time and delivering meaningful lessons when full community access is limited.
What’s New in the Nemeth Code
Nemeth Code guidelines seem so vast that it is often easy to miss small changes that can make a big difference in accurately teaching, transcribing, or applying the code. The authors highlight key changes that impact all teachers and students who are teaching or learning math and science concepts.
Approaches to Tactile Instruction
A current and a former member of the TSBVI Outreach team recently published a review of literature exploring how various forms of touch are processed in the brain. This article provides a summary of their findings to help practitioners better understand how hand-under-hand and hand-over-hand approaches to instruction may impact blind and low vision students’ access to instruction that is delivered through the sense of touch.
News & Views
Hope Springs from High Expectations
This article explores hope as a roadmap for building better futures, contrasting it with deficit thinking that limits student potential. By raising expectations, fostering empowerment, and eliminating barriers, educators can replace bias with belief in success—offering students the hope they need to thrive now and in the future.
Blind Children’s Program Consults with the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Meadows Museum to Create Accessible Art Experiences
The Blind Children’s Program partners with the Meadows Museum of SMU to provide accessible, hands-on art experiences for children with vision loss and their families. Through tactile tours, low-vision device training, and creative projects, the program builds skills while advancing accessibility in art and community spaces.
A Lifelong Partner: How East Texas Lighthouse Supports Youth with Vision Loss from Childhood to Adulthood
The East Texas Lighthouse has empowered individuals who are blind or visually impaired through lifelong services—from children’s events and Camp Lighthouse to college prep, scholarships, workforce readiness, and adaptive technology. Their holistic, relationship-driven approach fosters independence, confidence, and opportunity at every stage of life.
JAWS, and Independence, and Exploration, Oh My! Short-Term Programs School Year Programs
TSBVI’s Short-Term Programs (STP) offers a variety of weeklong and weekend classes for students working on or near grade level, as well as summer programming for a wide range of abilities. These programs provide opportunities for both academic and recreational learning.
TSBVI Media Minute: Spring 2025 Showcase
Learn about the TSBVI Media Minute posts from Spring 2025 on Low Vision Awareness, Science, and Friendship. The Media Minute is a campus resource which uses current and historical media to highlight programming across various TSBVI departments—Comprehensive Programs (Instructional and Residential), Short-Term Programs, Outreach, and the Curriculum Department.
Expanding Access: Exploring College Options for Students with Intellectual Disability
Think College expands inclusive college options for students with intellectual disabilities. By providing resources and a college search tool, they help students, families, and professionals navigate postsecondary education, focusing on academic, employment, and social success.
