Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

Education Needs of Visually Impaired Students: Discussion

11:00 am

Ms Eithne Walsh:

Two of my children are blind and they are in college and I find it fascinating. Yes, it is definitely the case that when they move to college there are more supports available. What can be a difficulty is if they have not learned to self advocate in school or if they have tried to self advocate, such as asking for digital papers or extra time in exams, and they have been told “No”. In that case, it is very hard for them to go into college and self advocate for what they need. That is a really important point that needs to be made.

DARE has almost exploded with the number of people using it because there are more diagnoses and more people saying what they have. That is a benefit and also a disadvantage for our children because it is harder for them to get their voices heard and, again, they are more of a minority.

It is the way it is set up at third level. There are teams of people, including technology experts, so is not just one person, which is how it can often happen in school. As they are bigger spaces, they have more experience of students with vision impairment. We are dealing with schools who might have a child with visual impairment and might not have another for 20 years. It is a complex issue and that is why we need to involve everyone at the table to try to solve it.

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