Every child with VI is different and their vision requires different adaptations. For a PCR I wondered, for those children who require enlargements, or need to be close to visual stimulus, whether a ‘no seats’ arrangement could work, instead everyone stands and wanders around between the sheets throughout the meeting, allowing the child to move closer to whichever section is being discussed at the time. The same could work in a MAP of PATH if the sections or stages were split over different sheets to create more space for everyone to wander between. I would need to look back over my research findings but I do remember children saying they liked the informality of the PCR, created by sitting in a circle (rather than at a meeting table) and with the music. A mingling-style meeting might feel even more dynamic and relaxed, which the children seemed to appreciate. Of course using larger visuals/ thicker pens/ specific colours could also be helpful as well as considering lighting, glare, reflection from whiteboards/ shiny paper.
I wondered about using the MAP tool with a registered blind child. We have a lady in the office who creates braille resources and I thought of asking her to have the MAP headings on a sheet of paper to reflect what was on the wall. The child could refer to this so he could see where we were in the process. I also thought of using objects of reference to serve the same purpose, which would also be a visual cue for the whole group but I would ask him to hold it for me to show everyone what stage we were on (in fact he could do the job of raising it up in the air if he thought discussions were getting off-topic!)! I’m just a bit stuck on recording the discussions. If I do a visual on the wall, as usual for everyone in the meeting to see, it feels like he is excluded somehow, unless I talk through what has been drawn regularly for him.Julie White, Educational Psychologist, Cambridge