Millie Smith’s Lecture and Video Examples Addressed Questions of Professionals and Parents about Students with Multiple Impairments

Texas Tech University’s Virginia Murray Sowell Center for Research and Education in Visual Impairment in the College of Education hosted speaker Millie Smith for the 12^th Annual Sowell Center Distinguished Lecture series.  Smith is a private consultant for students with multiple impairments.

During the lecture, an array of information was presented on how teachers can help learners with visual and multiple impairments achieve their educational goals. Such strategies as media assessments and functional vision evaluations will help teachers focus their instruction primarily on their students’ specific needs.

In addition, videotaped examples of teacher-student interaction will address what tools are available to gather the best information when assessing a learner, as well as the effective ways to report findings.

The Sowell Center offers the lecture series that discuss how teachers and parents can help learners with multiple impairments achieve their educational goals.

Millie Smith is a private consultant for students with visual and multiple impairments. She has worked at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired as an Outreach teacher trainer, a classroom teacher of students with visual and multiple impairments, and a resource teacher for academic students with visual impairments.

She was also an itinerant TVI in the Dallas Independent School District and an instructor at the University of Texas in Austin. Millie has co-authored several books and numerous articles including Teaching Students with Visual and Multiple Impairments: A Resource Guide and Basic Skills Curriculum.

In 2003, she developed The Sensory Learning Kit as a consultant to the American Printing House for the Blind, which was awarded the 2007 APH Virgil Zickel Award. Smith has also been awarded the AER Bledsoe Award for Teaching Students with Visual and Multiple Impairments and the AER Division III Virginia Sowell Award. She is currently the lead consultant with APH on the revision of Dr. Natalie Barraga's Program to Develop Efficiency in Visual Functioning.

For more information on the Lecture Series from Professionals and Parents, see  http://www.myfoxlubbock.com/news/local/story/sclerocornea-eye-autism-disabilities/fkoEzCxp8EOk7Fwns4aXAQ.cspx.

Taken in part from the Office of Communications and Marketing