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President’s Welcome

Welcome friends!

We are a special interest division of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) dedicated to advocating for effective policies, practices, and services that address the unique educational needs of children and youth who have visual impairments, including those with additional exceptionalities. We offer a variety of resources designed to assist members of the individualized education programming team who implement appropriate adaptations as well as university faculty who prepare prospective teachers of students with visual impairments.

I am incredibly blessed to have two families, my personal family and my professional family. Both of these families are quite large. Personally, I have many aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., and professionally, I belong to several organizations. Even though my extended families are quite large, my nuclear families are very small, which allow us to have a tight bond that supports the individual and collective growth of its members. Of all my families, I have a particular affinity for CEC, my extended family, and the Division on Visual Impairments (DVI), my nuclear family.

I love being part of the largest professional organization concerned with the educational outcomes of learners with exceptionalities. Given the fact that there is a high prevalence of additional disabilities in students with visual impairments, I am able to utilize the expertise of educators trained in another disability area. I can educate them about the impact that impaired vision has on the learning process, and together, we can develop strategies that effectively address the unique needs of students who present with concomitant disabilities.

On the other hand, I love the opportunities I get to enhance my knowledge about blindness and low vision through personal interactions with the leading experts in our field. One memorable experience as a student attending my first CEC conference was getting to talk braille mechanics with the one and only Cay Holbrook while waiting for the shuttle that would take us from the hotel to the convention center. It is through these casual dialogues with my heroes that I came to realize the value of my personal and professional insights. Most importantly, I learned that it takes all of our voices in concert (not just the most recognizable ones) to make a difference in the national and international practices employed in teaching students with visual impairments. In my role as the current president of DVI, I am pleased to orchestrate the voices of such a talented and dedicated group of professionals!

As an educational specialist in blindness and visual impairment, I am proud of the strides we have made in providing quality instruction to students who have visual disabilities. As an individual living with significantly reduced vision, I fear that we still have so much more to accomplish. Because our problems are not necessarily new ones, we must challenge ourselves to see issues from new perspectives, and the only way we can do this is by continuously bringing new and different voices into the conversation. Thus, we personally invite you to join our professional family and share the passion we have for ensuring that all learners who are blind and visually impaired have the opportunity to achieve educational excellence. We welcome any ideas you have for realizing this dream!

We hope that you will take a moment to explore our website. You may be particularly interested in back issues of the DVI Quarterly, a newsletter full of interesting news and practical ideas; our position papers describing best practices; and useful links to other blindness-related resources. We also encourage you to interact with us through Facebook where we post important announcements, interesting tidbits of information, photos of members, and more. Please do not hesitate to contact me or any member of the DVI Board if we can be of service.

Best Regards,
Loana
Loana Mason
President, DVI