New Mexico Administrative Code
Title 6 - PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
Chapter 61 - SCHOOL PERSONNEL - SPECIFIC LICENSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR INSTRUCTORS
Part 10 - TEACHERS OF STUDENTS WITH BLINDNESS/VISUAL IMPAIRMENT B-12
Section 6.61.10.7 - DEFINITIONS

A. "Assistive technology" means any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with a disability.

B. "Aural literacy skills" means listening skills that must be developed for students who have an impaired visual system. These skills provide a solid foundation for learning, reading, mobility clues, social conversation, and interpretation of a variety of auditory signals received from the environment. These skills begin to develop in infancy and need to be sequentially and deliberately expanded during the school years. Listening becomes particularly important in secondary and post-secondary schools, when Braille or print reading assignments become long and laborious.

C. "Braille" means a system of reading and writing that uses dot codes that are embossed on paper, developed by Louis Braille around 1829.

D. "Braillewriter" means a machine used to produce embossed Braille symbols.

E. "Career education" means a curriculum designed to teach individuals the skills and knowledge necessary in the world of work. This instruction may include field trips into the community to explore work opportunities and job requirements that would be gained by others with normal vision through incidental learning.

F. "Compensatory skills" means any technique, habit, or activity that must be developed to overcome a severe visual impairment; e.g., daily living skills, social and emotional skills.

G. "Continuum of services" means a full range of educational placements arranged in a stair step fashion, where one level of service leads directly to the next one.

H. "Daily living skills" means skills that enable a visually impaired student to live independently.

I. "Educational placement" means the location or type of classroom program (for example, resource room) arranged for a child's education; the setting in which a student receives educational services.

J. "Functional vision" means the presence of enough usable vision, giving the student the ability to use sight as a primary channel for learning. This term also means the total act of seeing and how the student uses sight to function educationally.

K. "Functionally blind" means a student whose primary channels for learning are tactual and auditory.

L. "Least restrictive environment" (LRE) means the environment, on the scale of a full continuum of services, where the student is given the maximum opportunity to learn.

M. "Mobility" means the ability to navigate from one's present fixed position to one's desired position in another part of the environment.

N. "Nemeth" means a system for reading and writing mathematical symbols based on the six-cell Braille cell and developed by Dr. Abraham Nemeth.

O. "Orientation" means the process of using the remained senses in establishing one's position and relationship to all other significant objects in the environment.

P. "Residual vision" means the amount and degree of functional vision that one retains despite a visual handicap.

Q. "Social interaction skills" means that persons with normal vision most often learn social interaction skills social skills incidentally. The visual cues are not available for students with poor or no vision. These skills must be taught from infancy to adulthood in order for persons with visual impairment to gain the necessary skills.

R. "Tactual skills" means tactual awareness must be developed in infancy and need to be sequentially and deliberately expanded during the school years. These skills will become an effective method of literacy as well provide a method to gain information. This skill will have a major impact on concept development and future learning.

S. "Visual efficiency" means how well a person can use sight.

T. "Visual impairments" is overall term that refers to all levels of vision loss.