A rehabilitation teacher offers assistance to visually impaired adults through a rehabilitation program that aims to maximize the patient’s ability to live independently. A rehabilitation teacher’s goal can be to provide education and training to someone who is newly blind or to provide ongoing support to someone who is blind. This health-care profession can be demanding, but it can also be extremely rewarding, as providing people with the tools they need to live independently can be extremely satisfying.
To work as a rehabilitation teacher, you must have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in blind or visually impaired rehabilitation, as well as certification from a professional organization that certifies rehabilitation teachers. If you have a bachelor’s degree in special education or a related field and a year of clinical training as a rehabilitation teacher, some professional organizations will accept you as a candidate for certification.
When a rehabilitation teacher meets a client for the first time, he or she assesses the client to determine the level of visual impairment and discusses the client’s goals and challenges. Someone who is newly blind might be concerned about keeping a job or driving a car, whereas someone who has been blind for a long time might be interested in learning more about adaptive technology that could help him or her navigate the world more confidently.
Once the rehabilitation teacher has a good understanding of the client’s problems and needs, he or she can devise a plan to assist them. Teaching adaptive skills, introducing the client to useful technology, and assisting the client in applying for free assistance such as a guide dog or adaptive devices for people with visual impairments are all part of the program. Rather than simply teaching coping skills, a strong emphasis is placed on fostering independence and confidence in the patient.
Rehabilitation teachers typically work with adults who are blind or visually impaired. They may encounter issues such as developmental disability, deafness, and other disabilities in addition to visual impairments, which can further complicate the client’s situation. A rehabilitation teacher’s ability to work with a variety of people and adapt to complex situations is critical, as he or she may go from a client experiencing psychological distress about the onset of blindness to a client with profound developmental impairments in the same afternoon, each requiring a very different approach.