Abstract
The purpose of our qualitative study was to explore what distance-based teaching and learning practices have been supportive to students with visual impairments and their families. Using purposive sampling, interviews, and qualitative analysis, we found that supportive approaches for distance learning (DL) included parental involvement and participation, as well as tailored instructional approaches and accommodations for the student. In some instances, DL was identified as being more supportive for immune-compromised children. Negative facets of the practice included diminished richness in socializing, and the lack of certain strengths of in-person education. Families’ experiences ranged from finding DL helpful, to considering the practice as unfit for their child’s education, as well as a poor fit for family life. Flags for future research include family preparation for future DL needs, including culturally-diverse families in research opportunities, and evaluating what DL supports lead to improved outcomes for children and families.
Keywords
Parents are essential partners in the education of students with disabilities. Although studies correlate parent involvement with successful student outcomes for children with disabilities (Fish, 2008; Haber et al., 2016), there are also well-documented barriers parents face when they seek collaboration with educational teams (de Verdier, 2016; Hartshorne & Schmittel, 2016). For parents of students with visual impairments (VIs) or deafblindness, there are additional barriers to partnering with educators because their children are members of rarer disability groups. For example, their child may be the only person in an inclusive school to be identified with a VI. To provide appropriate accommodations and services, mainstream schools often work with itinerant personnel or technical assistance projects to address the needs of students with VIs or deafblindness. Family members of these students often express concerns about the lack of qualified personnel, as well as the burden of continuously educating teachers about the unique needs of their children (Parker & Nelson, 2016).
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted educational services for all students with disabilities and their families. With worldwide school closures, typical school-based classroom education transitioned rapidly to learning using computers and online platforms such as Zoom or Google Meet. According to Altuncekic (2022), “Distance education is a type of education in which individuals can carry out their learning activities regardless of the time and location in line with their current technological opportunities” (p. 349). For students with VI and deafblindness, some challenges of this transition to virtual learning included having greatly reduced access to tactile learning materials; increased barriers to visual modes of remote instruction; disruptions to specific types of services, such as orientation and mobility (O&M); and impediments to accessing adequate technology or technological supports (Rosenblum et al., 2021).
Over the past four decades, online learning for both general and special education students has grown exponentially; however, its effectiveness when it comes to meeting educational standards is still in question (Ihorn & Arora, 2018). Although the practice of DL flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to note that the use of DL to provide online educational teaching and learning services for K-12 students has been in practice since 1996 (DiPietro et al., 2010). For students who rely upon senses other than vision, we wondered how this modality could address their unique access, technological, and communication needs. To contextualize how students with VIs and their families have previously participated in distance learning (DL), our team engaged in a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2022. From an initial scan of 1637 peer-reviewed papers published between 2000 and 2022, we identified 18 that included students with VIs. Upon deeper review, only seven studies were retained for full analysis. Three of these seven were published in the COVID-19 era. Inclusion criteria were that participants were 0–21 years old, that articles were published in the years 2000–2022 and were peer-reviewed, and that at least one individual who received DL had been identified with a VI. Articles were excluded if the studies featured adult participants, were published in 1999 or earlier, were non-DL articles, or were about remote education for teacher training, telehealth, or assistive technology.
Although many terms were used to describe virtual learning, for sake of clarity, we will refer to instances of online learning as DL. In a phenomenological study, Kostenko and Dovhopola (2021) examined the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Ukraine when working with “the families of early aged and preschool children with visual impairments.” They concluded that using ICT for remote psychological and pedagogical support for families of children with special educational needs is promising and the need for it increasing. Investigators also found that the outcomes of this approach need further evaluation.
Using a survey approach, Dewald and Smyth (2013) found that teachers of the visually impaired and O&M specialists were largely uncomfortable using DL with children and families. Battistin et al. (2021) asked parents of blind and VI children, and the children’s professionals such as educators and therapists, to complete a survey regarding DL and the support initiative at The Robert Hollman Foundation. Both sets of respondents scored the initiative highly: however, while parents tended to see it as a very positive way to avoid interruption to their child’s treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, the professionals were more ambivalent about adapting to the change to DC methodology and about its effectiveness.
In Rosenblum and colleagues’ (2021) mixed-method study to examine the access and engagement of students with VIs during the pandemic, repeated themes emerged regarding the need for in-person support to facilitate access to content. Likewise, Ahessy (2021) emphasized the importance of having another person(s) in the home to ensure that distance sessions have a positive effect on the child as a member of the family unit. One family member within this study reflected that “the videos brightened our day and brought us closer.”
Remote access might not by itself be sufficient for remote learning or engagement. Valicenti-McDermott et al. (2022) concluded that “access to ‘school’ via technology was not an easy task. Setting up the remote learning system was challenging for at least half” of children within a community in the Bronx, New York. The researchers concluded that it is one thing to provide equipment to a family, but that navigating the use of technology required considerable attention and support.
Beyond the traditional academic curriculum, students with VIs benefit from having direct instruction within the Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) (Lewis et al., 2014). As in-person instruction ceased, opportunities to participate in the ECC were also diminished. As an illustration, Rosenblum et al. (2021) found that “Many families are reluctant to have their child in close proximity to the O&M specialist due to safety concerns, and there are also O&M specialists who do not want to be in close proximity to students” (p. 75).
Prior to the pandemic, Barrett-Lennard (2016) and Battistin et al. (2005) reported benefits of using DL to meet the needs of learners who live in rural and remote communities. Both research teams emphasized that the specific needs of students with disabilities must be addressed through tailoring the use of technology to meet the specific needs of any given student.
In short, there are few studies on the use of DL that include students with VIs. Of the few studies that exist, there are recurring themes about the need for hands-on support for this mode of instruction to be effective. Because of the vital role of parents in the lives of their children with VIs or deafblindness, we wanted to explore their unique perspectives on the use of DL during the pandemic. We also wanted parents to share how their children responded to this service delivery approach.
Method
Research design
The present research is a qualitative case study where the researchers explored participants’ experiences during DL through asking open-ended questions (Alharthi, 2022). This research used thematic analysis to analyze the collected data. The recruitment process began by sending out virtual flyers to Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments and Orientation and Mobility Specialists (O&M) across the country. Flyers were sent via email, posted in the Teachers of the Blind and Visually Impaired/O&M Specialists Facebook group, and sent to the EVE Listserv in Washington State. Flyers were also sent to national and state family organizations via email, which were distributed by the organizations to networks of family members. The goal was to recruit family members of students with VIs or deafblindness. Originally, we intended to recruit between 7 and 10 parents to participate in virtual interviews. The recruitment process took approximately 3 weeks. By the beginning of the second week, seven participants agreed to participate in the study. To purposely recruit in a broader geography, another set of flyers was distributed, and by the end of the third week, an additional five participants agreed to participate. A grand total of 12 participants had been confirmed and scheduled for an interview. At the end of the interviewing period, a total of nine interviews were completed.
Sampling procedures
In this research study, participants were selected using a voluntary response sampling method (Murairwa, 2015). An initial email with an attached flyer was sent to family members from Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments or O&Ms or on family organizational listservs. Once participants indicated their interest, they were then sent an email prompting them to fill out a Google Form to schedule an interview. After an interview time was chosen, a confirmation email was sent with the time and date of the interview, along with a Zoom link.
Participant characteristics
Participants consisted of eight mothers and one father from various states in the United States, in addition to one participant residing in Japan. Each parent spoke English as their primary language in addition to two families who also used American Sign Language as a secondary language. All parents had at least one child, ranging from ages 5 to 19 years old, with a VI and/or additional disabilities living in their household during DL. The breakdown of participant characteristics is reported in Table 1, and parent reported characteristics of their children are in Table 2.
Participant characteristics.
na = number of participants.
Parent-reported student characteristics.
na = number of students. O&M, orientation and mobility.
Measures
One to two researchers were assigned to each interview with the participants via Zoom. Two interviews were held concurrently, as they involved both the father and mother of a deafblind child. We obtained written informed consent from all participants prior to the interview using Qualtrics and collected demographic information using Google Forms. All interviews were audio-and video-recorded and each interview included a transcript of the participants’ responses. During each interview, participants were asked the following five open-ended questions:
Please describe any services that your child received using DL.
In your experience, what are any benefits of DL models? Any positives that you experienced?
In your experience, what are the challenges of DL models? Any aspects that were challenging to you?
How did your child respond to DL? What do you think they thought about it?
Describe any recommendations that you have for the field as this model is used. Are there limits you would recommend or areas that should be explored?
All interview transcripts were transcribed verbatim to support analysis of the data. Pseudonyms were applied to each participant to protect confidentiality and for referencing purposes. Each member of the team was assigned two or three questions to analyze, ensuring that each question was analyzed by two researchers.
Results
Data analysis resulted in the identification of a number of common themes within four of the five questions. Information collected within the first question helped to identify populations represented and services received. The other four questions identified these four themes: positive experiences, negative experiences, student thoughts, and recommendations for future practice. Within each of the four themes, a number of sub-themes were identified. Table 3 provides the detailed quotes to support the sub-themes for positive experiences in DL, namely, parental involvement in academic learning, parental input leading to change, health/medical, increased time at home, and teacher contributions.
Positive experiences during DL.
DL: distance learning.
Positive experiences
All but one of the interviewees addressed the sub-theme of parental involvement. Parents were actively involved during DL and expressed that they had a much clearer picture of what their children were learning in school and what was happening in the classroom setting. They participated in the academic learning of their children moment by moment, day by day. This happened for parents of young children, such as for Chelsea, whose son was 5 years old at the time. She participated in DL because “he was only five years old. So I had to be right there next to him, and I really got to learn what they would typically be doing day to day. It helped me be a better at-home support.” This holds true for many parents whose children have multiple disabilities. They had the opportunity to give more of their input than they otherwise would have in a traditional classroom setting.
Another benefit of DL is the fact that the children could be protected healthwise. Some children are medically complex or immunocompromised, and their health is a matter of concern. One third of parents expressed that they were very grateful for educational services in a remote setting, allowing their children to still interact with service providers while staying at home. Having service providers interact with students remotely saves on travel time for both families and providers. Families discovered they had additional time to work on specific skills or goals from the home setting.
Several parents expressed gratitude to teachers for their hard work during DL. Chelsea says that her son was learning the braille alphabet and numbers. The teachers “were so creative” in their teaching methods, giving him braille instructional toys to encourage the learning of the braille alphabet. Other parents were grateful to the vision specialists for “attend[ing] some of [their child’s] general education classes and making recommendations to the [other] teachers” to make teaching materials and screen time as accessible as possible. Even though the vision teacher was in a different location, being able to meet regularly with someone regularly who understood vision concerns was comforting to both students and parents, and invaluable for obtaining the necessary accommodations.
Negative outcomes
While many students and their families experienced positives, these same families identified outcomes that negatively impacted their experience with DL. There were four sub-themes identified when families were asked about their negative experiences with DL. Table 4 provides detailed quotes to support the sub-themes for negative experiences in DL.
Negative experiences during DL.
Due to the sudden change and isolation which led to students being at home with their families, a number of families expressed the stress that came with being not only a parent but also a teacher for their child: for 18 months, he was at home receiving services from myself. I am also a teacher, but, you know, I’m not an occupational therapist, I’m not a physical therapist, I don’t teach deaf, hard of hearing, I don’t teach vision. Not a speech therapist, so it made it very difficult to carry a lot of those things out.
Families were quickly expected to understand and help administer services that were typically provided by professionals with years of training in their field. For children with vision loss or who are deafblind, learning on a screen is often difficult. Many families expressed that the school districts’ efforts to meet the hours and minutes of a typical school day meant their child spent a long period of time in front of a screen, which was not effective for them as a learner. “He was not able to attend to a screen for a long period of time, it really had no meaning to him whatsoever to sit in front of a computer there’s no relationship between him and the providers.” Parents shared that the task of supporting their child or children with special needs often became a full-time job while still attempting to do their everyday routine.
Families expressed that DL created distance between their family and the team of professionals working with their child. One mother shared So before, it seemed like we were really part of the team, and now it’s like you have to force it, kind of, our spot at the table for his education really. . .It kind of put distance between our family and the school team.
The nature of DL caused tension between families and providers trying to best meet the needs of the student, with parents often feeling they needed to step in and modify to meet their child’s needs.
Each family involved in the study expressed concern with the effectiveness of DL for their child. For some, the difficulty came from the fact that their child was unable to engage and would do better in a different format. Many felt their child did not cooperate or participate in the same way at home compared to a classroom setting. Others felt that their child’s ability to participate was affected by inadequate accommodations provided due to inexperience. Within this DL model, there were growing pains for all involved; one parent shared this story: This one made me laugh, it was my favorite one, it was really ridiculous. The vision teacher wanted him to go outside and collect spiders in a jar. And I was like number one, no, we are not. You’re asking a deafblind child to go outside and collect spiders, like, he doesn’t even know what a spider is. So I then got a jar and got like fake spider rings, so that you know he could experience maybe what a spider might look like. . .. I still laugh about it, and I think I even joked with the vision teacher, like, what were you thinking. . .like, that was crazy.
Students’ responses to DL
In looking at students’ reactions to DL, the responses were mixed. Many of the students who have multiple impairments and could not see or hear the screen well for DL “had zero response to the computer,” like Shelby’s son. Dolly stated regarding her 5-year-old son, “He’s deafblind; we do a lot of hands-on stuff; he’s very tactile. So I think initially it was challenging for him, I don’t think he liked it.”
Even though parents were very engaged in distance education, they reported that their child would “rather be in-person” at school, said Mac of his son, who is also deafblind. However, some parents, like Brianna, said her son “responded well, liked it,” although she later added that he “missed his friends.” Students responded better when the lessons were customized to make it accessible and suitable for them. It was a learning experience for everyone–teachers, parents, and students. Once materials were adapted to be more tactile or able to be manipulated, students who needed manipulatives were much more engaged in learning. Young children enjoyed manipulatives such as the braille cell, pom poms, and playdough. Chelsea said of her son, “He liked it because they kept him engaged. . ..constantly coming up with different ideas, different tactile things to help him learn.” Students also liked playing games on the computer or iPad. There were some struggles with learning certain subjects, such as the hardship of learning certain O&M skills with DL. One parent reported that when given a choice to stay online or go back to in-person school, their son chose to remain online for a time. Dita states, “I think the telling part was when given the choice to go back or to stay online, Jon kind of picked to stay online. I think in some ways, he got more out of being online.” Because either Dita, her husband, or a friend was there to help Jon learn online, he was fully engaged and was able to participate even more than he did in-person, as they received the material ahead of time, prepared him, and practiced with him ahead of time when appropriate. This student one-on-one support increased his learning during distance education.
Recommendations for future practice
At the end of the interview, the team collected feedback on what parents would recommend as areas of improvement for future practice. There were five different areas identified by participants that can be found in Table 5.
Recommendations for future practice.
Experiences collected in this interview process showed that DL in this setting required a large amount of parent involvement. Many parents expressed that they felt lessons would benefit from more collaboration between the parent and the service provider. One parent shared, So even setting boundaries for the parent at home, like space where you want them to sit and learn, are you doing it outside, are you doing some kind of hands-on activity. Just really having that mapped out before you start a curriculum, so you’re not setting yourself up for failure or your students.
There were a number of parents who also expressed the need for considering the pacing within sessions: What they would do is do movement breaks throughout, so I think those types of things are really important, but knowing what are age-appropriate time limits. . .So for James we limited his therapy sessions to 30 minutes. And we would take frequent breaks, and for us what worked for James was a visual timer. It would light up green when it was time to work.
Families also expressed an interest in finding ways to combine both DL and in-person services in the future. Rather than focusing on comparing and contrasting in-person with fully virtual instruction, the conversations with family members emphasized the benefits of both models. Regardless of the instructional modality, creating engaging lessons that recognize the student’s access and communication needs was a resounding theme from our conversations.
Providing students proper access to services is necessary when considering if a student will be able to learn effectively. It is also valuable to families to consider how to best gain a student’s interest and provide the support to sustain it. For example, one mother’s comment stood out: Make it engaging, I think, too, I think the most difficult therapy sessions we attended for all of us, not just James but me as a parent, was just having a therapist just sit there and talk to James, but there was nothing for him to really do; so it was painful to watch, because I can see how unhappy he was, how disengaged he was, and it felt like a waste of time.
This emphasis on getting to know the student to increase engagement was emphasized by more than one family.
Discussion
Our study explored the perceptions and insights of parents on the use of DL in their children’s education. Through our discussion with parents, we found that DL was viewed positively because of the increased opportunities for parent participation and communication in their child’s education. At the same time, the need for consistent parent involvement was also a daily challenge that families faced during DL. As shown in the Venn diagram (Figure 1), parental involvement was associated with both positive and negative experiences of DL.
Experiences with distance learning.
Although parents were able to be more involved, they were also tasked with high demands of being both a service provider and parent. Out of necessity, the pandemic provided an opportunity for educational teams to communicate more regularly with parents as well as positioning parents as key supports for educational access. At times, parents described a gap in understanding a teacher’s purpose behind a lesson, such as the mother who refused to let deafblind son go outside to collect spiders in a jar. At other times, parents expressed that they could not get their children to engage in virtual learning or that they keenly felt their lack of knowledge. Prior to the pandemic, Parker and Tellefson (2018) described the role of collaboration with parents/families using a DL model. While it may take more time initially to develop the parents’ capacity to reinforce particular lessons, there are greater opportunities for the child in practicing developing skills across home and school environments. Parker and Tellefson (2018) also describe professional–parent relationships that serve students, that the relationship is collaborative with coaching to promote joint goal setting. Rosenblum (2020) found that many parents and professionals identified benefits of DL, such as greater access to materials and greater self-advocacy. Much like our current study, they also found that greater support was necessary to provide appropriate instruction and accommodations for both students and families. In a large-scale study that examined parent and child interactions, the availability of real time support to students from teachers as well as live support to parents were shown to positively impact the dynamics between parents and students (Schmidt et al., 2021). These supports should be considered in future discussions on best practices for DL.
Because parents or family members are central to the success of the DL model, it may be profitable to consider parental involvement theory in future analyses of DL. Malik (2021) has written about the many barriers of parental involvement in O&M in Pakistan. But “the school and home partnership is so important that teachers instantly must strengthen the relationship with parents” (Epstein, 2001). Malik found that parents need training and support, and teachers need support in their communication and interaction with families. The theoretical framework Malik applies involves integrating four different parent involvement models by Epstein, Hoover- Dempsey and Sandler, Turnbull, Summers, and Brotherson, as well as Rieser’s Social Disability model. These models provide a framework in which to discuss challenges in parental involvement regardless of education modality and may be helpful in future research.
Early intervention models that embrace the roles of families as primary teachers also provide guidance on ways to support deeper teacher and parent collaboration by designing shared goals. Other evidence from early intervention models describe the importance of mutuality, the consideration of family routines that may also support the child’s learning goals, and the development of parent–educator trust through culturally responsive teaching practices (Chen et al., 2009).
Limitations
This research project included parents who were very involved in their children’ education. However, this may not be the case for all families. Future research should examine families where parents may not have had the opportunity to support their children with VI during DL. The intention when conducting this study was to explore the experiences of families with diverse backgrounds. However, due to study constraints, we did not translate our flyers into different languages, thus limiting our ability to reach families whose first language is not English. All participants in this study spoke English as their first language and were from the United States, including one U.S. citizen residing in Japan. As we reflect on the limited time we had with the participants, it might be that prolonged engagement would have been particularly fruitful in becoming more familiar with each family’s cultures, subcultures, and areas such as how they identified themselves in their community. It is also possible that there was an element of self-selection bias (Lavrakas, 2008), in the sense that families with particularly positive or negative experiences of DL might have volunteered their time.
As researchers we are aware of the considerable demands on participating families, in terms of child care and schedules. This was a consideration in scheduling our interviews, which were limited to 30–40 min. A consideration here is that, although we received rich responses from our participants, and these responses were reflected in the available literature, we did not have ample time to be confident that we reached saturation. The session length might not have been long enough to gain an optimal richness or number of responses from the families involved.
Conclusion
Results from our research underscore how DL services can be supportive, yet also inadequate enough to cause families anxiety and frustration. In both our systematic literature review and in this qualitative investigation with parents, the findings were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, the health crisis provided a context for the study. Many challenges that families and educators faced were compounded by the profound and sudden changes in educational service delivery. At times, we found that one necessity dovetailed agreeably with another: one instance was when immune-compromised students found that they were studying in a relatively safe and controlled environment. One of these families embraced DL to the extent of developing their own set-up using scholarship funds. Other families found the experience challenging, finding DL an unrealistic way of receiving all necessary services. Parent Shelby was concerned that, although as a teacher herself she could provide at least some of that service, she could not also perform very specific educational or professional therapy roles for which she was not trained. Ongoing work should continue to investigate conditions that lead to appropriate planning in terms of possible future DL needs. What will happen if DL is needed again due to natural disaster or disease? How can educators and families be able to provide a better at-home education for students who are visually impaired or deafblind?
Finally, a significant experience, expressed by Brianna, was an almost plaintive reflection that intra-day breaks were very important to parents and other family members, as well as to the student(s). Such reflections encapsulated another specific direction for research: inquiries relating to the lived, moment-to-moment experience of DL. These areas include who takes care of the technical components that help make DL function; the duration of the sessions, and the impact of DL on each person involved.
During the first quarter century (DiPietro et al., 2010), the use of DL has featured pockets of use. If phenomena such as rural living and a pandemic have suggested that DL will be a regular delivery model for education and therapy, the concerns about DL such as safety and equitable access might also be addressed through standardized use of the approach. We encourage researchers and educators alike to continue this dialogue to ensure progress toward cultivating equitable DL environments.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
