Teaching Strategies to Improve Object Control Development for Children with Visual Impairments in Physical Education

The purpose of this paper is to support physical education teachers when teaching object control skills to students with visual impairments in a general physical education setting. Students with visual impairments can follow the same curriculum as their sighted peers with supports. This paper describes how to provide supports to students with visual impairments in units such as, beep kickball, beep baseball, and goalball when infusing them into baseball/ softball, kickball, or Paralympic units, so that they can succeed alongside their peers. The three main object control skills focused on in this paper are rolling, striking, and kicking. These are three common skills utilized in goalball, beep baseball, and beep kickball. Lastly, this paper includes several pedagogical strategies utilized to teach students with visual impairments: tactile modeling, physical guidance, and the whole-part-whole method. Sample lead up games for each specialized sport is included.