How Language Impacts Art Education for the Visually Impaired

How do visual art educators reach students who have visual impairments? When given this challenge, it is interesting to see how the use of visual language impacts learning. This book documented the use and purposes of language during a preservice teaching experience for art education students from the University of Texas at Austin. While gaining practical experience in the art class at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, they gained awareness of the importance language has in teaching the visually impaired. In an art classroom designed specifically for pupils who have various visual impairments, language becomes an essential tool in teaching. A case study documenting the various uses of language in teaching reveals how language becomes the bridge between touch and vision. Through art-making and descriptive language the pupil creates knowledge. Learning semantics that describe the child's world- how art is made, how art looks,and how the process of art-making takes place. All art experiences relate to the pupils' lives through a combination of descriptive language and the other senses. Words provide the bridge to greater understanding.