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April 10, 2025 16 mins

This resource will support listeners to:  

  • Understand the elements of compensatory access and how compensatory access enables children to access information. 

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Episode Transcript

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S1 (00:03):
Welcome to Vision Australia's podcast series, designed to help children
and young people develop the skills they'll need to open
their future.

Rebecca (00:17):
Hello. My name is Rebecca and I'm a psychologist here
to talk to you today about Compensatory access. I'll explain
what it is, what it means for your child, and
how the skills progress and evolve as your child gets older.
Compensatory access is one of nine areas of the expanded
core curriculum, or what we call the ECC. There's a

(00:39):
strong relationship between compensatory access and all of the other
areas of the ECC, as it's often necessary to have
your own way of doing things when you can't get
all the information you need using your vision. I'd like

(00:59):
to start with an activity. Think about where you are
right now. Are you at home sitting in the living room, perhaps?
Or are you on public transport on your way to work?
Think about a task you'll be doing soon. If you're
at home, maybe the next thing you need to do
is go to the kitchen and make lunch or dinner.

(01:19):
If you're on public transport, your next task may be
getting off at a specific stop and walking somewhere else.
Now think about what is involved in that task. Think
about the knowledge and information that will help you to
get it done. If you're about to make lunch or dinner,
will you follow a recipe? Do you need to measure ingredients,

(01:42):
get things out of the pantry or cupboard, or use
the stove? If you're on public transport, how do you
know when you're at your stop? Do you need to
communicate with anyone? Perhaps ask people around you to move
so you can pass? If you haven't been to your
destination before, do you need to be able to read
a map? Most of us are unaware of how much

(02:11):
we use information in our everyday lives, and how we
rely on our vision to access and produce it. A
child who is blind or has low vision needs to
develop specific skills in compensatory access, so they have the
same access to information. When we talk about compensatory access,
what we mean is the different ways you can access

(02:32):
information when not being able to see or seeing less.
Being able to do this means you're able to develop
an understanding of the world, communicate, and be literate. Now
you may be thinking, what we're talking about here is
being able to use our other senses, like hearing or touch.
Being able to use the full range of senses is
definitely important, but this is a bit more than that.

(03:00):
There are six general areas of compensatory access. Concept development,
spatial understanding, communication modes, speaking and listening, study and organisation skills,
and using modified material and specialised equipment. During your child's
early years, the foundations are laid for these areas and

(03:24):
as your child gets older, they become more efficient and
learn to apply these skills in more complex situations. So
let's look at what your child needs to learn during
their early years, their primary school years, and then during
high school and beyond for each of these six areas.

(03:45):
From an early age, children start to build a library
of knowledge that they use and add to as they
try new activities and move towards independence. The library can
include simple things like what is hot and what is cold,
through to complex things like what is beautiful. Concept development
refers to creating this library of knowledge. Let's try another

(04:07):
activity to get you thinking about all the knowledge or
concepts a person stores in their brain. Imagine you're a
one year old child. Your parents have decided that it's
time for you to learn to drink from a cup.
What would you, as a young child, learn as you
start to use a cup? What might be in your
library already? Have you seen or touched a cup that

(04:29):
someone in your family has used? Would you have an
idea of the shape, size, and texture? Have you seen
someone using a cup? Do you know that you have
to bring it to your mouth, tip it and drink
from it? Does it feel a bit like the bottle
you already use, or how is it different from that bottle?

(04:50):
This is, for the most part, talking about all the
physical properties of a cup. There's lots of concepts that
even babies are soaking up. Once we learn concepts, we
can use the knowledge in this library for things we
are going to try in the future. How is learning
these concepts different. If you can't observe what those around
you are doing or what equipment they're using, it takes

(05:14):
specific instruction and practice to learn concepts without vision, especially
to progress to understanding the whole library of information we
will need as we get older. We may start to
talk about concepts in the early years, but your child
needs to continue to work on them in primary and
high school. As your child gets to primary school age,

(05:38):
they will continue to learn about new objects and understand
abstract concepts more. By the time your child is in
high school, the goal is to be able to apply
their knowledge and understanding of basic to complex concepts in
most of the tasks and activities they do on a
daily basis. For example, a child may learn what a

(05:58):
soccer ball is before they enter school and even learn
to kick and roll it, but they'll probably only start
to learn gameplay and rules once they enter school. As
a high school student, they may use that knowledge from
playing the game to follow audio described games or have
a conversation with a friend based on their previous experiences.

(06:20):
As an adult they may then teach their child about
the game. Another aspect of compensatory access is spatial understanding.
It's key to knowing where you are and moving around
on your own. Spatial understanding means understanding where people or
objects are placed, arranged, and spaced in relation to each other.

(06:43):
Think about your living room for a moment. Even if
you close your eyes or you're walking through the room
in the dark, you're probably able to bring up a
pretty detailed image of what the room looks like. You
know how furniture and objects are placed, how far apart
they are, and what is close to or beside you
versus what's further away. This is crucial information. If you

(07:05):
need to move through that room without bumping into anything.
So what does your child need to learn to have
this spatial understanding? During their early years? It's awareness of
their body. First, they become aware of their own body,
like when they first start to play with their own

(07:25):
fingers and toes. Then they start to be aware of
where things are that might be touching their body, and
then later things that are just a bit further away. Next,
the child learns how they relate to the things around them.
This is where it's so important for them to have
things around them that encourage them to reach and explore,
like rattles or toys. The way a child understands the

(07:47):
world expands as they start to move around in it.
When your child is of primary school age, they'll start
to become aware of space in social interactions. What is
personal space? How close is standing or sitting too close?
How is this different for people they know versus people
they don't know? This is also an age where your

(08:10):
child can start to explore moving in environments outside of home.
They'll build their knowledge of the route to school. They'll
become independent, moving around their school classrooms and playground as
their understanding of the space around them grows. Once your
child reaches high school and with lots of practice, their
spatial awareness can lead to more opportunities for them to

(08:31):
be with their peers and in new places on their own.
All of this leads to their growing independence and achieving
their life goals as they grow up. Concept development and
spatial understanding are best developed by learning through doing. You
can help by giving your child hands on experiences and

(08:53):
lots of opportunities to explore things and environments. This can
be achieved by providing a wide range of play opportunities
in the podcast episode strategies for Developing Concepts. We'll discuss
practical things you can do to support this. Now let's

(09:14):
look at the next area for compensatory access. Different ways
to communicate. Communication is such a key element in our lives,
but we often take for granted that we can receive
and send out information in spoken, written, or visual form,
or through touch. During your child's early years, the most
important thing you can do is provide opportunities for them

(09:36):
to experience getting information from their different senses. Stories are
a great tool for this. Toddler books that allow your
child to see and feel while you read the story
to them are a great place to start. Add an
object or two that relate to the story for them
to explore, and you're really encouraging them to use all
their senses to experience a story. In primary school, your

(10:00):
child will further develop their skills and preferences for accessing text,
and once they're in high school, they'll do this independently.
But compensatory access does not stop there. Developing good speaking
and listening skills are also part of social interactions and communication.
These skills help your child to get information about the environment,

(10:21):
to know what is around them, and safely find their way.
During their early years, your child learns how to listen
to and follow verbal instructions. Of course, all children need
to learn to do this at this age, but it's
a key skill for your child so they can get
the information they need that other people may be receiving
using their vision. This may include developing skills to use

(10:42):
the sounds they hear in the environment, to understand what
is around them and where they are. As your child
gets older and becomes more independent, good listening skills help
them to follow directions. For example, when using voice instructions
on a smartphone and hear traffic. It's also a key
skill to be able to use screen reading software and

(11:03):
other auditory devices that they may use for reading work
documents or a menu at a restaurant. Social interactions also
become more important as your child gets older. They need
to learn that talking with people is not just about
talking and listening, it's also about body posture and body language.
For example, turning your body and head towards the person

(11:23):
you're interacting with and showing a facial expression to match
the conversation communicates your attention and interest in the other person.
These are strategies your child may need support to learn.
Let's look at the next area in Compensatory access. Organization skills.
Having things organized in a specific way makes life easier.

(11:47):
For example, organizing your clothes in a drawer so you
can find a t-shirt rather than a pajama top, or
locating the specific plastic container and the matching lid you need.
If you can't scan the environment for what you're looking for,
having things in a predictable place is essential. It starts
in the early years, like when you set up a
toy box so that your child can find the toy

(12:08):
they want and put their toys away. Or having a
consistent place to put shoes so they can find them
when they need them. We have some great resources in
independent living skills that talk about this and provide more
strategies and support as they get to primary school and
onto high school, and further study skills for organizing, note taking,

(12:29):
researching information, using and creating tactile graphs become very important.
The last subject that is covered by compensatory access is
using modified materials and specialised equipment. These can be the
key to accessing information. When we say modified materials, it

(12:49):
might be getting things in large print, raised line drawings
and Braille, just to name a few. Specialised equipment might
mean a magnifier or assistive technology that reads words out loud.
There are many different ways to get information. You just
need to find out which ways work for your child
and practice using them. Most things take a little while
to learn and use. Early exposure to these options, even

(13:13):
in the early years, can help when using them, becomes
essential in the school years. Braille is a good example.
You may have Braille labels in your child's first books,
just so children start to understand how it feels and
to prepare for the possibility of using it in the future.
The many ways we can compensate for low vision and
blindness fall into two categories vision enhancement and vision substitution.

(13:37):
Vision enhancement is making the most of what you can see.
You can think here about using magnification or adjusting lighting.
Vision substitution is using your senses other than vision to
access information. Examples here are access written information by using
braille or audio descriptions. If you'd like to learn more

(13:59):
about vision enhancement and substitution, we have two information sheets
that you might find helpful. What works best for your
child depends, of course, on your child. Every child is different.
When exploring compensatory access, consider your child's level of vision,
their likes and dislikes, the environment and the activity that

(14:20):
they are doing. There are Service Providers at Vision Australia
who can help you navigate through the options available. There
are many ways to get information, so try them out.
Practice different ways to see what works best for your child,
and stay open to trying new ways to. There may
be more ways to do this task in the future.

(14:42):
Check out the podcast Accessing the Future Future Proof Yourself.
It's a resource for high school students, but will give
you some good ideas as well. Keep in mind, there's
usually a workaround for most things. Think back to the
activity we did at the start of the podcast, where
I asked you to think about a task you needed
to do. If there is information you need but you

(15:05):
can't see, how else could you access that information? Before
we finish, I'd love to set you a challenge. Think
about you or your child. What are you doing already
that is supporting them to consider different tools and strategies.
What might be something new you could try? Are there

(15:27):
things that you might be doing for your child that
they could be trying for themselves? Is your child getting
enough information to understand all the simple to abstract concepts
that we might be taking for granted? Thanks for joining me.
Hope this podcast helped you understand more about compensatory access.

(15:48):
See you next time. This podcast was written using the
research and ideas of Amy R Garrett on compensatory access
in ECC essentials, teaching the Expanded Core Curriculum to students
with visual impairments. Check out our other Cxpanded Core Curriculum,
compensatory access resources, as well as resources for all the

(16:10):
other ECC areas.

S3 (16:18):
Vision. Australia. Blindness. Low vision. Opportunity.
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