Teresa lost her vision just a year ago. But, she already has plans for her future.
“Life doesn’t stop, and neither do I,” Teresa declares.
Teresa tried learning JAWS, a screen-reading program for computers, on her own. But, it was “super frustrating!”
She started working with Joe, our computer instructor, at the end of July and has already made huge strides.
“Joe is sharing so many shortcuts.” Teresa said. “Before, when I went to Gmail, JAWS would read all the information across the top of the screen and all the menu options first. Then it would get to the email.
“But, with a simple shortcut, I can tell JAWS to go right to the email. It saves time.”
“Teresa puts in a lot of time outside of our lessons to practice on her own. This is vastly accelerating the completion of her goals,” Joe said.
One of those goals is to go to graduate school to become a vision rehabilitation therapist.
Teresa spent time during training putting the skills she was learning to practical use. This is an important part of our training — making sure our clients know how they can use the skill they are learning in their daily lives.
Joe and Teresa researched the universities that offer vision rehabilitation degrees. Teresa learned to navigate the websites, complete forms and use shortcut keys to find the information she wanted.
“Joe did more than teach me about JAWS. He told me about his experience at Northern Illinois University in their vision rehabilitation program. That was awesome!” Teresa exclaimed. “It is one of the reasons I have decided to apply to NIU.”