Accreditation of Higher Education Professional Preparation Programs in Visual Impairment

Abstract

AbstractOver the years, accreditation of higher education personnel preparation programs in the United States has undergone much change (Brittingham, 2009). This phenomenon has been paralleled by a similar process within the disciplines relating to visual impairment. During the past 5 decades, higher education programs preparing practitioners in the field of visual impairment have relied upon the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) program approval process that was administered by the AER (Wiener & Siffermann, 2010). In an attempt to ensure the quality of personnel preparation programs, practitioners within the disciplinary groups of AER took responsibility for reviewing the content and administration of these programs. These included orientation and mobility, vision rehabilitation therapy, teachers of students with visual impairment, low vision therapy, and recently, assistive technology. In 2018, the AER membership approved an amendment to the AER bylaws that established the AER Accreditation Council (AERAC) and gave it legal and functioning authority as an independent accreditation body (AER, 2021a). The AER program approval process for higher education programs was revised and upgraded to become a full accreditation program under the auspices of the AERAC (AER, n.d.). This article describes the evolution of the accreditation program within the national context, documents the history of accreditation within the field of visual impairment, and explores the relationship between accreditation and certification.