Hollie Rodriguez: This is The Sound of Science on WNIJ. I'm Hollie and I'm here with Susan Dalton, an instructor at the Department of Early Education with an emphasis on programs in visual disabilities. Susan, I'm so excited to have you on. I'm very curious about a text book you recently worked on. How did The Foundations of Vision Rehabilitation Therapy come to be?
Susan Dalton: The textbook, the new one, came out because of the extreme need to have it updated. For years, we've been using a textbook that has been a good foundation for our programs, but then we realized that the material was so dated. I thought it was interesting because even as I gathered with groups of other vision rehabilitation people we'd keep complaining about the text saying it needs to get revised.
Then after a few meetings, someone contacted me saying "Okay, we need it revised. How about you write a chapter?" So that's how it came about. After doing a presentation at another conference on recreation and leisure skills, they asked me to write that chapter. And then another chapter came up that they needed somebody for so I ended up with two.
Hollie: What advice do you have for people who see a need or a gap in their world or their field, but aren't sure how to get started filling it.
Susan: Well, I guess my biggest advantage I think is just staying connected with other professionals, not just locally but nationally, and finding out what the needs are. And then just being willing to take a chance. I was a bit intimidated at first about writing a text book and then after time I realized I had a lot of knowledge to share and it helped me professionally too to make sure my information was correct and up-to-date.
Hollie: That is awesome! Thanks so much for joining us. This was The Sound of Science on WNIJ.
Susan: Where you learn something new every day.
