Vision-impaired jazz pianist Adam Bishop, a second-year student at CQU's Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, recently took time out from his studies to speak to a group of aspiring early childhood students at Mackay State High School.

Adam spoke about different approaches to designing learning experiences for young children with visual impairments.

He was able to explain the wonderful power of developing literacy as a child himself.

Adam said that, just as important as the medium of the learning resources (eg. books, tapes, CDs, software and internet) is the need for independence while reading.

It was not good enough for Adam as a child to have someone read stories to him. He desperately wanted to learn things for himself. To be able to read opened up doors to a whole new world.

Based on the introduction of high-tech voice recognition apparatus, Adam felt that blind children in today's age of electronic gadgets were missing out on the fundamental joy of reading.

However, he said that to keep up with the pace of the electronic age, there needed to be some compromise reached.

He said there has been a shift towards the creation of learning tools for visually impaired children aimed at modern effects, to stimulate the child's enthusiasm to gain common ground with sighted peers.

Adam praised the efforts of his family for providing him with many opportunities to learn about everyday life and said he believed the key to teaching a visually impaired child is to introduce new concepts gradually with lots of reinforcement through the other senses.

Mrs Healy said that in the early days of not knowing what path there is ahead of them, the young high school students looked to Adam for a source of inspiration.

CQCM staff member Berndadette Howlett said Adam uses a stick to make his way around the Conservatorium and the wider campus.

"He is an excellent student participating in all the activities of the Bachelor of Jazz Studies program," she said.