How Does Vision Impact Development?
Ø Plays critical role in attention and cognition
Ø Motivates infants and toddlers to stay awake, alert and attend to people, objects and events
Ø Allows imitation and to learn appropriate behaviors in natural contexts
Ø Enables infants to learn about people, objects, and events
Ø Encourages play behaviors
Ø Motivates infants to move and explore people and objects in their environment
Characteristics of the Types of Intervention Services for Infants with Visual Impairment
Ø Provides hands –on instruction and modeling
Ø Provides materials and adaptations
Ø Provides information about the child’s eye condition, vision, ophthalmological report, implications, strategies, etc. to the family
Ø Provides initial and ongoing assessment
Ø Provides support to parents in their efforts to understand their child’s vision loss
Ø Provides information about how vision loss can impact child development
Ø Provides early literacy information and ideas
Ø Provides information to identify environmental adaptations to accommodate vision loss
Ø Provides activities to encourage ongoing visual use of any residual vision
Ø Provides ideas to help motivate children with vision loss to develop to their fullest potential
Instruction in Compensatory Skills
Ø Bonding and attachment
Ø Communication: receptive and expressive
Ø Motor: gross, fine, O & M/concepts of movement and spatial awareness
Ø Sensory: vision, auditory, tactual, vestibular, sensory integration
Ø Self-help: eating & drinking, dressing & undressing, toileting, personal hygiene, sleeping patterns
Ø Cognition: object exploration and manipulation, experience-based early concept development, and problem solving
Ø Pre-Braille/Tactile Symbols
Ø Social-Emotional
Ø Large print/pictures/books
Ø Optical devices
Ø Adaptive devices