Pre-school problems facing young visually impaired children and their families: abnormal visual development begets abnormal child development

Abstract

In the first of two articles based on the work commissioned by the Blatchington Court Trust (BJVI 13.3) Dr Gill MacDonagh reported on the methodology of the Survey (1994)¹. This second article concentrates on the findings from personal interviews concerning the problems which parents and guardians of very young visually impaired children encountered and how they sought to overcome them. She reports that whereas during the 1970s only 7% of visually impaired children received professional visits between their discharge from the Health Visitor and the first day at Primary School, this rose to 15% in the 1980s and now stands at 44%. This leaves a huge amount of 'aloneness' on the part of the families of these children and better co-ordination to provide total coverage is required before the problems of early development can be properly addressed.