|
Paper presented at ICEVI, Kuala Lumpur, July 2006.
Visual impairments occur more frequently among children who already have one diagnosed impairment.
The impairment of vision impedes easy and rich learning in any child, but in a child with additional impairments,
the loss of access due to the combined condition, can be tremendous. A number of professionals need to be
involved in order for appropriate identification, diagnosis & intervention, however,
- Most ophthalmologists and optometrists report discomfort & lack of experience in examining these children.
- Most teachers of children with neurological impairments are not confident assessing or planning for children
who have visual issues.
The result is that many children with other disabilities have no eye examination, no diagnosis and often
no appropriate intervention services. Since there is little systematic information on what eye conditions
co-occur with other disabilities in India, it has been difficult to plan focused and responsive training.
I COUNT is a comprehensive documentation system that seeks to address this issue. The pilot study focused on
children with development disabilitiesimpairments or lifelong limitations in function due to
injury or damage to the brain. The damage must occur during the developmental period - that is, from
conception to 22 years (Accardo et al., 1996). although the database will ultimately include all children.
The information from this data base created was used to create teaching modules for all those who interact with
children with neurological impairments. In the pilot project, I COUNT covered 250 children in 4 rehabilitation
centers in Chennai with medical support from Sankara Netralaya. Specific concerns and questions raised by the
individual centers were also answered through the database. Some findings are given below.
|
