What Can Parents Do?

It has been said that the parent is the child's first teacher. Follow-up studies on premature babies, for instance, show that the best indicators of how well the child will do later in life are not how much eyesight the child has or whether or not there is cognitive delay, but how able the parents are to intervene and how stimulating the home environment is.

Parents need to become good observers of their child in order to determine if the child's development is proceeding on target or if the child is "stuck" and needs intervention. Get a developmental chart. Figure out what your child is able to do now and what the next logical next step would be to work on. If there are delays in development, learn the early intervention techniques that will help the baby progress. Find out about the importance of early movement experiences. Discover the ways in which you can connect with your child and provide information and experiences that do not require vision. Become acquainted with the skills of blindness that your child will be learning.

We hope that the information in this section will help you get started on these developmental processes.