Education & Development

When parents find out that their child is blind or visually impaired, they often wonder how the child's eye condition will affect development and how the child will get an education. Too many times, the information they read about blindness and visual impairment is negative and depressing. They might hear, for instance, that 80% of learning is visual. Well, we're here to say that that's only true for fully sighted kids! For our children, learning will come through touch and hearing and smell and taste and movement, as well as through any vision the child may have. Your child may be blind/visually impaired, but all is not lost! Blind children can do well in school, participate in sports and extracurricular activities, contribute to the community, go to college, and accomplish just about anything their sighted classmates can.

The blind/visually impaired child with additional disabilities often benefits from the same kinds of stimulating activities as the sighted child of similar cognitive ability. In fact, it is helpful to ask teachers, therapists, and early intervention providers what kinds of activities they would do with a sighted child with a similar learning profile, and then add the materials and techniques for blindness/visual impairment. We hope the additional ideas and resources in the section Children with Additional Disabilities will be helpful to you.