Open AccessRehabilitation services for visually impaired children: early intervention or a long delay?
Author(s) -
Maria Inés Rubo de Sousa Nobre,
Edméa Rita Temporini,
José Newton Kara,
Rita de Cássia Ietto Montilha
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
ocupacion humana/revista ocupación humana
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2590-7816
pISSN - 0122-0942
DOI - 10.25214/25907816.519
Subject(s) - visually impaired , intervention (counseling) , referral , rehabilitation , psychology , terminology , impaired vision , low vision , medicine , pediatrics , developmental psychology , family medicine , psychiatry , optometry , physical therapy , linguistics , philosophy
The following aspects related to the care of visually impaired children were surveyed in a Low-Vision Stimulation Service in order to contribute to the improvement of the services it offers: age of the child at the first ophthalmologic consultation; person responsible for identifying the problem; knowledge of mothers concerning the vision problem of their child; and, age of the child at the beginning of stimulation. Twentyfive mothers of visually impaired children with ages varying from birth to 4 years were interviewed. In a general way, the problem had been identified before the children were 6 months old; however, only 50.0% of them had been attended to up to this age. In the great majority of the cases it was the mother who first perceived the vision problem of her child (48.0%), followed by other members of the family (28.0%) and, physicians (24.0%). Although the mothers disclosed some knowledge on the technical terminology concerning vision problems, they used it incorrectly. The Authors suggest that ophthalmologists should play a more active part in the early referral of visually impaired children to vision stimulation services.