Effects of vision impairment in children

Children with Sight Problem

There are four acknowledged levels of visual function in anyperson and those include normal vision, moderate visual impairment, severevisual impairment and blindness. When it comes to the educational context,visual impairments in children can be divided into another four groups. Thefirst group is referred to as partially sighted and it characterized certainvisual problems which call for special education methods. Another group whichis referred to as low vision includes children who suffer from different typesof severe visual impairment. This includes not being able to read at a normaldistance even with the aid of contact lenses or eyeglasses. These children mustcombine the vision with other sense in order to be able to learn. Legally blindrefers to the children whose vision is less than 20/200 and who have a verylimited field of vision. Totally blind children can only learn by using Brailleor other sorts of media which do not rely on visual communication. Thefunctional loss of vision is what actually leads to visual impairments. In somecases they may even be triggered by certain types of eye disorders such asinfections, congenital disorders, diabetic retinopathy, corneal disorders,glaucoma, cataracts, albinism and retinal degeneration. The most common causesof different types of visual impairment include refractive errors such asmyopia, hyperopia and astigmatism, cataract and glaucoma. It is a peculiar factthat most visually impaired people reside in developing countries. Visualimpairments mostly occur in those who are older than 50. There are more than 20million children in the world who suffer from visual impairments and in mostcases they are caused by refractive errors which could have been corrected ifattended to on time. There are more than 1.5 million children who will remainblind for the rest of their lives.

Statistical Data

According to certain statistics there are almost 300 millionpeople around the world who suffer from various different forms of visualimpairments, out of which there are more than 40 million of them who are blind.Cataracts are considered as the leading causes of blindness, while differentsorts of uncorrected refractive errors remain the leading causes of all visualimpairments. Fortunately enough, 80 percent of all cases of visual impairmentcan be avoided if attended to on time or even cured completely.

Development of Children with Vision Impairment

A child who suffers from various different types of visualproblems may experience various effects which depend on certain factors. Themost significant factors include the overall functioning level of the child,age at which the medical condition appears, type of visual loss and theseverity of the actual visual problem. There are a lot of children who sufferfrom visual problems which are accompanied by social developmental delays,cognitive developmental delays and motor developmental delays. As a childsuffers from visual impairments, her or his interest in the surroundingenvironment may be extremely narrowed down and it all may lead to the lack ofmotivation. Such children may be unable to imitate various form of socialbehavior and learn nonverbal communicational cues so their independence andsocial life may be seriously compromised. There are early intervention programswhich can be of great help for all those kids who suffer from different formsof visual impairment. Low vision aids, video aids, computers and other devicessuch as Braille books, audio books and large print material can be used to makethe educational process for the visually impaired children a whole lot easier.Some cases may involve the use of various modifications and special equipmentwhich are very efficient when it comes to emphasizing the daily living skills,career options, vocation options, mobility, orientation, communication andlistening skills. There is a common misconception that visually impairedchildren tend to be much more adept in language skills than children withnormal eyesight, but that could not be further from the truth. Vision isextremely important when it comes to perceive the world that surrounds us, sochildren who suffer from visual impairments need to rely solely on sequential typeof observation, by absorbing only a limited amount of information. Differentconnections between objects and sounds are sometimes rather difficult to make, andrequire some time. Auditory memory skills and verbal reasoning skills are alsousually rather compromised in children who suffer from some type of visualimpairment. The overall process of adaptation to society and proper socialintegration tend to be rather difficult for children affected with different sortsof visual impairments. A limited visual input may also have seriousconsequences when it comes to proper mental health and development of a child.It is often the case that a child who suffers from some form of visualimpairment gets wrongly labeled as autistic by some other individual.