Centre Based Rehabilitation
Children's Rehabilitation Centre
The Children's Rehabilitation Centre has been developed to meet the varied needs of children (up to 15 years of age) with visual impairment and additional disabilities. After an initial diagnosis of the extent of disability, the child may be referred from the out patient department to the Meera and L B Deshpande Centre for Sight Enhancement or the Dr P R K Prasad Centre for Rehabilitation of Blind and Visually Impaired. Here the child's vision is evaluated and devices prescribed for making the most of his/her visual abilities.
In addition to the services provided to adults by the two Centres, the Children's Rehabilitation Centre offers age-appropriate counseling to enable children to cope with regular schoolwork and home situations. Depending upon the child's age and his/her non-visual capacities, an individualized rehabilitation program is designed and implemented.
For more information see Rehabilitation for children and their parents
As with medical intervention, and the prescription of low vision devices, the earlier a child (or adult) enters a rehabilitation program, the better the chances of coping with his/her disabilities, and being integrated into mainstream education. For very young children who are at the most crucial stage for rehabilitation, LVPEI has developed the Early Intervention Program.
The program has attracted national and international interest amongst eye care and rehabilitation professionals for two reasons:
- Early intervention is still not commonly used as a strategy in eye care institutes. LVPEI provides an effective model of early intervention for other institutes to adopt.
- Our rehabilitation centres follow a sustained strategy of research and development of new techniques so that the programs are continually evolving, remaining at the forefront of new developments in eye care.
Rehabilitation for Parents and Children
This includes training both children and their parents in the use of special educational devices such as:
- A Brailler,
- Slate and stylus,
- Mathematical devices such as Taylor's frame and the Abacus,
- Geographical devices, and
- Material preparations like tactual maps and embossed drawings.
Children are also trained in daily living and mobility skills, facilitating their integration into regular schools as early and smoothly as possible. Students with low vision are trained in the use of optical and non-optical devices (low vision resources). Commonly used optical devices for students include:
- Distance vision telescopes
- Stand and spectacle magnifiers
- Electronic devices like close circuit television
Non optical devices include:
- Reading stand
- Reading lamp
- Bold line notebooks
- Bold line papers
- Felt tipped pen
- Soft lead pencils
- Reading guide
- Letter writer
- Notex
- Talking watch
Audio Tapes
The program at the children's rehabilitation centre attempts to provide for, as far as possible, the widest range of needs of visually impaired students whether at the pre-school, high school, or college level. Material prepared at The centre includes talking books in English and vernacular languages like Hindi, Telugu and Sanskrit, Braille storybooks and stories on audio tapes.
The centre also helps to identify and reach readers and scribes for students who need help in writing examinations.
Early Intervention Programs
A mother's story
Early intervention forms the core strategy for rehabilitating visually impaired infants and their parents. This constitutes individual assessment, followed by a plan designed to provide a comprehensive range of services to visually impaired children, to lessen the impact of their disability.
The early intervention program includes a combination of services:
- Parental counseling: This enables the parents to rebuild their own confidence in the process of bringing up their child with his or her special needs and challenges.
- Assessment: Infants are assessed with reference to designated developmental milestones such as residual vision, motor skills, language and communication skills, cognitive skills and self-help.
- Referral: Based on developmental assessment, the child is referred to a multidisciplinary team of professionals such as physiotherapists, speech therapists and doctors.
- Training: Parental involvement is a critical factor in the child's development. The parents or caregivers and the child are trained and guided, keeping in mind the essential developmental milestones.
At LVPEI's rehabilitation centres, several training and educational aids have been developed for the early intervention program.
Small Changes Make a Big Difference
Sometimes the visual impairment may be very slight, and yet seriously affect both the capability and confidence of a student in the classroom. In such cases the Children's Rehabilitation Centre assesses the problems of the student in the classroom and examines whether making simple changes, like allowing the student to sit close to the black board can solve some of them. The centre interacts with teachers, friends and parents, asking the school authorities to notify them of the problem and requests them to make the necessary changes.