Many children with visual impairments have difficulty seeing at a distance. Let’s explore what your child can see at a distance. What size of object and at what distance can your child see? What are the details your child can see at a distance? We can try to make it easier for your child to look at something in the distance by using specific, direct strategies. Your child may see better or worse in different environments depending on the lighting, contrast, other distractions, and familiarity with what they are looking for.
Objectives
Learn more about what a child sees in the distance.
Teach parents to be observers. How can they learn more about what their child sees at a distance?
Teach parents strategies to help their child see things at a distance.
Expanded Core Curriculum Areas Supported
Orientation and Mobility: Move around the environment to find things in the distance. You might be moving indoors, outside, in a familiar location, or in an unfamiliar location. Incorporate directional concepts such as “above,” “on top,” “beside,” etc. in your communication with the child.
Self-Determination: Choice making, decision making, and problem solving. The child makes a choice about what they want to play with and then, with your help, solves the problem about how to find the object in the distance.
Social Skills: Bonding and communicating with caregiver during the activity.
Recreation and Leisure: Learning about distance vision can help inform decisions about the adaptations that might be needed for games such as hide and seek, catch, or kickball.
Sensory Efficiency: Use senses to explore objects. Touch the object. Look at it and talk about the salient features. Look at the object in the distance.
Independent Living Skills: “Go get your backpack so we can go to school!” Independent living involves finding objects around the home or outside to complete chores, get ready for school, go to doctor’s appointments, or play a game of catch.
Compensatory Skills: Learning to use alternative techniques to compensate for difficulty with distance vision.
Everyday Routines Supported
This activity supports everyday routines, including play time and family time.
Suggested Next Steps to Use This Activity With Caregiver and Child
Discuss activity with caregiver to determine appropriateness and relevancy to family.
Forward the caregiver version of the activity to the caregiver.
Remind the primary caregiver one to two days before the home/virtual visit to gather the materials required.
Introduce the activity, discuss the objectives, and provide an overview of the possible steps.
Be prepared to break down the activities into a smaller subset as the child and family may not have the time or tolerance to complete all activities.
After completing this activity, consider extension activities that may be appropriate and relevant to the family.
