Essential social skills to prepare visually impaired children for mainstream school

1. Essential social skills to prepare visually impaired children for mainstream school

2. Introduction • Children with blindness or visual impairment are no different. • Their social and communication needs are same as children without visual disabilities. • They may not be able to see the world physically through their eyes however they do perceive the world through their senses of hearing, touch, olfactory and taste. • What they need is your love, time, a positive attitude and patience. Just be proactive in recognizing their communication efforts and fulfilling their social needs. Provide meaningful responses to their body gestures, vocalization and other cues. Give them ample chances to explore and experience their surroundings, let them into situations or take them to places where they get opportunities to open up and interact. Encourage play and interaction with siblings. Here are some examples to develop social skills in your infants and toddlers with blindness or visual impairment.

3. Labeling expressions • We learn to express ourselves and understand others expression mostly through observation and incidental experiences. • But due to visual challenges, children with blindness or visual impairment must be taught to express themselves and perceive others to the best of their abilities. For instance, let your baby touch your face when you smile at them and mention that you are smiling. • Also mention the same every time s/he smiles back at you. I call it labelling the expression. Try showcasing and mentioning other gestures too. Such as nodding for saying yes or no, waving hand to say bye, hand shake etc. This will help your child to correlate the action with its name while enabling them to engage in social conversations and respond with appropriate expression.

4. Making social visits • Visiting people and places will give a lot of exposure to your child. S/he will learn that there is a world beyond my parents; there are people who are different from each other, are of different ages, and have different relationships. This will not only help them to understand social relations better but will also enrich their vocabulary. • So never miss a party invitation. Taking your child to community centres and parks will give them opportunities to mingle with the children from the community and befriend easily. Similarly, take your child to shopping marts and stores. These places provide excellent teaching and learning opportunities. As parents, just be ready to satisfy the curiosity of your child by providing simple explanations of their questions and by letting them explore the items in the environment.

5. Teaching good manners in real settings by holding interactive conversations • Good manners are the essential etiquettes or social behaviours that a child should be taught in order to have healthy interactions. • Learning to say please when asking or requesting, saying thank you, hello, waving bye, shaking hands, smiling, making a facial contact when talking are all etiquettes that need to be taught to children right from the beginning. • Parents should not think that because my child is blind, they are to be taken for granted for not having or showing any social manner.

6. Conclusion • An orphanage in Indiranagar provides respite to abused children. • For more details visit http://rakumblindschool.org/