Supporting Life Skills for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment and Other Disabilities A Middle Childhood Habilitation Handbook

This practical resource is designed to help professionals, parents, and carers on their journey to independence with children and young people with vision impairments.

Building on the ideas and practices introduced in Supporting Life Skills for Young Children with Vision Impairment and Other Disabilities, this book addresses middle childhood, the period from when the child starts school, through to the onset of puberty. It offers a wealth of practical strategies and activities to enhance key skills, including personal safety, advanced dressing, personal hygiene, dealing with puberty, social skills, time, money and organisational skills, eating, drinking and food preparation skills, and the transition to secondary school.

This book:

• Addresses the main independent living skills areas for vision impaired children in middle childhood, by providing simple explanations of skills and offering practical strategies and techniques to support progression onto the next stage
• Is written in a fully accessible style, with photocopiable pages and additional downloadable eResources
• Provides a variety of documentation to chart the child?s development and show progress over time

This invaluable resource puts the changes that occur during middle childhood into context and will help busy professionals, families and carers start preparing children with a vision impairment for adulthood, allowing them to become confident and independent individuals.

Common Terms used in this book

PART 1

Introduction

PART 2

Section 1. Personal Safety

Section 2. Dressing and Fastenings

Section 3. Puberty and Personal hygiene

Section 4. Building Social skills

Section 5. Time and organisational skills

Sections 6. and 7 Money and Shopping skills

Section 8. Eating and drinking

Section 9 and 10.Food preparation and snacks and drinks

Section 11. Household chores

Section 12. Transition

PART 3

Appendices

Appendix 1 Activities

Appendix 2 Handouts

Appendix 3 Let’s Cook

Glossary

Further Reading and Bibliography

Fiona Broadley has taught Habilitation Skills (mobility, orientation and independent living) to children and young people with vision impairments and additional needs for over 30 years. As the Chair of Habilitation VIUK she helped gather research for the Mobility21 Project, which led to the creation of the National Quality Standards for the delivery of Habilitation Training. She currently heads a team of Registered Qualified Habilitation Specialists and lectures at Birmingham City University, delivering the Habilitation Elements training for Specialist Teachers.