Distance support and online intervention to blind and visually impaired children during the pandemic COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed dramatic changes to everyone's daily routines, but especially to children with developmental disabilities. The Robert Hollman Foundation decided not to interrupt its service to all the visually impaired children and initiated a Distance Support Project. It was an online process covering all aspects of support for the children and involving audio-video calls, videos and tailored-made multisensory material created specifically for each child. A questionnaire, carried out after the 5-month project duration, was created to collect feedback from parents and professionals to understand the impact this project had on everyone involved. Overall both parents and professionals indicated high levels of satisfaction, but in a significant number of questions parents reported consistently higher levels of satisfaction (p-value <0.001). It was shown that parents felt reassured at this otherwise very difficult time because their children were able to continue their treatment, even if in a very different way. This fact encourages us to consider enriching our existing programmes of support and care, integrating this online approach when necessary. At the same time, it seems clear that the responses of the professionals indicate their belief that the benefits of the traditional ways of working remain of unquestionable importance for children with sight deprivation.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Developmental disabilities; Distance support; Online intervention; Visually impaired children.