A research team at Anglia Ruskin University is recruiting parents to take part in their latest research project. Here’s the team to introduce it:
We’d like to let you know about a new project we are carrying out with children with visual impairment and their parents.
Research reports that children with vision impairment (VI) can benefit from additional
support in the areas of social interaction, communication, creativity, and spatial
awareness. Unfortunately, until now little work has been done to examine whether an
intervention programme can bring about positive outcomes in these areas. As all of
these areas are essential for the overall development of children, it is crucial that
research focuses on increasing these abilities in children with congenital visual
impairment.
To increase exposure to these important everyday skills, the research team has
devised a caregiver-led intervention program lasting for 6 weeks and conducted
fully online. During the 6-week programme, the child and a primary caregiver
(parent/guardian) will be provided access to an App that will guide them through
different topics explored in the CASCADE project. As the caregiver and child complete
different lessons on the App, the caregiver will be prompted to complete a series of
more independent activities with the child to rehearse these skills (i.e., role-playing). The App will also provide easy mini games for the child to complete – these have been
created with the aim of being a fun, interactive way to practice these important everyday life abilities.
Thank you to everyone who has taken part so far. We are NOW looking to recruit parents of children of primary school age (6 to 11/12 years) with logMAR greater than 0.3, with relatively fluent language ability and no additional complex needs. If you are a parent or caregiver of a child that you think might be eligible and you are interested to know more, please email Martina at [email protected].
We very much appreciate your interest in the project and we look forward to hearing from you.
Elena Sakkalou and Martina Finessi
This project will be part of Martina Finessi’s PhD thesis. Her supervisors
are Dr. Elena Sakkalou, Dr. John Lambie, and Prof. Naomi Dale.
