Helping children who are blind develop in the early years - a programme for low resource settings

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Helping children who are blind develop in the early years - a programme for low resource settings

By The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Date and time

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 12:45 - 13:45 GMT

Location

LG80 - Bennett Room,

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Keppel Street London WC1E 7HT United Kingdom

Description

Part of the Disability Group Series

International Centre for Evidence in Disability

Helping children who are blind develop in the early years - a programme for low resource settings.


Speaker: Dr Melissa Gladstone, Department of Women and Children’s Health, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool (In Collaboration with Dr. Paul Lynch from the Vision Center for Teaching and Research at the School of Education, Birmingham University)

About the Seminar: Early child development and the promotion of programmes to improve are increasingly high up on the agenda of global health organisations and funders as evidence has shown that in some settings, interventions in the first 1000 days of life can lead to huge benefits in school attainment, mental health and psychosocial outcomes at later stages in life. For children with visual impairment, a body of evidence demonstrates how lack of developmental stimulation can lead to poor attainment of milestones in children who might otherwise progress well. Training packs have been created for the use of families in the UK to stimulate development in these children but the packs are detailed and complicated for local workers. Our recent innovative research has harnessed the WHO/UNICEF training tools for early child development. We have used a mixed methods feasibility study to adapt and pilot the use of these training tools to support early play and communication for children with visual impairment in an African setting.

About the speakers: Dr. Melissa Gladstone is a Senior Lecturer in Neurodevelopmental Paediatrics and International Child Health from the Department of Women and Children’s Health, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool. She works as a clinician as well as a researcher with a focus on interventions to improve outcomes for children and families with developmental delay and disability in low resource settings.

This project was funded through Sightsavers Innovation Fund

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