Visual assessment in multidisabled infants

The importance of an early visual assessment during infancy is due to the main role of vision in comprehensive development and to the correlation between early rehabilitative intervention and progress in visual function. More than 50% of children with low vision have also other impairments, therefore the visual assessment requires a multidisciplinary approach. Here we propose for discussion and comparison a detailed protocol we use at the Robert Hollman Foundation for multi-disabled infants from birth to 3 years old. This protocol is functional-diagnostic with the aim of individuating visually impaired children to give them the chance to start an early rehabilitation programme. It is composed by a diagnostic neuropthalmological assessment, which is done at the Centro Regionale per Ipovisione of Padua Hospital, and by a functional/rehabilitative assessment, which is done at the Robert Hollman Foundation. Particular importance is given to create the comprehensive conditions to enable the child to give his/her best performance during the assessment. In fact it has already been shown how the environmental conditions and the kind of stimuli are determinant in permitting an accurate evaluation of the visual situation of the infant. Moreover, in multi-disabled children, aspects like postural and non-verbal signs become fundamental in the visual assessment.