ABSTRACT
Children with sensory needs constitute a heterogeneous group within which there is a wide spectrum of need and ability. This group includes children who are deaf or have a hearing impairment, children who are blind or have a visual impairment, or a combination of the two (i.e. children who are dual sensory impaired, sometimes referred to as ‘deafblind’ or ‘multisensory impaired’). The ways in which individual needs are identified and met will depend on a number of factors including the nature and type of the sensory condition and the nature of additional conditions as well as the available support structures. This chapter provides an overview of these needs with a focus on children who have a visual impairment, and considers ways in which potential barriers to learning and development can be reduced. Introductory resources relating to the needs of children with hearing impairment/deafness (Gregory et al. 1998; Power and Leigh 2004) and deaf blindness (Aitken et al. 2000; Riggio and Miles 1999) are provided in the references at the end of the chapter. A key theme running through the chapter is one of how a child with a visual impairment can be provided with opportunities to access information. This includes how the child’s learning environment can be structured to promote learning (‘access to learning’), as well as how the child can learn skills in order to independently access the world (‘learning to access’).
