VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 4
their crucial role in the laying the foundation on which these skills are built—
through immersion in a safe environment in which children are encouraged to
participate, make mistakes, accept feedback, self-advocate, engage with others, and
increasingly demonstrate emerging skills in more complex natural contexts.
Parents will need support not just when their children are young, but throughout
the formative years. Helping the adults who live and work with children who are
blind and who have low vision to realize that the development of most ECC skills
occurs not so much through teaching, but rather through an evolutionary process
that involves the thoughtful presentation of opportunities, guided hands-on
experiences, repeated practice, fading of prompts, and increasing expectations for
independence will be key to our work in laying the foundation for later success.
Research, too, will be important to our collective action. Because the skills
that make up the ECC are interrelated and evolve over time, there are challenges to
conducting research on them. In reality, the ECC is a construct for which no
directly observable empirical evidence is possible. Researchers are going to have
to use complex research designs to demonstrate efficacy of innovative programs
and practices. It will be necessary for researchers to carefully define participants,
variables, and outcomes if we are to learn which components of the ECC must be
stressed at which time in the lives of young people with visual impairment and
their families. The kind of research that will be most valuable—single case and
