impaired newborn and caregiver, soon the caregiver will need some training in how to connect
with his/her child.
Ideally, the parent will be connected with
early intervention services at birth, so that a TVI
or early interventionist can begin to facilitate the
training early on. As with most service programs,
there is often a period of time dedicated to paperwork and scheduling before service can begin.
There is also understandably a lot on the plate of
the new parent, as s/he will be caring for a newborn, scheduling appointments and therapies for
this and any other medical needs of the newborn,
caring for any other children, and possibly working outside the home. All of these responsibilities
can cause delays in the parent contacting the
agency.
Once the TVI or interventionist is able to
meet with the family, how does s/he prioritize instruction and deliver it in a way that is not overbearing? The TVI needs to be sensitive to several
issues here, including parental grief process and
parental priorities. First, parents may mourn the
loss of the "perfect" child they imagined, mourn
the difficulties they anticipate for their child, or
any combination of the two. Some parents may
not be ready to accept that their child will be a
tactile learner in our visual world leading to a rejection of learning about techniques or tools that
are "for blind people." Even if the family has accepted their baby's visual prognosis, they may
state different priorities for their intervention sessions. In reading about experiences of other parents, a mother of a visually impaired infant only
wanted to talk about "the story of Juan's birth, her
experiences in the NICU, and Juan's
'stubbornness'" (Lappin & Kretschmer, 2005, p.
363). The mother was taught infant massage
techniques, but her son's visual impairment was
not discussed as a reason for the instruction.
Without being taught as "something for blind ba-
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