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bies," the instruction greatly improved her communication and responsiveness to Juan's cues. I
believe that this subtle modeling technique can
be a great way to bypass the emotional triggers
caused by discussion of the child's visual prognosis.
Once we have the parent on-board, we
need to start with basic communication between
caregiver and baby. Chen (1999) writes: "The absence of gaze and eye contact complicates the
caregiver's ability to monitor and respond to the
infant's attention" (p. 28). Infants with visual impairments may not respond in the way a caregiver may expect, resulting in decreased visual
attention and vocal responsiveness from the
caregiver (Chen, 1999). Throw in the fact that the
parent may be grieving the diagnosis or dealing
with post-traumatic stress after a difficult birth period, and this is a situation that can result in a
devastating outcome for the baby.
The first skill to assess with new parents of
a blind child is their ability to identify and interpret
their baby's cues. In the case of baby Juan, she
only touched him or interacted with him to address what she perceived were his physical
needs (Lappin & Kretschmer, p.365). In a situation like Juan's, there are several activities we
can model for the parents. One of these is imitation of the infant's vocalizations which results in a
validation that the baby is being heard, establishes a sense of turn-taking, and helps the baby
understand that what s/he says can elicit a behavior in response (Chen, 1996, p.10). Infants
need these types of experiences so they learn
that they can control their social environments in
order to prevent them from being passive and uninterested in their worlds (Chen, 1999, p. 38-39).
According to Chen (1996), another fun way
to promote self-determination in babies is through
predictable tactile games. I think an important
thing to stress with parents is that they can make
