Most local Education Departments have teachers specialised in working with children with visual and/or hearing impairments. For children with severe learning difficulties, physical disabilities and hearing and/or visual impairments, more specialised advice and assessment is available through SENSE (www.sense.org.uk) and the RNIB (www.rnib.org.uk).

Using reflective toys and illuminating toys in a darkened room, can assist children to use the residual vision they have. Children need to learn to fixate on objects and to track/scan horizontally, vertically and in a circular movement. Some children with particular visual impairments may only be able to use peripheral vision to see a toy in a particular position, which will limit their interaction with it, if they also have physical disabilities and require supportive positioning.

Children with visual impairment will be delayed in developing their fine and gross motor skills, even if they have no additional cognitive, physical or sensory impairments. Toys can be used to motivate them to explore their environment and develop independent mobility. Children with hearing impairments will have varying levels of residual hearing and respond to different tones/types sounds, so a variety of sound making toys should be tried and their response noted.

The size of the room and wall, ceiling and floor surfaces in a room will affect the quality of the sounds heard by a hearing impaired child. Echoes may be confusing for children with additional visual and learning disabilities. A small room with soft furnishings and carpet will allow the child to localise the sounds from toys. Only toys with plastic mirrored surfaces should be used with children, even though the quality of the reflected image is less clear than with a glass mirror.

You may want to consider the following:

• if the sand/water tray is too deep, the top rim will be too high for small children to get their arms over to play from a sitting position, with their knees underneath the bottom of the tray
• a sand/water tray with built in moulded play activities may not be useful/accessible for children with limited hand skills and upper limb/shoulder movements
• a tabletop lid is useful to enable the sand/water tray to be used as a worksurface at other time.

These are often known as SNOEZELEN environments, or white rooms. They are usually a customised room or area fitted with floor mats/cushions/beds and computerised and automated lighting and music and aroma systems etc. of varying complexity. They are used primarily with children and adults with learning disabilities although they often have a calming and relaxing effect on the parents or staff who assist them!

Simple switch operation is available for most of the individual pieces of multi-sensory equipment e.g. bubble tubes, fibre optic lights and vibrating mattresses etc. This allows the child to alter the environment to suit his taste or mood and to have individual control over the sensations he receives.

These are used to stimulate the concept of action and reaction, and to encourage the repetition of an action/vocalisation/movement etc. with children who have severe learning disabilities and/or sensory impairments and/or physical disabilities.

The movements involved are simple; the concepts are basic and the rewards are sensory e.g. lights, sound, aroma, vibration or air-singly or in combinations of sensations. Some of the toys can be operated by simple to operate switches for children with severely limited movements, using their hand/foot/head/chin or suck or blow. For bright children with severe physical disabilities, these toys will quickly become boring, but can be used initially to teach the use of switches, which can be used later to operate more complex communication aids, computerised toys and powered wheelchairs.

About us Our partners Terms & conditions Jobs at Youreable designed by