Communication between mother and her visually imapired child

Communication between mother and child has a significant impact on the development of children's language skills. Blindness or visual impairment limits access to information from the environment, which may have a negative impact on the development of communication between mother and child. In my master's thesis I focused on how the communication between mother and child alters due to visual impairment. In the theoretical part I introduced the importance of visual input in communication and then continued with introduction of prelinguistic and linguistic communication. I devoted a special chapter to the characteristics of communication between mother and child with speech difficulties and to differences in communication depending on the degree of vision loss. These two topics are also what I discuss about in the empirical part. For research purposes, I interviewed four mothers of children that are visually impaired with and without any other associated disorders. In my research I examined communication between mothers and their children with visual disabilities in general (gestures, assertiveness, responsiveness, communication skills, etc.). I also wanted to find out what mothers consider as effective strategies and ways of establishing a successful interaction and if they have received any guidance in this area. I tried to highlight the differences in communication depending on the child's degree of vision loss. The results showed that mothers are generally more responsive to the child's communication signs, may they be verbal or non-verbal. Mothers are also more attentive to child's interests when it comes to establishing interaction. They believe that their own style of interaction has not dramatically changed because of visual impairment, neither have they received any guidance in this area in the context of early treatment. As the most important strategy for establishing effective communication, mothers stated adaptation to the interests and moods of the child. Other strategies varied and depended on the mother's experience of the mother-child interaction. The leaflet, designed and based on studied scientific literature and the results of the survey, will offer mothers some guidelines for establishing a successful communication with their visually impaired child