Pre-school visually impaired children: visual stimulation and micro-computers

Summary A justification is offered for using micro‐computers and specially‐designed programs with severely visually impaired pre‐school children. It is argued that this technology optimizes the visual environment for the child and provides immediate feedback about the correctness of his responses to the stimuli displayed on the screen. Some of the problems encountered in such use are described, with examples taken from sessions in which teachers are working with children as young as 2 years of age, using teaching/learning sequences designed to promote and exercise visual perception skills. Among the issues addressed are the nature of the language interactions between child and adult, the effects of altering the complexity of the tasks, and the possible value of formal task analysis as a means of enabling the teacher to pinpoint critical stages in the learning process.