Abstract
Children with vision impairment may experience a number of educational and social-emotional challenges within the school setting. Whilst not all school psychologists will work with children with a vision impairment, it is important that they are knowledgeable about issues related to the assessment and support available to students and families. Functional vision assessment is used to evaluate medical/visual, psychological and environmental factors. It is crucial in educational planning and will be reviewed. Considerations and modifications to traditional, standardised tests for evaluating the cognitive abilities of children with vision impairment are reviewed. Finally, an understanding of the various degrees of the impact of a vision impairment on the behaviour and social and emotional difficulties of children with vision impairment will be reviewed and linked to school-based intervention.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the significant earlier contribution by Geoff Bowen, psychologist, Statewide Vision Resource Centre, Melbourne, Australia, in the initial writing of this chapter.
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Bracher, G.L., Matta, A. (2017). School Psychological Practice with Vision-Impaired Students. In: Thielking, M., Terjesen, M. (eds) Handbook of Australian School Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45166-4_33
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