Carlijn Veldhorst

Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study Children with Vision Impairments (PLoCC-VI)


Various studies indicated that, as a group, children with vision impairments (VI) exhibit delays and sometimes setbacks in their development. For example, they may show delays in social communication, play, language and joint attention. In addition, several researchers report that children with VI regularly exhibit aspects of autism spectrum disorder. These disabilities can make the participation of children more difficult. However, individual variation and causal relations are largely unknown. Therefore, we propose a new descriptive, longitudinal study: Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study Children with Vision Impairments (PloCC-VI). For this study the family of Participation Related Constructs (fPRC) is used as a framework to guide the project. The framework focuses on participation, which is influenced by and influences preferences, sense of self, activity competence and environment of the child with VI and its family.  We will monitor the development regarding these factors of babies and teenagers with VI in order to gain more insight into their developmental course and important factors within it. fPRC provides the opportunity to examine participation from a broad perspective. In PLoCC-VI we are interested in the individual differences within our specific group. Our aim is to provide the fPRC with empirical data.

With studying questions based on literature and practice, the project aims to provide professionals with necessary knowledge to set up early counselling. Besides, the results of the project can provide interventions with a good scientific basis that enables individual alignment of the assistance.