Implementation and effectiveness of a home-based early intervention program for blind infants and preschoolers

This article presents results from a comprehensive evaluation of a home-based early intervention project for congenitally blind young children. Five full-term and five preterm blind children, who had a mean age of 12 months at the beginning of the project, were visited at home with their families every 2 weeks over a 2-year period. Results showed that an individualized, handicap-specific early intervention using different types of parent involvement (cotherapist, parent counseling) could be implemented successfully. Compared with controls, developmental test data from the ages of 12 to 36 months showed an accelerating impact on the full-term children. However, no intervention effects could be found in the preterm children. This finding was mainly due to methodological limitations (e.g., selection bias). The best results among full-term children were found on blindness-specific scales (e.g., orientation and mobility). It is concluded that the outcomes in full-term children confirm the success of this type of early intervention.