Four-year-old Ksenia has congenital cataracts and glaucoma in both eyes and is registered blind. It is a huge shock for parents when they find their child has a visual impairment and for Ksenia's mother, Kristina, it has been a tough time. Attending Dorton House Nursery in Kent, however, has been a 'life-changing' experience for both mother and daughter (see box).
The nursery is one of just a handful in the country that caters specifically for blind and partially sighted young children. Kristina describes it 'like a door opening to a new world' and adds, 'Children with a visual impairment are so vulnerable, so the nursery is so important. It's difficult to put into words how much it means. It's changed all of our lives.'
INSIDE THE SETTING
Dorton House Nursery, in Sevenoaks, was set up over 20 years ago by the Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB) and supports visually impaired children between the ages of two and five. The nursery is registered for 20 children but there are no more than six children in each session. Ofsted inspectors rated the setting 'outstanding' in their visits in 2007 and 2010.
In 1996, the nursery moved into a property purpose built for children with visual impairments. The rooms have deliberately been decorated in high-contrast colours. The corridors have dark carpets and cream walls and the doors are blue with a white surround. There are two sensory rooms; one is dark, the other light.
The dark room has a UV light on the ceiling causing the toys in the room to glow bright white or with neon yellows, pinks and greens. 'This high contrast helps to strengthen and stimulate residual vision and it is vital to do this in the early years as eyesight is still refining up to the age of seven,' explains Maggie Bindon, who has been managing the nursery for the past ten years. The light room has bubble tubes and a disco ball which creates moving spots of light. There is also a tactile panel.
'Sight is the co-ordinating sense, so if you can't see and you touch something, it can be quite scary and confusing, especially if it is something fluffy without defined edges. Exploring like this, to build confidence, is essential because their sense of touch will be very important to them for the rest of their lives,' Ms Bindon adds.
STAFF
Dorton House Nursery provides a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of staff to children.
There is a team of six experienced staff, and trained volunteers also help out at the nursery. New staff have to be qualified to NVQ level 3 and they are given extra training to work with children with visual impairments. Staff also have regular top-up training.
Ofsted inspectors praised the excellent morale of the staff and Ms Bindon says, 'We all get great job satisfaction from the small steps our children take.'
SUPPORTING FAMILIES
Dorton House runs a regular drop-in session for parents with children under the age of two. Children may be referred by portage workers or parents may hear about the nursery from other families. 'We do have a formal induction for all our families when they start but they are generally very familiar with the setting and staff from attending drop-in sessions,' says Ms Bindon.
Support for parents of visually impaired children is vital and there is a family room where parents can relax after dropping off their child. 'We have had parents who have pushed the chairs together and caught up on some sleep. One parent used to catch up on her ironing. The room has armchairs and an area for parents to make tea and coffee,' Ms Bindon explains.
'It may be the first time they have met a blind person and they often don't know what to do next. A mum came to see us and said, "I don't think my baby likes me", as her baby couldn't make eye contact and lay in the cot very still or would cry when she picked her up. We explained to her that a blind baby often lies very still because it is listening and that if she talked to her baby and touched her gently first, she would not get a shock when she was picked up. Once she knew that, the mum was much happier and she and her baby are now very close,' reveals Ms Bindon.
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
The RLSB aspires to ensuring 'life without limits for blind young people' and Dorton House Nursery plays a crucial role, according to Ms Bindon, who says, 'The earlier the intervention, the better the outcome.'
According to the RLSB, 80 per cent of what we learn is through using our vision. Sighted children learn through copying so this can present huge problems for visually impaired children. 'If they can't see to copy, they need to learn in a different way and early developmental milestones, such as crawling or first words, may be delayed, ' says Ms Bindon.
In order to support visually impaired children to develop, the nursery offers the children a structured day of multisensory activities.
The nursery has found cooking to be very beneficial in learning. 'This can help children who may be defensive about eating certain food as they only have the texture and smell to go on. It is all about the process; they learn by touch that flour comes in a paper bag and margarine in a plastic pot. They learn life skills and use equipment such as a rolling pin for pastry and a whisk for meringue,' says Ms Bindon.
On the campus, the RLSB also has a school and college for children with visual impairments, so it shares the on-site speech and language therapist and occupational therapist, as well as a physiotherapist.
FUNDING
Parents can claim the early years entitlement when their child turns three and before that they pay a very small amount. So, the majority of the funding to run the nursery comes from the RLSB.
The charity is launching a new fundraising campaign in June as it wants to expand the nursery and do outreach work. Craig Linton, head of fundraising at the RLSB. says, 'We are running a campaign called Little Heroes where we plan to raise £100,000 in 100 days. We want as many children as possible to benefit from early intervention.'
CASE STUDIES
KSENIA
Four-year-old Ksenia has been attending Dorton House Nursery since September 2010. She has congenital cataracts and glaucoma in both her eyes and is registered blind.
'As the parents of a child with visual impairment, we were naturally protective and cautious as many other professionals we had met did not know how to help us. But then we came to the nursery and met Maggie. It's changed all of our lives,' says Ksenia's mother, Kristina.
One of the teachers at Dorton house helped them realise that Ksenia has tunnel vision. 'It was like a breakthrough,' says her mum.
Since attending the nursery, she has made 'such progress'.
'She plays with toys now. She was never interested before. She can now recognise things; she will pick up a tiny coin and look closely at it, feel the surfaces of the coin and play with it. It's almost as if she is rushing to catch up with all the things she can learn now - it's incredible how fast she's started to learn.
'Her language developed straight away - she now sings "Row, row, row the boat" at home. If someone had told me Ksenia would make this much progress, I wouldn't have believed it.'
CAITLYN
Three-year-old Caitlyn was born at just 26 weeks. She spent nine weeks in Kings College Hospital, London, mostly on a ventilator. She had complications and suffered a haemorrhage which has affected part of her brain.
Recently tests have shown that she has left hemianopia, which means she cannot see out of the left side of each eye. She cannot see through her complete visual field and needs to tip her head in the right position to see anything completely. She started at the nursery in September 2011.
Since attending Dorton House, her confidence has grown and she is using her vision better.
'When she first started she would get so tired that she would fall asleep,' says Caitlyn's mum, Gina. Now she doesn't want to miss anything. She couldn't walk on her own at first. Now she uses a walker to walk by herself between rooms and down the corridor in the nursery. Her social skills have grown and she is happy to be among her peers.'
