When vision is unreliable: the role of play in supporting children

Play holds an important and irreplaceable role in children’s lives and development as it allows children to learn essential skills varying in nature and difficulty such as reading, arithmetic, and social skills (e.g., Yogman et al., 2018). Children with neurodivergent conditions such as blindness, color vision deficiency (CVD), cortical visual impairment (CVI), and developmental dyslexia (DD) are unable to take advantage of their vision, a vital sense for navigating through the environment designed by and for typically developing (TD) individuals. These children are often not provided with tools and activities sufficient to learn and live at ease along with their peers. When they are in hospitals and other clinical settings, the struggles can be further amplified. This chapter discusses how these conditions affect young children, and introduces various playful learning activities and interventions that can assist their social and cognitive development.