Assessment of social communication in children with visual impairment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development and validation of a new instrument and assessment protocol for assessing social communication/ autism in young children with severe visual impairment (DAiSY Project). This project will also be known as Development and assessment of social interaction for children with visual impairment (DAiSY project) for purposes of participant friendly language and also for maintaining the scientific integrity of the project with parents.
IRAS ID
196339
Contact name
Naomi J Dale
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 20 days
Research summary
Young children with profound or severe visual impairment have a high risk of developing difficulties in social communication and interacting with others and behaviour problems. If left untreated, these early difficulties may lead to long term autism problems, causing significant child problems as well as a high challenge and burden for their parents. There is an urgent need for a valid way of identifying these difficulties so that the appropriate support and intervention can be put in place. Current assessment methods and tools are not suitable as they are designed for sighted children. This project will develop a novel scientific designed clinical assessment procedure including a new assessment measurement tool, the ‘Visual Impairment Social Communication Observation Schedule’ (VISCOS). 100 children with profound or severe visual impairment, aged 4-7 years, will be assessed in their cognition, language and then video’d undertaking novel standard tasks in social communication, play and behaviour. The videos of the social communication, play and behaviour will be coded by an expert rater using the VISCOS and independently by experienced clinicians. The clinician ratings will be used to check that the VISCOS is a reliable new assessment tool and is ‘fit for purpose’. A second part of the study compares the children’s scores on the VISCOS with their earlier performance on similar play based activities at 2 and 3 years of age (which has been previously collected). This will lead to establishing the earliest age in which significant social communication difficulties or risk for autism can be accurately identified. The findings of the project will provide the new assessment procedure and tool for enabling us to identify social communicative difficulties and safe and accurate diagnosis of autism in young children with visual impairment, thereby ensuring that they have access to the earliest and most effective support and intervention.
REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0378
Date of REC Opinion
3 May 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion