Nature that Won't Nurture: How Ideology Can Thwart Early Intervention for Young Children with Vision Loss and the Response That's Needed

Imagine this scenario: A husband and wife, both blind, have twin daughters who are also visually impaired. While the girls were still toddlers, the parents decided to build on their own care and love for children and their own experiences with appropriate learning environments by founding a small community-based early childhood program for very young children with vision loss. The parents first got the idea to open such a program when a few other parents with kids who are blind asked if they could see how the twins played, the kinds of games or exercises that the parents did with them, or to simply let their children spend some time together with the twins. "Something magical happens when these precious little girls get to explore the wide world around them on relative terms of equality with friends who are like them," says the mother of the twin gifts. "We wanted to share the joy we found in seeing what a difference the right environment can make for kids with as many families as possible." By the way, this scenario isn't completely hypothetical. In evaluating this program, don't allow yourself to be unnecessarily sidetracked by nagging questions that can be dispensed with right away. Yes, this literally mom-and-pop program does rely on the expertise of professionals who know how to work with very young children with vision loss. Yes, the program meets all appropriate state and local requirements for operating such a center. No, the program doesn't exclude children with vision loss who may also have other disabilities. And, no, although the program tries to be innovative, it doesn't "experiment" on kids with techniques and approaches that aren't in the mainstream. The center, which has expanded to provide both early intervention and preschool services, receives high praise from every sector of consumer and professional communities both within and outside the field of vision loss. So, it would be safe to assume that everyone loves the program, right? Not on your life. For some time now, the federal special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has required early childhood intervention services to be provided in so-called natural environments. Although the concept of a "natural environment" has never been adequately defined in regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education, it is generally understood to mean that services must be provided in settings that also include children without disabilities. Yes, early intervention services can be provided in the home, but, generally speaking, services provided to children in center-based programs that are tailored to the needs of children with specific disabilities are not considered to be natural environments under IDEA. Yes, it is true that the law does make an exception to the overall mandate to provide services in natural environments. However, to justify a child's receipt of services at a center like the one described earlier, a successful argument must be made that appropriate services cannot be provided satisfactorily elsewhere. The question is, who gets to determine whether the services are appropriate or can be provided satisfactorily? The short, yet somewhat technical answer, is that the Individual Family Service Plan team (the group of parents and professionals and others who get together to set up a plan for the delivery of early intervention services for a child in accordance with IDEA) is supposed to make the determination that services can't be offered satisfactorily in the home or in other natural environments. However, if these teams meet at all, how frequently do you think they include professionals with training in the needs of blind or visually impaired infants and toddlers? How often do you think parents are fully aware of the range of possible services, let alone the places at which they are offered, that meet their child's needs? And, the most salient question of all, Why must it be presupposed that an environment in which children with the same kind of disability play and learn together is somehow inferior to one in which services aren't tailor-made for them? …