JONAED

In most special schools for the blind, children read by means of Braille irrespective of the status of their residual vision. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of low vision aids on the reading comprehension of children with low vision. A quasi-experimental design was adopted for the research. Twelve children with low vision (9 congenitally and 3 adventitiously blindaged11 – 15)were purposively assigned equally to experimental and control groups. Reading Comprehension Test (RCT) was used as pre-test / post-test (r.95) while the Low Vision Aids Programme (LVAP) was used as intervention with the experimental group. Four research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The treatment lasted for six weeks. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were used to answer and test the research questions and hypotheses respectively. The results showed that the pre-test maximum number of letters read was 7 while post – test results showed that (a) the experimental group identified the 26 letters of alphabet (b) pronounced the sound of the letters correctly (c) blended the letters to form words and read short sentences (d) eight out of the twelve children said they would read by Braille and print while four (in the control group) preferred to read only by Braille mode. Age of onset of visual loss did not affect the reading level of the children. It was recommended that schools for the blind should screen and identify low vision children, introduce low vision aids and expose them to print reading so they have a choice to read by Braille or by print or by both.