Several reasons led to the establishment of the VI and Autism Project.
A lack of knowledge and skills
Although the dual disability of visual impairment and autism is of extremely low incidence, it has a very high impact on the children concerned, as well as their families and those who provide them with services.
Unfortunately, the needs of children who have both visual impairment and autism are not well understood. There are few publications which specifically address the needs of this group.
Existing practice
It is not clear what constitutes good practice for children who have both visual impairment and autism. Thus, individual practitioners are left to develop their own practice, which often appears to rely on anecdotal reports from colleagues and on intuition.
Anecdotes, however, are often unhelpful, as they lack detail and fail to indicate why something has worked or failed to work.
Furthermore, intuition is misleading when dealing with autism. In order to meet the needs of a child who has both visual impairment and autism, it is important to interpret that individual's behaviour. Doing so requires an understanding of autism as well as visual impairment.
Many staff working with visually impaired children have an excellent understanding of visual impairment. They can therefore interpret the behaviour of a child with visual impairment and autism from the visual impairment perspective.
Fewer such staff, however, have experience of working with sighted autistic children, making it difficult for them to interpret the same child's behaviour from the autism perspective.