Melissa Hobson highlights some of the extra challenges which families with a vision impaired (VI) child are facing.
The evidence is clear—families with a vision impaired child face many additional hidden costs to meet their child’s needs, and the cost of living crisis is only exacerbating the impact on family budgets.
Families with visually impaired children attend more medical appointments than families with children in the general population, and many have to take their visually impaired child to at least one medical appointment each month. If the child has chorioretinopathy, the lights will be kept on more even during the day when it’s overcast, adding significantly to their energy bills.Â
Research by Guide Dogs has found that most families with a visually impaired child are having difficulty making ends meet, and 80% say they had less disposable income than they did a year ago, compared with 63% of the general population.
Many of the additional financial costs that families are facing come from systems that are not supporting and including children with a vision impairment in the way they should.