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This study indicates that there are some possibilities to differentiate autism from behaviours specific for deafblindness. It also confirms the large overlap in overt behaviours between people with deafblindness and persons with autism.

Editors Keywords: visual impairment children rehabilitation review functioning participation a b s t r a c t Visual impairment in childhood often has life-long implications. To aim for the highest levels of functioning, participation, and quality of life and to ensure children's well-being, children should be entitled to the most effective rehabilitation programs. We review evidence for the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions for children with visual impairment to improve skills and behavior, thereby improving participation and quality of life as an ultimate goal. Of the 441 potentially relevant articles identified, 66 studies met our inclusion criteria (i.e., 28 randomized controlled trials, 18 nonrandomized controlled trials, and 20 before-after comparisons). The results suggest that sports camps, prescription and training in the use of low vision devices, and oral hygiene programs might be effective in improving functioning and elements of participation and quality of life in children with visual impairment. Other interventions showed mixed or negative results. The results should be interpreted with caution because of moderate to high risk of bias and suboptimal reporting. Heterogeneity of results and the use of over 50 different outcome measures prevented a meta-analysis. Future studies should focus on promising interventions for which effectiveness is still unclear (e.g., mobility, social skills), with adequately designed methodology.

Many deaf children have multiple disabilities. In this chapter the concept ‘“multiple disabilities’ disabilities” is explained. Subsequently etiology is discussed, followed by information about deafblindness, deafness and autism, and deafness and intellectual disabilities. Educational accommodations, including assessment, access to communication and language (including cochlear implantation), and curricula for deafblind children, are the subject of the remainder of this chapter.

Observation of autism in people with sensory and intellectual disabilities could differentiate people with intellectual disabilities combined with sensory impairments, who clearly had or did not have signs of ASD. People with unclear signs of ADS scored in between those two groups with regard to their OASID scores. Psychometric properties of OASID are promising.