The effect of a holistic intervention for children with colour vision deficiency

Abstract

Limited research has been conducted on the impact of colour vision deficiency (CVD) on the lives of individuals, and how such individuals can be supported to address the challenges they face. Against this background, the purpose of my study was to explore and describe how children with CVD can be supported through a holistic intervention, implemented with four children with CVD and their parents. The conceptual framework is based on an ecological model for health promotion (McLeroy et al., 1988), the holistic policy and intervention framework for global mental health (Khenti et al., 2016) and Theron’s (2018) transactional pathways to resilience, specifically, the connect&dream&do mechanisms. I followed a qualitatively driven mixed-methods approach, being guided by social constructivism, implemented an in-depth case study design and purposefully and conveniently sampled the participants. I relied on PRA-guided sessions with the child-participants, online semi-structured interviews with the parent-participants, observation, field notes and a reflexive journal to generate and document qualitative data. In support, quantitative data was collected using the Beck Youth Inventories both prior to and after implementation of the holistic intervention to compare the functioning of the child-participants on emotional and social levels to determine the effect of the intervention. These data sets were informed by selected projective instruments that generated qualitative data. For data analysis, I completed reflexive thematic analysis of the qualitative data and utilised descriptive statistics for the quantitative data. The holistic intervention consisted of a resilience-enabling intervention for the child-participants, presented over the course of a year, and a parent guidance intervention, delivered over 14 weeks. The findings indicate that children with CVD face a range of challenges that can negatively impact their academic, emotional and social functioning, and that they typically receive minimal support in school, but that they were positively influenced by the holistic intervention. I can accordingly conclude that the intervention supported the overall functioning of the children with CVD through the fostering of resilience-enabling skills. In addition to contributing to existing theory in the field of CVD, my study should raise awareness among parents and teachers of the lived experiences of children with CVD and how others can accommodate and support them more effectively. The findings may subsequently guide teachers to create an inclusive educational environment where these children are accommodated whilst being supported by their families at home.