“I truly admire the parents who all manage to do such a wonderful job of raising a child with specific problems in a suitable and inventive manner. The primary aim of this book is to make it easier for them”.
This is what I – Marjolein Dik (Amsterdam,1947) - write in my reference book for parents with blind and visually impaired young children “Babies and toddlers with a visual dysfunction”. Look for further details on this site.From 1980 until retirement I have been employed with Royal Dutch Visio, an institute for the care, education and rehabilitation of visually impaired and blind people. Together with colleques I have developed the early intervention work for visually impaired and blind young children and their parents. Advising children and youngsters with visual impairments respectively their parents, teachers and consultants during the schoolage years has also been my job for many years. My special interest has the field of visual information processing problems due to causes in the brain. This concerns the conginetal problems in children – often called cerebral visual impairment - but also the acquired limitations in children and adults due to cerebral vasculair accidents,trauma, etc. Tactual information processing problems in the blind is another field of interest.
Education and field of experience
First I was trained as a primary school teacher (’68), after that I studied childpsychology (orthopedagogiek ‘77) at the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) in Amsterdam, followed by neuropsychology (’94). Next to my study I worked as a teacher (’68-’70) and as remedial teacher (’75). This was followed by working as an educational advisor for a number of years (’76-’80).After starting my work for Royal Dutch Visio in 1980 I got more and more interested in the psycho-social development of children and the neuropsychological backgrounds of dysfunctions and limitations.
For Royal Dutch Visio I give presentations and workshops about visual and tactual information processing problems. Furthermore I work as a consultant for the school for blind and visually impaired children in Düsseldorf (Germany) and the Odilieninstitutiton, Graz, Austria.