TABLE 1.

Re-habilitation activities performed according to developmental age (0–3 years old, 3–6 years old, and 6–11 years old) and perceptual and cognitive domains.

Age	Developmental goal	Re-habilitation activities
0–3	Functional vision and multisensoriality Promotion of body awareness and functional use of sensory modalities	• Visual environmental adaptations (e.g., setting with highly contrasting colors and illuminated objects) • Multimodal inputs (objects with emphasized visual, tactile and sonorous features, such as balls with a bell inside, drums, soft puppets made of different cloths)
	Socio-emotional cognition Promotion of parent–child relationship, communication, functional use of language and reduction of stereotyped behaviors, motivation to explore the external world	• Creation of a play environment with the parent who acts as a “mediator” in all the activities • Games based on physical contact and vocal communication to recognize emotions • Tactile exploration of the parent’s face (discrimination and identification of the different parts, also through residual vision) • Interactive games with the parents (e.g., the child and the parent/therapist have to exchange an object after naming it; the parent/therapist presents objects by using alternative sensory channels (sound and touch) • Symbolic play (e.g., through interactive invention of short stories, symbolic use of objects)
	Sense of self Promotion of proprioception as baseline for motor development and construction of bodily self	• Play activities in which the parent/therapist positions a vibrating or sonorous object on a visible (e.g., hand) or not visible (e.g., neck) body segment of the child and the child is asked to find and remove it • Denomination activities in which the child is asked to name the body part on which a vibrating or sonorous objcet is placed, in order to develop verbal knowledge of different body parts (the activity can become reciprocal with the child positioning the object on a parent’s body segment)
	Cognition (including spatial cognition) Promotion of sensorimotor intelligence, reach and touch on sound, object permanence, mental imagery	• Activities in which an object is only presented by sound or touch, motivating the child to reach and grasp it • Gradual exposure to different objects with integrated use of sight (if possible), touch (through bimanual exploration) and hearing: ∘ objects commonly used in everyday life ∘ objects with specific or peculiar audio-tactile characteristics ∘ bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional objects with different shape, texture, dimension, weight and presented at progressively greater distances and in different spatial positions • Games based on picture puzzles construction in which pieces are actively searched in a visually adapted environment • Exposition to spatial language
	Motor development Promotion of gross-motor (postural control and crawling, walking) and fine-motor (grasping and manipulating abilities) functions	• Perceptually adapted (visually contrasted, multisensory) and spatially organized (safe and circumscribed) environments: the play corner is characterized by sonorous-tactile elements (e.g., tactile tiles and differently textured cloth), delimited by pillows or smooth, soft furniture • Activities in which the child is motivated to reach lights/shapes/sounds on colorful panels on a wall or has to search objects guided by the voice of the parent, promoting independent exploration while keeping a distance from the caregiver
3–6	Spatial cognition and visuo-motor coordination	• Praxic-construction tasks with adapted materials (e.g., recreation of a shape by assembling the pieces in which the shape was cut, 2D and 3D puzzles, tangrams) • Block design: free and structured (i.e., from a model) assembling and deconstruction, during storytelling activities • Play activities in which the child has to place small objects in a line or create a geometrical shape • Training of spatial transformation with ego- and then allocentric frame of reference (e.g., reproduction of a configuration of objects on a board by assuming different spatial positions) • Training on opposite spatial concepts (on top of/under, tall/short, in front of/behind) applied both in relation to the child’s position and to the objects’ positions (for example, the child has to find a ringing object on his right, and then to move and stop in front of the object) • Training on visuo-spatial exploration: identify differences in the spatial layout of similar images, analyze the details in a figure, recognize different orientations of lines • Comprehension of auditory stories based on topographical information • Visual and visuo-tactile (with contrasted and embossed materials) activities with bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional objects in order to foster the development of perceptual and cognitive abilities such as: • topographical reasoning • spatial orientation • reproduction of 3D, 2D, and graphic models • Software based on visual and auditory inputs
	Pre-school abilities Promotion of visuo-cognitive skills, memory, sustained attention	• Visual and visuo-tactile (with contrasted and embossed materials) activities with bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional objects in order to foster the development of perceptual and cognitive abilities such as: • bimanual exploration of objects • recognition/detail analysis • semantic categorization • drawing activities
		• Auditory activities in order to reinforce mnestic and attentional skills related to sonorous stimuli in the environment: • detection (e.g., listening to sounds and then verbalizing the number of sounds) • discrimination (e.g., distinguish different sounds presented together)
		• memory (e.g., auditory memory game) • identification (e.g., listening to a sequence of sounds or words and verbalize the listening order) • Material adaptations (highly contrasted paper sheets, with well-defined margins and tactile references to help spatial organization of the sheet)
	Mobility and personal autonomy Promotion of the ability to move around and be autonomous in everyday routines to improve social inclusion	• Environmental adaptations (in the training setting, at home, at school, if possible) • Motor activities based on tactile and/or sonorous references to improve walking fluidity and speed • Motor training based on identification of position landmarks in a natural environment and construction of the first cognitive maps • Introduction of self-protection techniques (pre-cane) and use of external reference points to orient in novel environments (e.g., windows, lights, and doors) • Promotion of music and sports with peers
6–11	Haptic and visuo-cognitive skills Promotion of visuo-tactile integration, tactile discrimination	• Activities with the use of tiflologic cards with embossed spacing and the use of an awl to train the ability to organize points in the space and pursue a gradual exposure to Braille code
	Spatial cognition Promotion of the ability to switch from egocentric to allocentric frames of reference in different contexts	• Prosecution of the activities described for age 3-6 with progressively more complex activities and requests • Spatial and topological organization tasks • Visual-spatial training with exercises based on translations, rotations, overturning of geometric and plane figures
	Learning abilities Promotion of school inclusion and learning	• Environmental adaptations (illumination, first-line lifted desk, and bookrest) • Adapted materials integrating visual and tactile features: graphic cards with enlarged numbers and letters, high target-background contrast, thick margins • Specific cross-modal software for reading and writing (e.g., training of decoding abilities, accuracy, and speed through tachistoscopic presentation of single words and timed reading of brief texts) • Specific cross-modal software for calculation, geometry, auditory attention and memory (e.g., sound detection, discrimination and identification activities, auditory memory games, listening to texts followed by a quiz on the text content) • Provision and training of low vision aids: ∘ digital audio-books ∘ computer screen reading software ∘ tablets computer-based Assistive Technologies (with applications such as screen magnifiers, optical character recognition and text-to-speech conversion) • Teaching of braille code • Compensatory tools (personalized reading and writing materials, such as notebooks with embossed margins and spacing, textbooks with clear and dimensionally adapted letters and line-spacing) • Dispensatory strategies (avoid copying from blackboard, use of capital letters only)
	Mobility, personal autonomy, and social inclusion Promotion of the ability to move indoor and outdoor and acquisition of personal autonomy and activities with peers	• Training in the use of self-protection techniques (introduction of white cane) • Map design: training in the memorization of previously performed routes which are verbalized and then redesigned on a rubber surface with an awl • Training in adaptive abilities for everyday life (e.g., to get dressed properly, to prepare school backpack, to use a phone…) in order to spend more time at school and/or with peers • Promotion of music and sports with peers