Skiing with a Visual Impairment at Hemel Hempstead & Snowbility

Sonny is 9 years old and has a rare genetic visual impairment called Congentila Fibrosis CFEOM. This means that he is only able to see out of one eye at a time, has no properly functioning eye muscles, resulting in his eyes not moving, and his lids are also half- closed, only adding to his vision difficulties.

Sonny attends a main stream school and like all his friends wants to excel at sport.

Visually Impaired Skiing in La Plagne

Helen and her children on their first family ski holiday in France (Helen is registered blind but used to ski race some years ago and her children have high functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

“Thank you so much for arranging so many aspects of our holiday. It was certainly a tough one. Thank you for being a support at this time, and sorry for any stress that I caused you.

It was an enormous delight to see my children enjoying skiing so much and an added bonus that they did it so well. I’m sure at this rate it will not be many years before they will be pushing us to go faster!! It was very thought provoking with the mixed emotions seeing Kathryn in particular being taught so specifically that she was able to achieve such a high standard, being reminded of how able she is and that this is possible. If only she could have this enjoyment with school work and other activities that I know she could do well in and enjoy without it being such hard work and a negative experience. I know that it is with her special needs that the teaching needs to be so specific.”

David’s comments about the holiday – “Really, really good. (taken from David’s diary day 1) …first time ever skiing! Already on a big slope! And his sister Kathryn says “really enjoyed, skiing really fast – skiing is like a roller-coaster”.