Impact of verbal, braille text, and tactile oral hygiene awareness instructions on oral health status of visually impaired children

Background: Visually impaired children face limitations in interacting with the environment, as they cannot see the facial expression of parents, teachers and cannot perceive social behavior. These children are challenged every day in learning basic life skills and maintenance of oral hygiene being one among them. Aim: To evaluate the impact of verbal, braille text, and tactile oral hygiene awareness instructions on oral health status of visually impaired children. Materials and Methods: One hundred and twenty institutionalized visually impaired children aged 6-16 years were selected and divided into three groups (40 children each). Group I: Verbal and tactile, Group II: Verbal and braille, Group III: Verbal, braille, and tactile. Instructions regarding maintenance of good oral hygiene and brushing technique were explained to all the children, and oral health status of these children using plaque index (Silness and Loe) and gingival index (Loe and Silness) was evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 months interval. Statistical Analysis: ANOVA test was used to analyze the intra- and inter-group comparisons and Tukey post-hoc test for multiple group comparisons. Results: Children in all the groups showed reduction in plaque and gingival scores. There was the highest percentage of reduction in plaque scores in Group III (70.6%), and the decrease in gingival scores was the highest in Group II (84%). Conclusion: Severity of dental plaque and gingivitis in visually impaired individuals can be reduced by a controlled and supervised educational program. The combination of all three, i.e., verbal, braille, and tactile mode of oral health educational aids proved to be effective.