Martien Rienstra

What is your role within the Academic Collaborative Centre related to people with PIMD?
As a junior researcher, I am looking for the effects of the Active Learning intervention. Active Learning focuses on people who seek little physical contact with objects in their immediate environment. By offering specific guidance and by making the immediate environment stimulating, we expect that these people will become more activated and increase their exploratory behaviour. Is that indeed the case, and what are the active elements that play a role in this? In addition, I work as an occupational therapist at Koninklijke Visio, a specialised centre for people with a visual impairment. Here I support children and adults with a (severe) mental and visual disability. I focus on stimulating vision and the other senses and adapting the environment to make their world more comprehensib

What do you hope to achieve?
It is important to me that scientific research actually makes a difference. I notice that in practice, people are insufficiently aware of scientific developments, which means that not enough use is being made of new instruments and findings. And conversely, I see that some research projects are too far removed from day-to-day practice. I would love to see the two brought closer together here at the ACC-PIMD. And I hope that the work we do here will help to focus attention on our target group.