Abstract
Welcome to the September issue of the BJVI. I have just finished watching the opening ceremony of the Paralympics and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacular nature of it. As I watched the athletes walking into the stadium I felt from them a strong sense of pride, self–esteem and accomplishment from them. I then thought about this coming issue and the contents within and I particularly turned my attention to the first paper by Prinquart and Pfeiffer. Having worked a lot with children and adolescents with visual impairment the issue of body image although not constant was always somewhere in the background so when this paper came into the BJVI system I was very intrigued by its findings.
The study uses a nice sample size in this type of design with 177 German adolescents with visual impairment and 531 sighted peers. Apart from investigating whether there is a difference between the body image of young people with and without visual impairment, Prinquart and Pfeiffer wanted to determine if there was a gender difference too. They found that on average adolescents with visual impairments were less satisfied with their body image than their sighted peers, however gender did play an important role in this result as female adolescents were more susceptible to body dissatisfaction than males. Interestingly enough they also found the association between being bullied and body image was stronger in adolescents with visual impairment than in their sighted peers, and again in female adolescents with visual impairment, in particular.
So let return to the image of the female visually impaired athlete coming into the stadium – how can we close the gap from what Prinquart and Pfeiffer discovered in order to enhance a more positive self-image, develop resilience and therefore inspire confidence and achievement. Intervention yes, but what kind of intervention, and how can we involve children themselves ( see the Khadka article in this issue) in developing the intervention that appears to be necessary?
The second paper by Havik, Melis-Dankers, Steyvers and Kooijman in which they looked at the concept of shared space and the problems of shared space also made me think about the Paralympics. The London Olympic park is very much a shared space environment, purpose built for both the athletes and the general public in mind with vehicles and pedestrians occupying the same space. But how much real life testing has gone into this shared space development for visually impaired persons. The concept and ideas seem intuitively one that would suit mobility and orientation demands but is this really the case? Havik and colleagues examined ten shared space environments and all areas had difficulties and problems. This is an important finding as these shared space developments have got the attention of our town planners and of our policy makers. One important accessibility problem that was present in all Shared-Space locations is the absence of kerb edges and a clearly recognizable demarcation between road parts. We see this kind of urban planning more and more frequent and so one has to agree that more research of real life situations is necessary.
It is very encouraging indeed to see more research on congenital deafblindness (CDB) coming through and again in this issue we see a very thought provoking paper from Bloeming-Wolbrink and colleagues. As you know I am actively encouraging wider participation of research and so by combining areas of research can we only then get a holistic picture of the developments and progression which then in turn will further develop our own collaborative research programmes. Bloeming-Wolbrink’s work is the first of its kind to examine the cortisol levels of CDB participants. Salivary cortisol levels are used as a biological indicator of stress. Understandably, Bloeming-Wolbrink et al hypothesised that CDB participants would deviate from participants without disabilities with respect to their cortisol curve results and thus show greater biological stress levels. They based their hypothesis on three reasons – the first was due to the effect light has on circadian rhythms and second and third reasons were due to daily life and environmental conditions. I strongly urge you all to read the results as they are not as you expect.
Driving, the ability to drive and the continued ability to drive is perhaps one of the biggest areas of debate and discussion in our field, so I am naturally drawn to any research that provides useful evidence for advising people (in this case with neovascular macular degeneration) about their ability to drive. Luckily the paper by Rathore, Oyede, Narendran and Yang does exactly that. Although the authors state that the applicability of the data should be restricted to elderly patients undergoing therapy the paper gives a clear steer for clinicians and vision testing professionals in eye departments. I hope that this paper will lead to other research with other groups as it has the potential to be extremely useful. The paper (and abstract) as you will see is presented in a typical clinical format.
One of the aims of the journal is to provide through research a clear link and support to professional work whether it is eye testing, teaching, habilitation/rehabilitation, or building shared spaces, and I hope you agree with me that this issue has done exactly that. Continuing the theme of research and professional practice the paper by Lusk shows through a single case study design, the effects of various mounting systems of near magnification on reading performance. What I would like to draw your attention to in the paper is the implication sections both for educators and low vision specialists as well as the collaborative nature of the assessment. I have to agree with Lusk that needs and preference may be task dependent and may change over time as demands change and I hope that this paper brings to the forefront the nature of assessment and the nature of prescribing such devices.
One very important area for my own research is to see children as active researchers, to hear and to listen to children and to ensure that we adopt a shared understanding. It is important that we understand the complexity of children and how each child is an interesting mix of identities and agency. By doing this our aim is surely to work with people and not to impose interventions even if we sincerely believe we are acting on the best interest of all concerned. With this in mind the study by Khadka and colleagues really interested me. Again we see how low vision devices play such an important role in children’s lives or not as this paper discovers. Perhaps linking the Lusk paper with this, could we improve the take up and use of such devices. But what was of huge interest is the finding that children and young people report that sometimes restrictions were imposed by those supporting them rather than their own abilities. Is this a case of we are not allowing children to fail or more importantly to succeed?
Finally on to Gentle’s paper about the implementation of Unified English Braille (UEB) in Australian Schools. As an editor I have to declare an interest in this. I, was at the time of Australia switching to UEB, working with Frances at the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind people and I, as I am sure Frances will testify, was very sceptical about the switch. My attitude must have been the result of some colonial throwback. However, Gentle and Howse invited me to meet as many children and young adults as I wished to talk to them to listen to their own views and opinion about UEB and switching to it. This is gladly did and after speaking to many children (there must be one child at least who shared my views……) I had to reach the same conclusion as this paper, that within the education sector there was an overall enthusiasm for UEB. The children really liked UEB. It completely changed my position and I am glad that it did. So to all of those countries considering the switch take note.
As always I thank you for your interest in the journal and may I take this opportunity that submissions should be made through the on line submission website http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjvi.