Abstract
Welcome to this month’s issue of the British Journal of Visual Impairment (BJVI). First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our guest editor Dr Feeney (and of course the authors) for putting together such an interesting collection of articles, BJVI, January 2014, around aesthetics, beauty, and aesthetic theory and visual impairment, and by doing so, we hope that the journal has made a further contribution to the field and has also widened our notions of interdisciplinary learning.
The concepts of interdisciplinary working and interdisciplinary learning are two themes that I have highlighted and stressed within the editorials. Again, I am very pleased to have in this issue a broad range of nine articles that promote these two themes, and one of the most interesting aspects of being an editor is that the articles that are submitted for publication are incredibly diverse. Not only do we see contributions from Germany, India, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Australia, but we see research topics ranging from the development of an observational coding system for measuring sustained interaction in adults with deaf blindness to being alert of nutritional factors. We then see in this edition a group of articles on topics which I believe have had very low representation/exposure in this journal, but which are becoming more predominant in the research literature as a whole. This is where interdisciplinary learning can play a role, for I think that we can, as social researchers, play a leading role in developing research methodologies for research around worry, mindfulness, and the proprioception. And this is apparent in the article by Molden who identified some very interesting themes around parenthood. Anyone who knows the archive and history of the BJVI will know that it has grown from a large collection of articles about children and education. I am particularly glad that this area has attracted more research of late. This important thematic area must not be forgotten by academic researchers as they pursue larger grant opportunities sometimes at the expense of important social science research themes. It is critical that our understanding of education, or housing, poverty, welfare, and employment, to name a few areas, is driven by good research so that our professional practitioners are working from an informed research-led base. With this in mind, I welcome two teacher education articles that are in this issue as well as the re-introduction of a practice report regarding self-assessment. Dissemination of good and best practices is important, and this journal is a medium to report on innovative developments in areas such as teaching methods, curriculum development, or provision.
In this issue, I have selected articles that I hope will inspire response articles, this is something that we do not see a lot of in the BJVI, and as editor, I do ask that you also consider responding to or commenting on them.
The first article led by Marleen Janssen explores a new coding system to measure sustained integration from video recordings but only using two observation categories – turns and interaction breakdowns. It will be interesting to see if this approach is taken up and used within other research.
The second article led by Rebekah Stevens designed and administered a questionnaire to 158 participants where the sample mean age was 79 years. She investigated the participants’ knowledge on their own diet. There are some very interesting findings in the article – again we see a lack of participants being registered on the visual impairment register despite Stevens reporting 47% participants having wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). I also thought the finding in relation to the diet of participants living alone was quite interesting and how support needs to take this into account.
The third article led by Martin Pinquart is a very interesting article that examines worry in adolescents. A total of 162 participants with visual impairment (from Germany) took part in the study, which also had a comparison non-visually impaired group. It is interesting to see the development of the 17-item-led questionnaire reported in the article as well as the use of the standard Penn State Worry Questionnaire. Without giving too much of the article away regarding the degree of visual loss and worry, it does appear that what concerns most adolescents with visual impairment also concerned sighted adolescents; I will let you discover what that is. I do have to report that the article finds a very interesting result in that adolescents with visual impairment reported, on average, lower levels of worry than those without visual impairment.
An exploratory study led by Lorna Marquès-Brocksopp into mindfulness, spiritual well-being, and visual impairment is the article in this issue. Mindfulness I think is one of those areas that does have a growing body of evidence around it, but very little seems to exist which considers mindfulness and visual impairment. It is therefore encouraging to see these articles coming forward. Using semi-structured interviews (8 face-to-face interviews were conducted). Looking at the analysis of the interviews, the nine subordinate themes identified are very interesting and appear to be themes that are applicable to a wide range of professionals who support adults with visual impairment.
Following on from this article is the study led by Balaram Pradhan on the effect of Yoga practice on proprioception. Using a matched case-control study of 54 participants who are blind and aged between 10 and 19 years from India, the article reports that Yoga may improve proprioceptive function. This area and this research itself is in the early stage, but has impact particular with relevance in India as comparison of schools for children who are visually impaired has been conducted within the same state of Orissa.
Changing focus a little, we see in the sixth article of the journal, a study led by Helen Molden, a phenomenological investigation into the impact of parenthood. The article focuses on struggles around independence and visibility and impact of the other’s gaze, two very important themes in our research. Placing the findings of this phenomenological investigation into a strong theoretical framework was particularly interesting to read as were the key recommendations, and for me, the first one was very informative.
The seventh article by Ben Whitburn turns the tables around a little and looks at the students with visual impairment from the perceptions of inclusive teacher pedagogy and provides space for these students to voice their experiences. Although the article has a small sample size (5), the experiences and comments they make, give reassurance to the teaching profession, in that the inclusion of students with visual impairment in mainstream lessons, particularly in Australia where this sample is drawn from, can, as Whitburn highlights, be successfully achieved when, in particular, the barriers to learning for all students are removed.
Our final and eighth research article written by Alessandra Magalhães, Andréia N. Sankako, and Lígia Braccialli aims to identify and analyse strategies used by a teacher educator to support the mobility of a student in various school environments. This study uses a detailed descriptive study of one female child aged 5 years and her teacher in a Brazilian School. Looking at the analysis of the interaction in this article, the authors do find some very interesting results and suggest that the teacher actually hampers the child’s orientation and mobility. The importance of qualified and appropriately trained (children) mobility and orientation and/or habilitation instructors is paramount to the social and educational development of children throughout their early years and school career, and we see in this article the need for these qualified instructors to work collaboratively with educationalists as soon as the child enters school (and prior to school). Something I think internationally we can all learn from.
The ninth article, a practice report by Robert Jones, disseminates a self-assessment tool for service development and improvement for schools, and educational and support services. I hope you find this particularly useful.
Finally, I would like to particularly thank all of the reviewers who have contributed to this and past issues. I know that as the editor, I have asked the reviewers to review articles on several occasions, and I really appreciate the hard work they all put into advancing the journal. Thank you very much indeed.