Abstract
Welcome to 2018, and welcome to this January issue of the British Journal of Visual Impairment. Looking back it has been a busy year for the journal. Sage and I have had discussions about getting a full-impact score for the journal. We are already on Scopus; so, in terms of university accountability, we meet that requirement and certainly for the UK Research Excellent Framework, we do as well. So, you will be pleased to know that we are stepping toward an independent impact score and as we do the better, the journal will be.
You will have also noticed that the editorial board has changed as people retire and move off the board, and again I would like to thank those who have been on the board and those who are coming on. Without your help and the help of all those who review, the journal would not be in as such a strong position as it is now. Thank you very much.
In this issue, we have a wide variety of papers. The first paper is a pilot study that looks at Sensory Integration Processing Disorders in Children with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. With a sample size of 23 children, the paper highlights why the need to monitor and to assess children with sensory integration disorder is critical. Also, the reference list for this paper is extremely useful and I myself have followed a few papers up that I was unaware—so, thank Jutley-Neilson, Greville-Harris, and Kirk for this.
The next paper again provides us with a good systematic review of the literature (Jones and Bartlet) that examines the nutritional status of people with visual impairment (VI). The review confirmed other studies that have reported that people with VI have an abnormal body mass index and a higher prevalence of obesity and malnutrition. I certainly knew about obesity but I have never really made the connection between nutrition and certainly not about malnutrition within the United Kingdom; so, I was extremely interested in this and hopefully this is something our health, social care and educational, habilitation, and rehabilitation professionals can resolve along with the community as well.
The third paper in the New Year issue is by Gasperetti and others and suggests new innovative ways of improving the physical activity of people with VI (with an aim to reduce the already mentioned incidence of obesity linking very nicely with the previous paper). This study compared three videos games for children and young adults with VIs to achieve time while engaging in moderate physical activity. I do not know whether you have ever played any of these video games yourself but they are surprisingly exhausting; so, the question this paper tries to answer, are these video games suitable and acceptable for people with VIs?
This year has seen a resurgence in issues around quality-of-life studies for people with VI. See, for example, the report of the European International Council for Education and Rehabilitation of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) conference (http://icevi.org/pdf/ICEVI-Europe-Newsletter-Issue-63.pdf). And therefore, it is good to see a quality-of-life paper in this issue by our Portuguese colleagues Oliveira et al. which emphases the need to collect information from the person about his or her own life to know the personal outcomes, as well as the perception of children’s parents to fully assess quality-of-life measures.
How individuals who are blind locate targets is a really interesting paper by Graven. Not only is the result of the study of value but also I particularly enjoyed reading the method section. As a psychologist myself, I am always keen to see cross over between psychology and education, and this paper provides us with many ideas from a psychological perspective that can inform our teaching of adults and children. It is I think a slightly difficult paper to read due to the complexity of design, but please stick with this as it really provides core evidence to the research question and there are clear implications for teaching.
Our last two papers focus on education directly. The first (sixth paper in the issue) by Opie looks at exactly the perception and needs of students who are receiving the expanded core curriculum delivered within Australia, but has what I believe important ramifications for all qualified teachers of pupils with visual impairment (QTVIs) everywhere. Opie finds that QTVIs appear unable to deliver the essential elements in the limited time they have available, as well as ascertaining who can accept responsibility for their implementation also appears to be a hindrance. What I really agree with from this rigorous small sample study is the recommendation that classroom teachers may need to take on more responsibility from QTVIs, as well as a development of a provision of a module of learning, available for teachers who have a student with vision impairment in their class, which could be added to those currently available as part of the professional development required for teacher registration. Actually, I would go one further than Opie does and suggest that all teachers at least once every 5 years should take this module whether they have a pupil or not, so that they are prepared, and as any good QTVI knows is that support for a pupil with VI is often good support for the whole class.
Our final paper, again from Australia by Jessup and colleagues, takes an interesting look at social inclusion of high-school pupils. Five themes encompassed the varying influences on school social inclusion. These were (a) putting myself forward; (b) knowing me; (c) having control; (d) having a place to shine; and finally, a negative influence, (e) peer exclusion and rejection. These themes, Jessup suggests, can be built upon by staff and can enhance the social inclusion of students with VI by facilitating students’ self-determination. Again I see a natural link with the previous paper and perhaps, these two papers are beginning to see the content of an online class teacher professional development module. Does anyone want to take this up and to share (freely) worldwide developments around this? (It would make a good impact story.)
Have a wonderful 2018, and once again thank you very much to all who have submitted and reviewed papers for the journal. We go from strength to strength because of it.