Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of OrCam on vision-related quality of life of patients with legal blindness and end-stage glaucoma. OrCam is a device comprised of a camera and earpiece attached to the user’s eyeglass that translates written text to speech.

In this prospective, observational study, a total of 27 participants were recruited and tested. All participants were legally blind. Participants were provided with the OrCam device during the study period and trained how to operate it. National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25 (NEI-VFQ-25) and other questionnaires were given to participants at the baseline visit and at the end of the 4-week study for comparison. Additional questions were surveyed weekly during the study to monitor progress.

At the final visit after 1 month, most participants, 74.1% (n = 20/27), reported an increase in their overall quality of life. Participants were highly satisfied with the device; 88.9% (n = 24/27) reported being “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the device. The NEI-VFQ-25 near vision subscale score improved from 29.9 to 37.2 (p = .045).

OrCam allowed participants with legal blindness to read independently when in controlled settings, subsequently improving their quality of life. However, users had more difficulty using the device when the location of text was not readily apparent (e.g., street signs, billboards), and users with some degree of vision had an easier time aligning the device with the text.

This device may offer participants with visual impairments the opportunity to read independently.

The purpose of this study was to measure blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes about the competence of people who are blind, compare implicit attitudes of blindness professionals with those of employers in hiring positions, and examine blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes by type of profession and work tenure.

The study included 322 blindness professionals and 450 employers. Participants completed a brief online survey and the Implicit Association Test–Blind/Visually Impaired, which measures implicit attitudes regarding the competence of blind people.

On average, blindness professionals exhibited a slight association, whereas employers exhibited a strong association, for sighted with competence and blind with incompetence. Blindness professionals and employers had large, statistically significant differences in implicit attitudes. Blindness professionals’ implicit attitudes did not differ by type of profession, but they differed slightly by work tenure.

Employers’ strong implicit bias toward sighted and competence may reflect their limited knowledge about blindness and lack of opportunities to interact with blind people. Compared to employers, blindness professionals exhibited a much smaller implicit bias, which may relate to their knowledge about blindness, exposure to successful blind people, and meaningful interactions with blind people across social contexts.

Blindness professionals may benefit from increased exposure to highly successful blind role models throughout their professional preparation programs and their careers. Blindness professionals can promote positive attitudes about blindness to the general public and to consumers and their families. During educational opportunities, they could incorporate information about how blind people perform work tasks, which has the potential to improve attitudes about the competence of blind people.

The purpose of this study was to survey the faculty of personnel preparation programs that train orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists in the identification of accommodations, teaching techniques, and resources needed to teach students who are visually impaired (i.e., those who are blind or have low vision) and who are enrolled in blindfold and simulation cane courses (hereafter, cane courses). Cane courses are used to teach the techniques of independent cane travel, and they require total visual occlusion using blindfolds as well as simulated low vision using goggles that depict different visual acuities and field losses.

This study surveyed personnel preparation programs training O&M specialists with an online questionnaire with open-ended items to identify the program’s required accommodations, teaching techniques, and resources needed to teach visually impaired students who are enrolled in cane courses. The survey was e-mailed to 22 universities in North America, which have personnel preparation programs for O&M specialists and asked for responses from individuals who teach cane courses. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the survey data.

Results showed that the format of the cane courses was varied, a variety of accommodations and teaching strategies were used, and the universities’ office of disabled students generally did not know how to accommodate these courses.

A need exists for a student who is visually impaired to be an experienced traveler and to be knowledgeable about what accommodations and strategies he or she will use when they need to teach a fellow student during a cane course. Visually impaired students must be able to monitor the safety of their peers as well as the changing dynamics of the environment in which they are working.

To effectively teach visually impaired students who are enrolled in cane courses, university faculty teaching these courses could request prospective visually impaired students to provide documentation regarding their travel skills prior to acceptance into a personnel preparation program in O&M. In addition, students with visual impairments need to discuss with their universities’ office of disabled students and legal counsel what reasonable accommodations are relevant for visually impaired students enrolled in the cane courses and what accommodations they believe the universities are committed to providing these students.