Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness

This article presents a research program which examined the employment conditions of Swedish visually impaired persons, aged 25–45 at the onset of their visual impairment, who were employed at that time. A conceptual framework, through which the adaptive process necessary for the visually impaired individual to make, is addressed. The return to work did not necessarily mean that the person had been truly rehabilitated, since many of these workers were underemployed. Major qualitative changes of job characteristics also impacted dramatically on the workers.

A water mist was employed as a punisher to reduce head hitting in a multiply handicapped, visually impaired child. A multiple baseline across four situations (lunch, breakfast, industrial arts class, and residential hall) was used to evaluate the effects of water misting on head hitting as well as on appropriate behaviors. The results indicated that water mist alone was effective in reducing the frequency of head hits during meals, but that the other two situations required the addition of primary reinforcers or stimulus control or both to reduce the frequency of head hitting. These results suggest a need to consider the setting and task requirements in evaluating a mild punisher to reduce self-injurious behavior.

This article reviews studies on how both blind and sighted individuals write, elements of the writing process, and books that describe programs to help writers. These studies show that writing, for the blind individual, places an enormous burden on short-term memory, since it must be utilized to retrieve information from long-term memory and to monitor text transcriptions, grammar, the mechanics of composition, and spelling. Tools to help the blind writer are discussed in detail. Text access, a major hurdle, is met head-on. Yet computers that facilitate access with alternate outputs, braille translation programs, and other adaptive devices will help the visually impaired or blind individual only if schools can acquire them and only if they are priced to allow individuals to buy them for home use. In conclusion, solutions to problems are offered to stimulate the reader to think about the cognitive and curricular implications of computer technology for visually impaired individuals now and in the future.

Client satisfaction with the recreation program at a blind rehabilitation center and views toward various aspects of recreation in general were assessed by questionnaire. The results showed that clients were highly satisfied with the center's recreation program and viewed recreation as an important aspect of blind rehabilitation. A significant change was found in their views about the appropriateness of various recreational activities for participation by visually impaired persons. Compared to pre-rehabilitation activity levels, post-rehabilitation clients planned to increase their number of recreational activities.

The global perception that a person with a visual impairment has a “low” self-concept because of the inability to see and to form visual concepts is not altogether supported by research. In many instances, self-concept research on the blind population has proceeded from vague definitions of the construct, with instruments that lack specificity in scoring and interpreting results. The authors report a recent study in which the Student's Self-Assessment Inventory: Visually Impaired Form was used. Results demonstrate the area-specific nature of self-concept in the visually impaired student. This finding provides guidelines for classroom personnel to develop individualized education programs (IEPs) to enhance self-concepts for such students.