Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness

This article reports on a survey of 871 visually impaired persons with developmental disabilities in 42 states to determine the effect of separate state blindness-specific vocational rehabilitation agencies on the receipt of services. The results indicate that visually impaired persons in states with specialized agencies are less likely than are those in other states to receive services, except when an agency's budget is large.

The study presented here explored theories that account for echolocation and established an audiometric test battery for blind persons that is designed to predict success in echolocation. Statistical analyses revealed significant positive correlations between particular auditory measures and echolocation performance. No relationships were found between high-frequency hearing sensitivity and echolocation performance.

A simple acoustic orientation system was built for indoor travel and assessed with a blind man who had difficulty moving at home and at work. The results showed that the system helped the man move successfully (and perform activities) in both contexts and that the man was eager to use it.

This article presents a study of the use of melatonin to treat sleep-wake-cycle disorders in 100 visually impaired children aged 3 months to 17 years. The study found that these disorders are correlated with the children's visual diagnoses, visual loss, age, associated disabilities, level of independence, and type of placement and that the use of oral melatonin ameliorates these disorders without side effects and leads to numerous benefits, both to the children and their caregivers.

This study found that items in the subsections on acceptance of sight loss and attitudes toward blindness of the Nottingham Adjustment Scale are free of response bias. Respondents who were given only negative items disagreed significantly more with them than did those who were given both negative and positive statements. In addition, respondents with poor emotional adjustment were more strongly influenced by the presence of positive statements than were those with good emotional adjustment.

This article reports three experiments that tested the ability of 11 6–10-year-old children with low vision to recall black-and-white line drawings. Unlike the 22 fully sighted children who were also tested, the children with low vision recalled best when they were left to study the pictures without verbal intervention. Compared with the fully sighted children, the children with low vision named significantly fewer of the remembered pictures correctly.