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Biomedical subjects

W D Beggs

Publications and source records attributed to W D Beggs.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Psychological correlates of walking speed in the visually impaired.

Recent attempts to extend mobility evaluation techniques to include the partially sighted as well as the totally blind have demanded the development of new measures. One of these, the percentage of preferred walking speed (PPWS) reflects the slower walking speed of visually impaired pedestrians. This reduction in speed may be due either to the impoverished visual information available for the control of locomotion, or it may be due to a strategic response to the stress associated with travel. Using a client-derived mood checklist, this latter hypothesis was confirmed. In contrast, visual status, as measured by both acuity and field loss, was unrelated to PPWS. This mobility index is an important addition to existing measures, which are concerned with safety, efficiency and visual function.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

How mobility officers assess need for mobility training.

Little is known about how Mobility Officers (O&M specialists) assess the training needs of visually impaired clients. In principle, these assessments may be based on estimates of existing travel skills, and the visual and psychological status of clients. In this study, the priority-for-training ratings made when residents arrived at a residential rehabilitation centre were correlated with measures of clients' feelings when travelling, and with visual status. The feelings checklist contained twenty-one items which clients themselves identified as describing how they felt on a journey. Priority for training was related to six of these feelings, which together accounted for 60.24% of the variance of training priorities. These data suggest that Mobility Officers do respond to how their clients are feeling when assessing their need for training. Clinical measures of visual status, surprisingly, were not directly involved in the assessments. However, lower peripheral field status, which could not have been known to Mobility Officers, was significantly correlated with assessments, accounting for a further 15.57% of the variance of priorities; in total, therefore, 75.81% of the variance of assessments were accounted for by the combination of psychological factors, and this visual factor. It is suggested that the latter correlation was due to the effects of an intervening variable. This may have been some aspect of mobility performance, which depends particularly on lower peripheral visual information for its execution.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1980

Sound localization and early binaural experience in the deaf.

The sound localisation ability of four groups of severely deaf children is reported. It was found that those children who had some early experience of binaurally presented sound were likely to retain the ability to localise sounds, although if such experience was via binaural hearing aids, it was not certain to lead to retention of the ability. Children with early experience of sound which lacked interaural cues were likely to have lost the ability to localise, whether the experience was due to a severe asymmetric deafness or early single aid provision. The parallel with the loss of stereopsis in children with an uncorrected strabismus is drawn.

Age Factors↗