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Results for “Persons with Visual Disabilities”

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PubMed2005

Visual disability variables. I: the importance and difficulty of activity goals for a sample of low-vision patients.

OBJECTIVE: To test the validity and reliability of latent trait measures estimated from ratings by low-vision patients of the importance and difficulty of selected activity goals. DESIGN: Validation of a telephone-administered functional assessment instrument using Rasch analysis of self-assessment ratings. SETTING: Telephone interviews of respondents in their homes. Participants Consecutive series of 600 outpatients with low vision. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Ratings of the importance and difficulty of achieving 41 activity goals. Person and item traits were measured with the Andrich rating scale model. Measurement validity and reliability were tested statistically by comparing response patterns and distributions with measurement model expectations. RESULTS: Patients could distinguish only 3 categories of importance and 4 categories of difficulty. The distributions of person and item measure fit statistics were consistent with 2 unidimensional constructs: value of independence estimated from importance ratings and visual ability estimated from difficulty ratings. However, 8 of 41 activity goals were poor estimators of value of independence and 7 of 41 activity goals were poor estimators of visual ability. Person measure distributions could be divided into 3 statistically distinct strata for estimates from both importance ratings and difficulty ratings. Item measure distributions could be divided into 21 strata for estimates from importance ratings and 7 strata for estimates from difficulty ratings. CONCLUSIONS: The 2 variables that define visual disability-value of independence and visual ability-are valid constructs that can be estimated accurately and reliably from patient ratings of the importance and difficulty of activity goals.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1983

Two-year follow-up study of discrimination learning by mentally retarded children.

Mentally retarded children were taught to discriminate the dimensions of a visual display using a matching-to-sample procedure that provided full verbal feedback of the reasons for successes and failures. A control group attempted the matching procedure but received no feedback. The trained subjects exhibited marked superiority in intradimensional transfer. Two years later, the trained subjects continued their advantage but to a lesser degree.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Outcome of cataract surgery. IV. Socio-economic aspects.

This outcome assessment study is based on data collected prospectively in a group of 123 consecutive cataract patients. Cataract surgery to vast majority of patients means prevention of blindness, better vision, better visual functioning and better quality of life. Due to cataract surgery the occupational status is maintained in many patients, and a majority of the retired patients are able to continue a normal life in their own homes. Thus the economic benefit to the community are savings of disablement pensions and of geriatric nursing home accommodation. In this study we found that these savings by far exceeded the costs of cataract surgery. Capacity for cataract surgery ought to be sufficient everywhere.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Hearing and visual impairments.

Hearing impairments, with their resultant difficulties in communication function, represent a common chronic condition affecting one third of aged individuals. Loss of hearing ability pervades multiple domains of function in aged individuals, decreasing activity, increasing depressive symptoms, and confounding assessment of cognitive ability. Although they are not curable, hearing impairments are often remediable with appropriate audiologic evaluation and the prescription of amplification devices. The role of the geriatrician in managing hearing impairment is to recognize its presence, provide appropriate audiologic referral, and overcome its effects in the clinical setting by providing optimal listening environments and using ALDs appropriately. Visual loss, too, is a common age-associated disability that has effects in multiple domains of function. Visual loss especially increases the risk of falls and hip fractures and may limit the ability of an older individual to safely operate a car. The ability to remediate visual disability depends on the cause of the underlying impairments and the relative effectiveness of treatment for each. Sight restoration can be dramatic for selected patients with cataracts. Sight preservation is also excellent for persons with diabetic retinopathy. For those with macular degeneration, the data are hopeful but less compelling. Although persons with glaucoma should receive medications to lower their intraocular pressure, experimental evidence that this, in fact, preserves vision is currently lacking. The geriatrician's role in visual rehabilitation consists of the identification of the impairments, determination of the impact of visual loss on other functional domains, and appropriate referral to an ophthalmologist for full assessment and treatment. If severely limited by permanent visual losses, the patient should be referred for appropriate support services.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

Safer-sex education for persons with mental illness.

1. Safer-sex education is crucial for controlling the spread of HIV and this education is within the realm of nursing practice. 2. Safer-sex education for persons with mental illness must include repetitive, interactive education capitalizing on verbal, visual, written, tactile, and motor skill teaching methods to compensate for learning disabilities that have been identified in this population. 3. In this study, individual rather than a group teaching approach to the sensitive subject of safer-sex provided the most learning. The study subjects did not exhibit overt sexual behavior, increased sexual acting out, regression, or overstimulation when safer-sex education was presented.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1993

Development of conceptual knowledge in children with mental retardation.

Nine and 14-year-old children with mild mental retardation and children without mental retardation matched for mental and chronological age were first shown a novel category made up of five visual figures. They were then given a recognition test with a set containing the previously presented figures, novel category members, and the category prototype. The relative contribution of prototypical and exemplar-specific information to subjects' performance on the recognition test was evaluated. Results showed that the children without mental retardation employed both forms of information in arriving at a recognition decision whereas both of the retarded groups tended to rely only on prototype information. Use of exemplar-specific information was also found to be positively correlated with IQ and, in particular, with measures of short-term memory span.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Two new empirically derived reasons to use the assessment of basic learning abilities.

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) comprises six levels of hierarchically ordered visual and auditory-visual discriminations. Scores on the ABLA, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised were obtained for 30 participants selected using a stratified random sample (i.e., by level of mental retardation) from 499 people served by a state center. Two noteworthy findings were (a) that correlations between the Vineland domains and the ABLA were all significant and ranged between .65 and .73, and (b) no participant performing below ABLA Level 6 was testable on the WAIS-R. Thus, Level 6 can be used as an efficient screen to determine the testability of this population on standardized intelligence tests. Implications for practitioners are discussed.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1983

The visually handicapped child.

This overview of the visually handicapped child presents information on the early years, educational alternatives and appropriate content, the special problems of the multihandicapped child, and the impact of technology on the education and life of the visually handicapped. A list of agency resources serving the visually handicapped is provided.

Blindness↗
PubMed2005

A relative access measure to identify barriers to efficient transit use by persons with visual impairments.

PURPOSE: Persons with visual impairments or blindness can face significant restrictions to their efficient travel, especially when attempting transit transfers and using a large, multi-modal terminal. Little is known about what makes some tasks much harder than others. This paper presents an approach to empirically measure the difficulty of a variety of transit tasks. METHOD: An experiment was conducted at an urban transit terminal, with three other transit modes nearby. Thirty persons with visual impairments attempted to make five simulated transfers between these modes. Errors and time to complete these tasks were collected in order to quantify the nature of various barriers to efficient travel for this group. In total, 20 locations were visited. Completion times were compared to a sighted traveler to determine a measure of the time penalty, or 'relative access measure.' RESULTS: Two basic findings are reported. Empirical data showed that different types of transit tasks and locations had a wide range of difficulty and inherent time penalties. Some tasks like crossing a difficult street, finding unmarked track doors, and finding inconsistently placed amenities were quite time consuming and sometimes impossible to accomplish. Other tasks, like walking to a street corner and crossing a simpler street, had much lower penalties and could be completed with ease. CONCLUSIONS: The placement of additional cues, those of identity and direction, provided with auditory signage, were able to eliminate much of the uncertainty and time restrictions associates with transit use and navigation for persons with visual impairments.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Intentional and incidental visual memory as a function of cognitive level and color of the stimulus.

Performance of two groups of youngsters, educable mentally retarded (CA 15-5; MA 11-4; IQ 74.3) and those of average ability (CA 10-5; MA 11-3; IQ 109.1) was compared for intentional and incidental visual memory as a function of cognitive level and color of the stimulus. Nonretarded subjects performed significantly better than the retarded ones of equal MA. Both groups performed better with a color than black-white card, and both groups did better on the tasks involving intentional rather than incidental memory.

Attention↗