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Blindness in terms of Vocational Rehabilitation Evaluation Blindness is a great misfortune. But nowadays, due to the new approach to the problem, a lot of people feel themselves more confident and protected. The amount of people who have a visual impairment or are blind is constantly changed. They vary in age from infants to older adults, in their location from rural areas to big cities as well as in their cultures, and religious beliefs.
Most of all, each person has his or her individual attitude towards their illness. But at present more and more people want to live productive and independent lives. They have had a lot of opportunities to get education, get good jobs and take part in many types of activities as other ordinary people. It has become possible with the help different special techniques and means to adapt to visual impairment. There are a lot of different cases as to blindness. Thats why it is difficult to give the only definition to the term.
As usual, the term, blindness, is described as the absence of vision. It means that a person has lost light perception and cannot determine the source of light, only the existence of it. Most of all, there are a lot of types of visual impairments. They mean vision problems which influence a personal ability to do everyday work. As usual, visual impairment includes blindness. A lot of people have low vision after a severe visual impairment.
Any ordinary means of correction are useless for these people though they have some usable vision. Those people are taught how to use their vision effectively. There are different ways out such as instructions from professionals, the use of more effective optical devices such as magnifiers or telescopes and practice in visual techniques But there are two types of blindness: total and legal. They are different. The term legal blindness is used for legal purposes of blindness. It means the right for blind people to get government-funds as well as adult rehabilitation services.
Legal blindness depends on a visual acuity 20 / 200 or less that means that a person sees at a distance of 20 feet what the fully sighted person sees at 200 feet. Legal blindness is measured with the help of clinical and not functional tests that are not based on individuals' ability to use their vision. Those requirements are specified. The United States government provides a strong policy to protect people with visual disabilities from discrimination. In 1990, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (P. L. 101 - 336) was passed.
The Act has different kinds of measures to protect people with disabilities and provide them with all necessary services. The measures include employment, state and local government services, transportation and public accommodations. The ADA has had a great impact on people with disabilities. People who have lost vision and can have difficulties with finding work are usually provided with vision rehabilitation services. Usually the service is for both young adults who will have great difficulties adapting to adult life; and older people who need independent living services. Rehabilitation services help them to improve their opportunities for employment (vocational rehabilitation).
In the United States, in 1973, the Rehabilitation Act was passed. It establishes the ground for training and finding employment for people with different disabilities, among them with sensory ones. It was pointed that the Act should be reauthorized by Congress every five years. By the way, rehabilitation services are supervised by the federal and state governments.
Thats why they are different in each state. As usual, the services are provided through a separate state vocational rehabilitation agency for blind persons. But individuals have to meet eligibility requirements. Among them the most important ones are that a person should be legally blind and it should be evident that his or her blindness is the only impediment to finding employment. Only in these cases a person can receive vision rehabilitation. Rehabilitation services provide series of work beforehand such as vocational evaluation, vocational skills or postsecondary academic skills training.
Most of all, they include psychological, and social services; physical and occupational therapy. The National Rehabilitation Counseling Association (NRCA) gives a determination to the process as, "Rehabilitation counseling is a systematic process which assists persons with physical, developmental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities to achieve their personal, career, and independent living goals in the most integrated setting possible. " With the purpose to estimate the type of services required vocational assessment is used. It is clear that on this assessment a successful rehabilitation based. Since the 1900 s formal psychometric approaches (occupational interest means and vocational aptitude batteries) have been used. It is evident that occupations became more specialized thats why a lot of enterprises need highly specialized persons.
On the market there are a lot of demands for workers including those for people with disabilities. Special tests have been created for persons with visual impairment. These tests should evaluate an individual's strengths and determine the level of their learning abilities. In the United States different programs for visually impaired persons were created. These are vocational training programs that use various tests for evaluating personal readiness for the training program and probability of success.
A good example is Lions World Services for the Blind (LWSB). The organization evaluates applicants with the help of a vocational assessment battery. The assessment takes into account persons aptitudes, interest, and academic skills. Then it estimate work samples that can match a visually impaired person; and after that point the right way of employment for the person.
He or she can work in such areas as collection services representative, customer service center representative, and taxpayer service representative. The last step is to choose an individual training program. Those programs differ from bicycle assembly to office automation specialist. With the purpose to evaluate the skills, aptitudes, and interests of visually impaired persons different standardized vocational evaluation methods are used. Unfortunately, there is the only available test battery The Comprehensive Vocational Evaluation System (CVES) in the country. It was developed for blind and low vision people and is based on neuropsychological principles.
The System takes into account strengths and weaknesses in many areas that include learning, problem-solving and achievement, sensory and motor abilities and emotional-coping and adaptive behavior. The tests identify what needs, strengthening self-image. Vocational evaluation tools usually organize job tasks in such way that helps to assess, within a short period of time, a person's potential for a variety of job and training options. Statistical procedures are then used to derive a vocational or occupational profile. But unfortunately, nowadays though a lot of have been done, there are several obstacles that stay in the way of satisfactory results in reaching successful employment outcomes. It has happened because the great employment communities do not take into account conceptual, practical, theoretical and personal perspectives.
From these perspectives blind and visually impaired persons are greatly ignored. Thats why attention should be concentrate on successful employment strategies for everybody. Having examined the material, it should be emphasized that a great number of measures have been taken but there are some difficulties yet. May be the great disadvantage is that there is no a unified national system for blind or visual impaired persons. As it was said there are a tremendous variety of services for them in the United States but they have been developed and funded by federal legislation and are supervised by different government agencies.
By the way, private agencies provide large part of services. Most of all, there is no enough coordination of services. Thats why the AFB Directory of Services for Blind and Visually Impaired Persons in the United States and Canada was established. It is an attempt to gather all the services and organize them. It allows to identify and locate what blind or visual impaired people need. Most of all the Directory gets information about organizations that provide various services and instruction in adaptive techniques for these people and list of organizations for future jobs.
Bibliography: Division 2: Employment Update. (2002, December). Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling & Employment Services Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired. AER Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 2. Retrieved winter 2002, from web Vocational Assessment. (2005). American Foundation for the Blind. FAB Career connect.
web The Glossary of Professions. (2005). American Foundation for the Blind. FAB Career connect. web Living with Vision Loss. (2005). American Foundation for the Blind. FAB Career connect.
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Research essay sample on Blindness In Terms Of Vocational Rehabilitation Evaluation
