Blindness

We aimed to summarize and map the existing global population-based data on active trachoma and trichiasis. Detailed distribution maps of various infectious diseases have proved a valuable tool in their control. Such maps play an important role in assessing the magnitude of the problem, defining priority areas for control, monitoring changes, and advocacy. Until now, information on trachoma prevalence at within country levels has not been systematically collated, analysed and reported. We gathered the last 18 years' worth of reported data on active trachoma in children aged less than 10 years, and the last 25 years of reported trichiasis in adults aged 15 years and over from 139 population-based surveys in 33 countries. We collated these data into one database using the "district" (second administrative level) as the standard unit of reporting. We used Geographical Information Systems as a database and cartographic tool to generate a global map of the prevalence of trac...

There are several aspects in the world today, which are moving the countries of the world toward an international mathematics curriculum.  Some of these influences include globalization, real-time communication, international examinations, and twenty-first century research.  Globalization is an inevitable part of our world today.  As a concept, globalization refers both the to fact that the world is growing smaller and that, at the same time, the increased consciousness of the world is growing larger. More than this, we come to understand globalization as a new way of living, which affects every facet of life: the ways we shop, the ways we eat, the ways we interact with others.  Societies across the globe have developed progressively closer contact over the past several centuries, but within the past two decades, the pace of collaboration and cooperation has increased overwhelmingly.  Jets, enormous cargo ships, and instant capital flow: all these have made the world interdependent, one nation on the other.  More importantly, in our world today, ideas circulate more freely than ever before.  As a result, many academics treat these international globalization trends as both inevitable and welcome.  Whether we want globalization or not, this movement is not waning.  Real-time communication occurs on an epic scale from one side of the earth to the other.  The World-Wide Internet has enabled us to have almost instantaneous communication with people from many other countries throughout the world.  With essentially real-time video streaming, people around the world can watch a concert or listen to a lecture, at almost the same time, so that these events become shared aspects of a worldwide culture.  Scientists and everyday people together watch as a new photograph is projected millions of miles to Earth from the moon Kerberos as it orbits around Pluto.  More and more people in third-world countries are enjoying free email, free texting services, and audio-visual abilities.  Most people in the world have access to social websites and research-oriented networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Research Gate, and Academia.edu.  People have acquaintances around the globe, with whom they communicate daily.  Moreover, the “people of the world are inextricably linked in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events happening around the globe.” The terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015 are a case in point.  Support for Paris came almost instantly from around the globe, including pledges of solidarity and allegiance from Pope Francis, United States President Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron, and millions of people from around the world who changed their Facebook profile photos to the French flag, and who spread the word on Twitter with #PrayForParis and #PrayForTheWholeWorld in communal support of the Parisian people.  An event thousands of miles away affected the lives of caring people around the globe.  This is indeed real-time communication on an epic level.

Visual impairment and blindness caused by infectious diseases has been greatly reduced, but increasing numbers of people are at risk of age-related visual impairment. Visual information is the basis for most navigational tasks, so visually impaired individuals are at disadvantage because appropriate information about the surrounding environment is not available. With the recent advances in inclusive technology it is possible to extend the support given to people with visual impairment during their mobility. In this context we propose a system, named SmartVision, whose global objective is to give blind users the ability to move around in unfamiliar environments, whether indoor or outdoor, through a user friendly interface. This paper is focused mainly in the development of the computer vision module of the SmartVision system.

Auditory distance perception plays a major role in spatial awareness, enabling location of objects and avoidance of obstacles in the environment. However, it remains under-researched relative to studies of the directional aspect of sound localization. This review focuses on the following four aspects of auditory distance perception: cue processing, development, consequences of visual and auditory loss, and neurological bases. The several auditory distance cues vary in their effective ranges in peripersonal and extrapersonal space. The primary cues are sound level, reverberation, and frequency. Nonperceptual factors, including the importance of the auditory event to the listener, also can affect perceived distance. Basic internal representations of auditory distance emerge at approximately 6 months of age in humans. Although visual information plays an important role in calibrating auditory space, sensorimotor contingencies can be used for calibration when vision is unavailable. Blin...

True to the field of Cultural Disability Studies in Education (CDSE), this project adopts an explicitly interdisciplinary approach in order to explore representations of disability and the related social attitudes and experiences. Disability studies and radio studies are brought together to predicate and inform the analysis of a sample of education-centred discussions featured in In Touch, a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme made for, and by, people who have visual impairments. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is applied to the sub-themes of mainstream-special schooling and social interaction, which are organised in accordance with the tripartite model of disability in order to avoid one-dimensional readings. The project cuts across the mainstream-special binary and reveals the epistemological value of non-normative community in both preparing for, and succeeding in, 21st-century academia.

The frequency of verbal perseverations of two children with severe visual impairment was reduced using differential reinforcement of appropriate speech coupled with extinction of perseverative utterances. A reversal design in which baseline and intervention were alternated in an A–B–A–B sequence was employed to show the functional relationship between the target behaviors and the treatment procedure. There was a marked increase in appropriate utterances and a correlated decrease in perseverative ones. These findings suggest that this singular feature of the language of certain children with visual impairment is, under natural conditions, probably maintained by the attention provided by their caregivers.

POVZETEK Učenje naravoslovja je pomembno tako za polnočutne kot tudi za slepe in slabovidne otroke, saj poleg pridobivanja naravoslovnega znanja razvijajo sposobnost razmišljanja in reševanja problemov na logičen in znanstven način. Dandanes pouk naravoslovja temelji na načelu konstruktivizma, pri katerem otroci nastopajo kot aktivni udeleženci v procesu učenja. Ker slepi in slabovidni otroci dojemajo svet na drugačen način kot polnočutni, si pri učenju naravoslovja pomagamo s prilagoditvijo metod ter učnih pripomočkov, ki omogočajo aktivno učenje slepih in slabovidnih učencev ter pripomorejo k trajnejšemu znanju, hkrati pa zmanjšujejo možnost nastanka morebitnih napačnih predstav. Ključne besede: učenje naravoslovja, slepi in slabovidni učenci, izkustveno učenje, prilagoditev učnih pripomočkov, inkluzija ABSTRACT Science education is of equally great importance to blind or partially sighted children as it is to fully-sighted children. Nowadays, science education is based predominantly on the principle of constructivism, in which children are engaged as active participants. Such learning processes enable them to acquire scientific knowledge and develop the ability to think and solve problems in a logical manner. This paper illustrates how science education methods and tools need to be adapted for blind or partially sighted students, in order for them to become active members of the learning process, taking into account that they perceive the world differently than fully-sighted children.

Using the eye-coil/magnetic field method, we measured horizontal and vertical movements of both eyes in four patients with monocular loss of vision while they attempted steady, binocular fixation of a visual target. We also measured gaze stability in two normal subjects while they fixed upon a target monocularly, and in one patient with congenital, bilateral blindness. In the patients with monocular visual loss, gaze instability was greater in the blind eye, both vertically and horizontally, compared either with their seeing eye or with nonviewing eyes of control subjects. Gaze instability due to monocular blindness resulted from: (1) low-frequency, low-amplitude, bidirectional drifts that were more prominent vertically; and (2) unidirectional drifts, with nystagmus, that were more prominent in the horizontal plane. Gaze-evoked nystagmus, however, was not a feature of monocular blindness. Thus, the gaze instability of monocular blindness may reflect disruption of: (1) a monocular vi...

In this talk, the presenter will address the nature of impairments of sight and hearing in education, and how they affect teaching and learning in the classroom, through three specific topics:  firstly, he will summarise the nature of hearing and sight impairments, and identify the nature of the different forms of impairment; secondly, he will summarise the causes of such impairments, and many of the cultural and social stigmas that go with them; thirdly; he will address the problems that can arise in class between teachers and students with impairments, and how these can be overcome.

This paper reviews research on deaf-blind individuals, primarily from behavioral and communicative points of view. Inclusion in the population of deaf-blind is qualified by describing a variety of subgroups and genetically based syndromes associated with deaf-blindness. Sensory assessment procedures--based primarily on residual capacities--are appraised. Consequences for everyday life are described briefly. Non-sensory, alternative classificatory schemes and procedures are presented and the results from behavior modification procedures used for correcting maladaptive behaviors are summarized. Methods for communicating tactilely are described and evaluated. Attention is also drawn to some suggestions regarding learning of alphabetic codes and sign acquisition. Finally, suggestions for future research are proposed.

Summary Background Many causes of vision impairment can be prevented or treated. With an ageing global population, the demands for eye health services are increasing. We estimated the prevalence and relative contribution of avoidable causes of blindness and vision impairment globally from 1990 to 2020. We aimed to compare the results with the World Health Assembly Global Action Plan (WHA GAP) target of a 25% global reduction from 2010 to 2019 in avoidable vision impairment, defined as cataract and undercorrected refractive error. Methods We did a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based surveys of eye disease from January, 1980, to October, 2018. We fitted hierarchical models to estimate prevalence (with 95% uncertainty intervals [UIs]) of moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI; presenting visual acuity from <6/18 to 3/60) and blindness (<3/60 or less than 10° visual field around central fixation) by cause, age, region, and year. Because of data sparsity at...

Hammer, Gili. 2017. Blind Women See Gender: Interpretive Tactics within the Consumer Culture. In Gender and Capitalism: An Anthology. Olmert, Dana, Rona. Brayer-Garb, Orna Kazin, and Yofi Tirosh, eds. Pp. 208-231. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute Press and Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (Hebrew)

The fixed oil of black cumin seeds, Nigella sativa L. (NSO), has shown considerable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion has been linked to neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its subsequent cognitive impairment in which oxidative stress and neuroinflammation are the principal culprits. Cerebrovascular hypoperfusion was experimentally achieved by bilateral common carotid arteries occlusion (2VO) in rats. Morris water maze (MWM) test was employed to assess the effects of NSO on spatial cognitive function before and after 2VO intervention. Rats were divided into long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) groups, each was further subdivided into 3 subgroups: sham control, untreated 2VO and NSO treated 2VO group. All subgroups were tested with MWM at the tenth postoperative week. Working memory test results for both sham control and NSO treated groups showed significantly lower escape latency time and tot...

To estimate global and regional trends from 1990 to 2010 of the prevalence and number of persons visually impaired specifically by diabetic retinopathy (DR), as a complication of the precipitous trends in global diabetes, is fundamental for health planning purposes. The meta-analysis of published population studies from 1990 to 2012 for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD) yielded estimated global regional trends in DR among other causes of moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI; presenting visual acuity <6/18, ≥3/60) and blindness (presenting visual acuity <3/60). Globally in 2010, out of overall 32.4 million blind and 191 million visually impaired people, 0.8 million were blind and 3.7 million were visually impaired because of DR, with an alarming increase of 27% and 64%, respectively, spanning the two decades from 1990 to 2010. DR accounted for 2.6% of all blindness in 2010 and 1.9% of all MSVI worldwide, increasing from 2.1% and 1.3%, respectively, in 1990. T...

The positive psychological and physical health effects associated with exposure to natural environments are well recognised. However, previous research in this field has focused almost exclusively upon the visual aspects of the environment, largely ignoring the role of the other senses. This paper reassesses these findings by examining the role senses other than sight play in blind people’s experiences of natural environments. Six people with visual impairments were interviewed regarding their experience of natural environments; interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis revealed that if the participants felt safe, they reported experiencing restorative effects in the majority of natural environments. Three main themes that contribute to an understanding of the processes involved in psychological restoration emerged: restoration, challenges, sources of experiences. Environmental restoration was reported by participants as being mostly experienced through sound and to a lesser extent through touch and smell.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in measure of socialization between visually impaired student-athletes and non-athletes. We compared the social skills of Iranian visually impaired student-athletes (n = 51) and visually impaired student non-athletes (n = 56) with ages ranging from 13 to 19 years enrolled in academic year 2009–2010. Socialization was measured with the Social Maturity Scale (Weitzman, 1949). The results indicate that the two examined groups differ in regards to socialization and that the visually impaired student-athletes scored significantly higher than the visually impaired student non-athletes on the socialization test, proving the notion that participation in sports results in better improvements in socializations. If officials and parents encourage sports participation in visually impaired individuals, they will have a better opportunity of having more social skills in life.