Visually impaired community

 

 

 

Wrd 110

October 13^th 2015

 

 

Jonathan Barnes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think about your day to day life, how you walk to class or work, driving from place to place and reading the news or a book. Now imagine all of that not being possible without help or not at all possible. The community of visually impaired is larger than most people think. When most people think of visually impaired people they think of ether people who need help with glasses or the worst case scenario of being completely blind. Being legally blind means that your vision is so close to being gone that the government considers you to be blind. What most people don’t know is that there are ways for them to still be active in their communities, to drive and to have a job.

If someone was to think of a person as close to blind as possible without being blind or being legally blind one might think that there is nothing for that person to do in the world. People who think like this have been miss informed, with all of the disabilities that are out in the world today groups have started to come together and formed different sports teams. Dan Clark talks about different things that people who are legally blind can do “Many areas have centers and groups for blind people. These places offer additional resources, and they may also be have regularly scheduled events and outings for members of the blind community”. Centers like this are all over the country and help to get people who are legally blind be more active.

                                    

Learning how to drive and get a driver’s license for someone with good vision is as easy as 6 months driving with someone and 6 months only able to have one person that isn’t family in the car. But did you know that people who are legally blind can get there driver’s license too.  When someone is legally blind the process becomes a little more complicated. In order for someone who is legally blind to get their driver’s license they have to get fitted with a pair of special glasses like the ones above, go through a driving class, go two years only being able to drive in the day, then go through a night driving class and after that they are allowed to drive whenever they want. This process is to ensure that the driver has gotten enough experience so that they won’t freak out behind the wheel for no reason. With all of the obstacles for them to get a driver’s license,   Jamey Boyum interviewed Tillson a legally blind driver and she talks about the joy that getting a license did for her ” “It was a great moment," Tillson said. "You could tell how excited she was, how much of an aha moment it was that this was really happening”, not to mention that after they get their driver’s license it becomes a little bit easier for them to get a job. The joy that is talked about can be seen in the second picture of my father driving for the first time after he got his full license.

With today’s world it would be very easy for someone who is legally blind to go through life and not have a job the entire time, but there are those who choose to get a job. For those of the visually impaired community are legally blind and want to work there are a couple of different avenues for them to take. One of the ways for them to go about this is to apply for a job like the rest of us, the only difference is that they have to let the company know that they are legally blind. Another way that they could get a job is by going to a government organization called OSEA. This government organization helps people who have disabilities such as being legally blind find and get a job. After OSEA helps them to get a job, if it is necessary they will provide the disabled worker with any tools that are needed to perform the job properly such as computer programs like dragon or large scale magnifying glasses. Another piece of equipment that they might provide you with is a computer that you speak to in order to type and that reads it back. Computers such as this make it easier for people who are legally blind to handle documents on the computer.

These are just some of the things that are happening within the visual impaired community that people just aren’t aware of. There are people out there that are almost blind and could walk around in everyday life without you having any idea and perform jobs just as good as or better than people with good vision. So the next time you see a person that is legally blind don’t think about what their disability keeps them from doing but what challenges they over come to be here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biography

 

 

Boyum, J. (2015, April 1). Legally blind woman about to get her driver's license. Retrieved    October 14, 2015.

 

 

Clark, D. (n.d.). Activities for Blind People. Retrieved October 14, 2015.

 

Products for the disabled - Blind, low vision, Magnifiers, legally blind, macular degeneration, dyslexia, reading disabilities, voice recognition. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015.