Sight

 

Variations of sight impairment

You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “legally blind”. But what does that mean? According to Essilor USA, a vision advocacy group, we have the following:

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“Someone who is legally blind has a corrected vision of 20/200 in their best seeing eye. You might feel like you're legally blind if you can't see beyond a foot in front of you without wearing glasses, but as long as your vision can be corrected to 20/20 with a visual aid, such as glasses, then you are not considered legally blind.”

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This also includes a person whose peripheral vision is less than 20 degrees left or right. The average person’s peripheral vision is about 1450 degrees.

 

Assumptions about blindness or visual impairments

Unless you have spent significant time with those with visual impairments, there may be a tendency to consider the client as somewhat helpless. This is far from the case. Depending on the amount of time the person has been experiencing the impairment, you may find that your client exhibits a great deal of self- confidence in movement.