Talk:Visual impairment

Expansion
A short article? Could someone add more information? Such as examples of how severe visual impairment can be etc :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.88.162 (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In my area's elementary school theres a blind student who is in 1st grade because his transactions of the eye muscles doesn't work well. Wlara123 (talk) 15:20, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Adding Spoken Web
Hi All, This is not a personal web site or link that attract visitors to a web site Spoken-Web is a free Web portal, managing a wide range of online data-intensive content like news updates, weather, travel and business articles for computer users who are blind or visually impaired. I would be glad to receive your feedback. Please send me any comment or suggestion Thanks in advanced for your time Eyalshalom (talk) 12:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC) Due to a overdose of the tablet Quinine i was left for two days totolly blind I eventually regained sight but with extremelly little periferal vision! Would this be a "visual impairment"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.65.239 (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I believe limited peripheral vision of the magnitude you have described would classify as a "visual impairment", so long as the affected area is large enough and the condition persists for a relatively long period of time; these parameters can be determined by the current version of this article. However, if your symptoms are a manifestation of cinchonism then you should regain complete function relatively quickly and lack the above classification of disability. On the other hand, the Quinine could have actually complicated an already present case of optic neuritis, which, left untreated, may progress until a major (and permanent) loss a vision develops. Aaagmnr (talk) 22:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

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This is the portal to an open source project on google code. I wrote the software myself in Applescript Studio for OS X. It's free, and it can read the free text files from Project Gutenberg. It speaks the text electronically and shows the text on the screen in a large font.

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206.109.195.126 (talk) 08:53, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Linking orphaned articles
Can we consider linking orphaned articles such as Catalan_Association_for_the_Blind_and_Visually_Impaired to the See Also section of this article? I notice that the Center for the Partially Sighted is already linked. Russell Dent (talk) 02:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Low vision be merged into Visual impairment.

Both articles cover similar ground, such as listing conditions that may lead to vision loss and classifying degrees of vision loss. It is confusing to have two articles with titles that may be viewed as being synonymous.

I believe it is appropriate to merge low vision into visual impairment rather than the other way around as the latter has the most incoming internal links, and so is arguably more notable (523 vs. 255).

Any thoughts, suggestions or objections please? Jonathan Deamer (talk) 20:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Support - from the titles I can see an argument against, but looking at the text of low vision it is quite close, I think a merge might sort out a number of other problems with the text as well...Fayedizard (talk) 22:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the NHS the definitions of both low vision and visual impairment are functionally the same, so I support moving low vision into visual impairment.

"Visual impairment is when a person has sight loss that cannot be fully corrected using glasses or contact lenses." http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/visual-impairment/pages/introduction.aspx "Low vision is when a person’s sight can't necessarily be corrected with glasses or contact lenses." http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Eyehealth/Pages/Livingwithlowvision.aspx Lepidoptera (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Improve references first. I support the general idea of this merge, but the quality of both articles needs to be improved (either first or during the merger as long as it happens) particularly with regard to inline references. If the content is merged in its current state it will be even more difficult to tell where the information came from. I suggest update the articles so that there is at least one inline reference per paragraph, no remaining unsourced content (which for all I know may be original research however plausible and well-written it may be) and, if possible, at least one inline from each of the current external links, so they can be turned into citations. --Mirokado (talk) 18:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that the quality of both articles needs to be improved in the ways you've described. Many thanks for the specific guidance you've given, it's most helpful. If and when this merger goes ahead, I'll makes these improvements as part of it, otherwise I'll make them to the individual pages. Jonathan Deamer (talk) 14:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Dont't Support - Visual Impairment is a broad classification and should have references to specific articles such as Low Vision, Visual Field Loss, Color Blindness, Dept Perception, etc. Low Vision is a specific diagnosis that a person is given and should have a complete article. The current Low Vision article should be reworked to concentrate only on low vision and should include more information about low vision aids, such as specific CCTV types and various telescopic lens systems. Chance Lindsey (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Revision of Both Pages Supported

Low-vision is a type of impairment, but impairment can include any situation requiring correction.Low-vision refers to disability from lack of adequate corrective devices or procedures.

When "Visual Impairment" is used correctly in disability, a modifier is needed- moderate to severe in the better eye, severe, profound, or near-total. Diagnosis codes differentiate Low-vision from correctable impairments.

Low-vision should be defined and linked to broader and more specific articles. Including it in a larger article while covering causes, effects, education, and specific adaptive devices would result in unmanageable size and scope. Considering there is a sub-specialty of Ophthalmologists for Low-vision, the subject material is complicated enough to need it's own article.

I propose this structure:

Visual Impairment- include the many types and causes of abnormal vision, links to more specific situations of the optic nerve, retina, and others described in simple terms at this point. Also described and linked, articles of the various groups of devices and procedures to correct visual problems. Remove redundant specifics belonging to other related topics.

Low Vision- Again, remove redundancies and replace with simple statements that are addressed in the broader article. Include specific definitions, list causes with general descriptions and links. Do the same for optical devices and procedures which also cross-link to the general article for ease of navigation.

Livingheartbeat (talk) 19:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Done Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:03, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Vision Impairment - Visual Impairment
It's a point of pedantry, I know, but I would like to propose that the name of the page be changed to "Vision Impairment" rather than "Visual Impairment". "Vision" being the noun is the correct usage of the term whereas "Visual" is an adjective.

In its absolute literal sense, to say someone is visually impaired would imply that there is a fault with how they are seen by others rather than how they are able to see. As I say, it's small potatoes but in striving for accuracy, I think it's a topic that should be discussed at least. Lezman (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Dont't Support - While I believe you are correct from a grammatical standpoint, widespread use differs. For example Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Dallas Services for Visually Impaired Children and numerous other examples. A counter example to support your claim is Hearing Impairment which if used in the same manner would become Auditorily Impairment. Thank you for raising a valid discussion, but I believe that it should remain Visual Impairment. Chance Lindsey (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Neutral

I understand what you are saying, however use of the adj. Visual with Impairment as a noun, and the plural verb Visually combined with the noun Impaired are equally acceptable. I'm not aware of how either assigns blame to the disabled individual. Maybe you could explain further? Livingheartbeat (talk) 21:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Adding a Communications Heading
Hello fellow editors! Myself and three other classmates are in a nursing communication class and were assigned to work on this article. Due to the fact our class is based off of communication we figured it would be appropriate to add a section on communication! I hope this is okay with the rest of you and you like what we have to add! If not feel free to message us and share your concerns Bm14pq (talk) 00:33, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * We are also planning sections that relate to development of visually impaired children and infants and also some minor changes to the facts in the epidemiology. Hopefully these changes are also acceptable. Tm13wg (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I have a few comments on your additions to this article. Visual impairment falls under the auspices of the Medicine WikiProject which means it faces much more stringement sourcing expectations than other areas of wikipedia. Take a look at the project's guidance on reliable sources to see those expectations. There are some other very minor issues with the content which may be fixed through the course of normal editing, but the concerns listed above are important and need to be addressed otherwise community members may remove the content--I don't think that would be a good outcome as the visual impairment page ought to have information on communication. Let me know if you have any questions about this or need help with any of the above. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Of note, the changes you've made to the article are largely sourced to three references: Bialistock 2005, Jan et al 1977 and Strickling 2010. In general it is preferred to reference review studies rather than individual research reports, though this doesn't mean doing so is prohibited. However, each source is used to support an entire section without additional sources (communication barriers for Bialistock, surroundings for James, development for Strickling). That's placing a lot of weight on these three sources and critical readers/editors will want to know that they hold up.
 * I need to be convinced that the Strickling article is an appropriate source for a medical article. It appears that the author is affiliated with a public high school and I don't see any indication that the paper has been published in a peer reviewed journal or that it represents the result of research of any kind. My suggestion is that you remove the reference and (provisionally) the sections supported by it.
 * Google scholar isn't everything, but it appears as though the Bialistock article was written and then largely forgotten by the discipline (only one citation since 2005), so again, a critical reader might ask why we feel the work is important enough to justify multiple sections including a proposed method for communication. Is there other work in the area? Have other researchers suggested best practices to reduce communication barriers with the blind? Without checking the literature I'd guess yes.
 * I don't have access to a copy of Jan et al but I'm not sure the main focus of the work supports the claims in the article. It appears (from works I'm seeing which reference it) that the study was a longitudinal look at behavior among the visually impaired. There's no indication in the text of the article that this is the case (as is strongly preferred by the guidance I linked above) and it may be the case that the statements about touch are merely tangential to the study itself. Again, I don't have a copy of it so I don't know, but that's what it looks like from the works citing the study.

Student's Suggestions
Great work on your edits everyone, you have made an excellent contribution to this article! Its great that you found so much information on communication for the visually impaired. I like how you incorporated communication barriers from both a visually impaired individual's standpoint, but also from the standpoint of someone who is sighted. This really fits the neutral point of view pillar of Wikipedia, as it is written from more than one perspective. I also love the section on how a visually impaired individual communicates with their surroundings, I think it is really great to include all different forms of communication! Although your editing is great, I have a few suggestions to help you improve your article even more. The first thing that I noticed was that a few paragraphs include in-text citations, which I do not really think is necessary. For example, in the sentence "In the article Towards better communication, from the interest point of view. Or—skills of sight-glish for the blind and visually impaired, the author, Rivka Bialistock[43] comes up with a method to reduce individuals being uncomfortable with communicating with the visually impaired", adding the in-text citation makes the sentence sound long and a little choppy. Since you have a citation at the end of the sentence still, I do not think it is necessary to add the first part in. There are a few other sentences like this that you might want to consider changing. I think it is a great idea to include a section on improving health care access for people who are visually impaired. However, I think it would be good to provide some specific examples of how communication barriers can affect their health and health care, as well as what the specific needs for vision are that you mention. Overall, your additions to this article are awesome, and make a great contribution to the Visual Impairment Wikipedia page. Keep up the great work, and congratulations on what you have accomplished so far! Avery (talk) 22:37, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much Avery, I loved reading all the positive feedback you gave us on our article! As well as giving us ideas on edits we need to do, we will keep these thoughts in mind as we are refining our edits! Thanks for helping us out! Sp14ud (talk) 02:51, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey guys! Great job at editing your article! I know it probably wasn't easy considering this is a wikiproject medicine article. I really liked your incorporation of the ability to communicate with surroundings I feel like this is a very important aspect of this article and needed to be discussed from the person with visual impairments perspective. You did an effective job at conveying this message. As Adam mentioned above, most of your references are from the three writers of Bialistock, Strickling, and Jan. You guys had some other great articles that seemed as if they would fit into what you are saying. There were correlations between the articles listed in your talk page and the ones you chose to use here. Incorporating some information from the articles psychological and developmental assessment and '''Chen. D, learning to communicate''' would be a good idea. These seem to have to relate with the stuff you guys have discussed and would help you further back up your statements. Another thing I think you guys did well was adding the information about the range of visual impairment. Most people do not recognize that there are different variations in eye sight. The section titled Adjusting the visually impaired peoples attitude to reduce communication barriers is a little confusing to me personally. The title states that you are changing the person's attitude who IS visually impaired. While I was reading it, it seemed to talk more about the person who had sight being uncomfortable and using the slight-glish method to teach those who are visually impaired to communicate. This isn't really adjusting their behaviour, you may want to think of a different title to avoid confusion. I liked how you drew parallels about social and language development. These are two very different things and you made it clear and concise. The differences in them were visibly seen. The last suggestion I have to improve your article further is to talk about more then just children's experience with blindness. Throughout the majority of your article you guys talk about blindness in it's relation with development in children. What about the people that experience blindness later on in life? These people face totally different communication barriers that aren't really addressed here. To make your article more neutral, I would consider trying to find something on this, if it is possible. Overall, you guys did an amazing good. You should be very proud, congratulations on your Wikipedia edit! Dm14qk (talk) 05:17, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, it really means a lot to hear positive feedback from others! I have taken into account everything that you have mentioned, and I fixed my initial edits, which was the section Adjusting the visually impaired peoples attitude to reduce communication barriers. I took that section and combined it with the Adjusting the sighted peoples attitude to reduce communication barriers and made it into one heading, Adjusting the visually impaired and sighted peoples attitude to reduce communication barriers. This way, this information that confused you can be included in both the sighted and the visually impaired people change of communication. Sp14ud (talk) 02:38, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I have been assigned to give your group feedback on your edits to the article! I have some picky wording edits, some feedback on sources, as well as feedback on overall writing.

1. Under 'Communication Barriers' there is a sentence that is "These factors are more non-verbal rather than verbal types of communication." I feel like this sentence could be worded in a better way. Maybe try something like "Non-verbal factors hinder communication between the visually impaired and those who are not, more often than verbal factors do."

2. There is also a paragraph that begins with "The blind person.." I think that this should be reworded, because in order to stay neutral, we can't assume that all visually impaired people are completely blind. This paragraph also has no sources.

3. In the 'Adjusting the visually impaired peoples attitude to reduce communication barriers' section, sight-glish is misspelled once, just a quick fix! I am also confused as to what this term means, and how it can help someone's communication. I would maybe rename this section and the one after it, as I feel that they don't relate as much to adjusting their behaviour, as it does to just explaining how both the visually impaired person, and the sighted person feel uncomfortable in interacting with each other.

4.Throughout the article, I find that there are large paragraphs with only one source. I would try to find other sources that can help back-up and be integrated with your original sources. I also found some paragraphs (specifically in social development and language development) that have no sources at all. I just think it needs to be a little more clear on where you're getting some of the information from!

5. I noticed that your article is very neutral in some coverage. You have written about how the visually impaired person is effected, as well as how the sighted person is effected in these interactions. Good job on looking at different perspectives! However, a lot of your evidence and examples relate to children, and so examples of other ages have been neglected.

6. I think it's great that you have written a section that explains the communication with the environment surrounding the visually impaired person! I think it's a neat idea, and that it really brings to mind that communication is not only with other people/living things, but other aspects of life as well.

7. The Language Development section begins with "With site" I believe that this is supposed to say "With sight,"

8. I see that your article is stable, as there are no editing wars going on. There are people posting on the talk page just to work together and further improve the page.

Overall, I believe that the writing of this article is good, and that you guys have good information. However, there are some sourcing errors that myself and others who have given feedback, feel need to be addressed. I hope that you guys take some of my feedback into consideration when making your final adjustments! Congrats on almost being done with this project! We've made it! Tianna Tf14rg (talk) 05:55, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much Tianna! All of these points are very well made, and thank you for pointing out some errors that we can easily fix as well! We will definitely keep these fixes in mind as we refine our edits to the page. Thank you for contributing your feedback, it was very helpful! Sp14ud (talk) 02:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Self-contradiction
This seems to contradict itself in the lead. It first declares that you do not have a visual impairment if your problem could be fixed by wearing eyeglasses (first sentence), and then it goes forth and declares that 43% of people with visual impairments just need glasses to correct refractive errors – or, if you add the sentences together logically, 43% of the people with visual impairments don't have visual impairments.

If you're going to keep those stats in the article, then you need to give the WHO's definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes different people use different definitions. Thus the first two sentence "Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment or vision loss, is a decreased ability to see to a degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means, such as glasses.[1][2] Some also include those who have a decreased ability to see because they do not have access to glasses or contact lens.[1]"
 * The second sentence addresses the issue you mention as it gives the WHO definition. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:27, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Problems with structure of Treatment section; RFC
The treatment section and subsections are a bit mangled. It has a lot of entries which should best be grouped under "Assistive technologies" or the like. Example: "Reading and magnification", "Computers" and "Other aids and techniques" are not treatments by any stretch of the imagination (nor is the remainder of section with communications et cetera). Only after numerous paragraphs does it mention: "For more information, consult Assistive technology" when there should ideally be main template pointing to Assist tech with section summarizing key aspects and topics specific to visual impairments. This needs feed back and suggestions on structure, as well as the actual language to be presented to readers (and preferably, collaboration in implementing it). -- dsprc   [talk]  04:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes could use improvements agree. Maybe summarize and move some of the extra content to a Treatment of visual impairment subpage. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 06:00, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It is such a clusterfuck, knowing where to begin is a bit difficult. This is why RFC was tacked onto the end of header there. Some level of guidance would be appreciated; others welcome and encouraged to chime in as well. -- dsprc   [talk]  15:29, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So I guess the question is what subsections should the treatment section have? Than we can try to organize that section around it. Agree it needs a lot of work. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Visual impairment. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110429132719/http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/accessibility.html to http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/accessibility.html

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Requested move 25 March 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. No support for this move. (non-admin closure).  Anarchyte  ( work  &#124;  talk )   10:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Visual impairment → vision loss – Consistency with hearing loss. Fish567 (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure Hum. Undecided after reading the below. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:08, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. I don't understand the point of lining this page up with the hearing loss page, because the histories and cultures of the two disabilities are so different. For example, as far as I know, the idea that deafness is a difference, not a disability is far more mainstream in the Deaf community than the analogous idea is in the blindness community. these Google results demonstrate that quite nicely, and they include the National Federation of the Blind, an organisation quite likely to advocate for such a stance, which has a remarkably strong Internet presence. "Visual impairment" is a more common term than "vision loss" from where I sit As a totally blind person living in Australia with blind friends around the world (especially in the US), but my perspective on the blindness/visual impairment community is admittedly quite unusual. The term "Visual impairment" gets 3,440,000 Google results, while the term "vision loss" gets 2,400,000, so the latter term is not that uncommon, but still less used than "Visual impairment". There's also the matter of what to do with the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vision_loss&offset=&limit=250&action=history significant page history] at the proposed title, along with its talk page. I'll ask other blind people I know about this issue but at the moment I'm in the oppose camp. Graham 87 09:22, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose: while the RNIB uses the term "sight loss", visual impairment is more common in my experience (I'm totally blind, see my userpage). Also see Graham's google search comments above. Some NFB people actually dislike the term visual impairment since they feel it has a negative connotation, but they're a vocal minority.Codeofdusk (talk) 13:18, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose; the phrase "visual impairment" is the most widely used standard terminology by people who speak and write about the topic professionally. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:26, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Hearing loss which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:30, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Infection
Perhaps I missed it, but I failed to note any mention of gonorrhea contracted during birth as a cauuse for blindness.Formerly, in many U.S. states, eyedrops of silver nitrate as a preventative were made mandatory for newborns.Penicillin ointment became a less caustic prophylaxis, but the process was slow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.249.146.8 (talk) 20:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Classification
The International Classification of Diseases 11 (2018) classifies vision impairment into two groups, distance and near presenting vision impairment. Distance vision impairment: Mild – presenting visual acuity worse than 6/12 Moderate – presenting visual acuity worse than 6/18 Severe – presenting visual acuity worse than 6/60 Blindness – presenting visual acuity worse than 3/60 Near vision impairment: Presenting near visual acuity worse than N6 or M.08 with existing correction. source:https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blindness-and-visual-impairment

I updated the page According to the above mentioned WHO web page only,  but it was rejected. The main thing I noticed was the classification of impairment into two, distance and near. Is that a good thing to be mentioned in wiki? is there any updated and new information on that? Sorry if this violates group rule Ajeeshkumar4u (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My problem with your edit was that it was hard to tell exactly what you're trying to do because you changed the formatting so much. It'd be fair enough to present the new info ... just keep the formatting the same as far as possible. Graham 87 14:27, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

thank you Graham, I will keep this in mind in future edits. Ajeeshkumar4u (talk) 05:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Removal of sections
I'm just noting here that I've gone and removed the text added in student work discussed above. See my edit summaries. Graham 87 06:24, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Merge Proposal
I propose merging Blind culture into Visual impairment. Blind culture just states that blind culture doesn't exist except for understanding what being blind is like, but that information might still be useful and I feel should be communicated. As there isn't very much to even say, I can't see WP:UNDUE being a problem I can do stuff! (talk) 18:09, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * As a blind person, I have no objections to this. I had no idea that article even existed until now. This is the sort of area where reliable sourcing is extremely thin on the ground; I don't think this podcast episode (which is very well-known in the blindness community but probably nowhere else) qualifies as a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes; for the record, I haven't listened to much of it. Graham87 (talk) 02:38, 10 December 2023 (UTC)