Word: blinds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Invitation to Type-Casting. The making begins with an arbitrary definition: a person possessing 10% or less of normal vision is legally blind; with anything more than that, he merely has "a difficulty seeing." Scott contends that with most agencies this definition is an invitation to relentless typecasting. "A client's request for help with a reading problem produces a recommendation for a comprehensive psychological workup. Inquiries regarding financial or medical aid may elicit the suggestion that he enroll in a complicated long-term program of testing and training. He may be expected to learn Braille, even though special...
...clients who resist agency proposals, they are often labeled as "un-insightful," assigned low priorities for job programs and all but written off as hopeless cases. The result, says Scott, is that "the alert client quickly learns to behave as workers expect him to." Too many agencies for the blind offer their clients few choices for job training except a "sheltered workshop," where they make simple handicrafts and numbly acquire "skills and methods of production that may be unknown in most commercial industries." Before long, the trap has quietly closed. Now psychologically blind, Scott charges, the patient is "maladjusted...
Scott admits that the agencies are not exclusively to blame. Many of them have tried genuine rehabilitation with their patients and have been rebuffed. "The blind person who deliberately thrusts himself into the everyday life of the community is soon treated as a nuisance; the blindness worker who pursues too seriously the goal of reintegration soon wears out his welcome. There is an unacknowledged desire on the part of the public to avoid contact with blind persons, a covert yet stubborn resistance to any genuine movement of blind people from the agency back into the mainstream of community life." Although...
Adjusted Veterans. One organization that Scott exempts from criticism is the Federal Government, at least in its treatment of blinded military veterans. They receive more generous payments than other blind people get under the Social Security Act, and their income is not reduced if they go back to work. After an average of four months in a rehabilitation center, they go back to their homes to find jobs. The treatment may be tough, but it works. Studies have shown that blinded veterans do statistically better than other sightless Americans in adapting to normal life...
...experience of sightless military veterans is the most dramatic proof of Scott's conclusion that the blind could be better trained to lead independent, dignified lives-if the agencies would change their ways. In rebuttal, agency spokesmen strongly contend that Scott's brush is much too broad. They correctly note that many progressive organizations for the blind, such as New York's Lighthouse, have modified their methods since the study began. Ultimately, Scott's attack on help for the blind raises larger questions than those he studied specifically. Most notably, do the same stereotyped expectations that...