Home| Keynote Speeches| Workshop Papers| Other Documents
The integration of visually
impaired people depends on two factors, namely on the fact how well society
is prepared to accept them and how the visually impaired and the blind
themselves are adjusted to living and working with the seeing people. Since
social enlightenment is a rather long and complicated process the second
factor is much more important. To help the blind and the visually impaired
to associate with the seeing without inner psychical tension (with strangers
in particular), to make their behaviour free and natural, devoid of any
complexes they need realistic appraisal of their personality and possibilities
which, to my mind, is closely connected with the acceptance of their handicap.
Psychologists of the blind
have noticed that self-appraisal of the visually impaired is more often
polarised than that of the seeing, i.e. it is either groundlessly positive
or too negative. It means that visual impaired has a certais place in the
structure of their self-consciousness. If the self-appraisal process is
concentrated on the handicap it acquires a lot of negative aspects. The
people imagine that their personality has a smaller value because of their
handicap, it supresses their activity, their potential possibilities and
their adaptation in general. In case the handicap is ignored in the self-appraisal
process, no attention is paid to it they become of extremely high opinion
of themselves. The people imagine that their visual impairement is of almost
no importance in their lives, they set themselves unrealistic goals, behave
as if they could see well and are apt to experience certain failures because
of that. Although such people are rather active and full of energy they
are under constant suspense and always expect failures because of ignoring
their handicap.
In order to verify the statements
and to analyse the personality's self-appraisal under the circumstances
of visual impairement I carried out a series of research. For my first
research object I chose 50 visually impaired students of the age group
15 to 18 studying in the senior forms of Lithuanian schools for the blind
and the visually impaired. My later research was done with 90 blind adults.
The choice of the age was
not accidental since I hoped that their self-appraisal which intensively
forms in their adolescence would be stable by that time. For the comparison
of the data 50 seeing students of the same age were tested too.
The students' appraisal
test consisted of three series. In the first one they were given a test
for emotional relations with themselves consisting of 9 scales:
1) inner sincerity and honesty;
2) self confidence; 3) self reliance; 4) reflection of the evalution from
the environment; 5) sense of self- value; 6) self-acceptance; 7) sticking
to one's "ego"; 8) self-blaming; 9) inner conflicts. When comparing the
emotional self-appraisal data of the visually impaired students and those
with normal sight it turned out that the data of the visually impaired
students were lower in comparison with their seeing peers at almost all
levels. Statisticscally proved are differences in the scale of their self
confidence (P > 0.01), sense of self value (P > 0.02) and sticking to one's
"ego" (P > 0.001). That means that visually impaired students are less
self-confident, have greater inferiority complex and expect the same attitude
from the others. Besides they more stick to their self-appraisal and lack
of wish to change something in themselves.
Very interesting and meaningful
were the data of the sex groups. Girls were inclined to evaluate themselves
too low, while boys an the contrary - too high. In the emotional self-appraisal
of the seeing boys and girls such contrasts have not been observed.
The aim of the second research
series was to analyze students' cognitive self-appraisal features. The
young people were given a scale of personality's features to find out how
they evaluate their intelect, ability to associate with people, altruism
and morals when dealing with other people. The young people had to evaluate
not only their own qualities, but those of their class-mates as well using
nine point system. Thus it was possible to state the cognitive self-appraisal
level in this aspect and its adequacy when comparing your own evaluation
and that of your class-mate.
While comparing the data
of visually-impaired and seeing young people it turned out again that the
data of the visually impaired students were lower than those of their seing
peers, i.e. they were inclined to use lower points for the evalution of
their character features. Mathematical statistical analysis has shown that
they evaluated three features, namely the flexibility of mind (P > 0.05),
ability to get into contact (P > 0.001), sincerity (P > 0.02) lower than
others. There wasn't a single feature which would have been evaluated higher
than that of the seeing students. At the best the data of both groups were
quite similar.
It should be mentioned that
the data of the visually impaired boys and girls did not run into extremes
in this research as was the case in the emotional self-appraisal. Evidently
it is so because girls have more problems not on the cognitive level of
self-appraisal, but rather in the emotional personal relations with themselves,
they are just not self -contented.
After comparing each student's
data of self-appraisal with those of their class-mates it turned out that
in both groups there were people who evaluated themselves inadequately
high or vice versa. It has also been established that 31% of visually impaired
students evaluated themselves inadequately low while this low percentage
of the seeing was only 15%. Inadequately high evaluation was almost identical
in both groups - 11 % for the blind and the visually impaired and 13% -
for the seeing.
Thus, not only self-evaluation
level of the tested visually impaired young people is lower than that of
the seeing ones on the whole. They also have certain problems of self-appraisal
adequacy. The problems do not stay deep inside them. They "dictate" unnatural
behaviour, inefficient style of associating with people, unrealistic hopes
and visions of their future. I noticed all that in the answers of the blind
and the visually impaired students presented by them to complete the sentences,
in which they expressed there are some sincere moving answers. The beginning
of a sentence: "When I compare myself to others, I think..." evoked such
answers from some of the young people: "others were given so much and I
was depraved of it", "I'm good for nothing", "I am of little value". "I
deserve...": "nothing but pity", "that others would avoid me", "others
looking down with contempt at me". "I would be happier if ...": "I could
see well". The answers show that some of those young people's minds are
too much concentrated on their handicap, they feel being repulsive and
victims of their ill fate, though this "dark" philosophy has been created
by themselves, in other words, they make themselves unhappy. So teachers
could do a lot when helping visually impaired students to change their
attitude towards themselves and their handicap, towards other people and
life in general. If students learn to reconcile themselves to their handicap
and realize that this is invariable situation in their life they will find
it easier to adjust to it.
I noticed the fact that
it is rather difficult to accept their handicap and feel at ease and naturally
in different situations for visually impaired people when doing research
with 90 blind adults too. They were offered three types of situations:
1) encouraging the blind to show their handicap to strangers (e.g. to use
the braille in public, to sign a paper when surrounded by a crowd etc).
; 2) encouraging the blind to apply for strangers' help ( e.g. there is
a ditch on his usual route, drops a coin in a shop etc.); 3) when the seeing
don't behave properly (mock at them, pay too much attention, humiliate
them etc.). When summing up the results of the research important tendencies
were revealed. Only 49, 54% of the answers proved that the blind would
behave at ease and naturally in unusual situations, 28,75% of the answers
concerned disregarding of the handicap and 21,71% of the answers proved
that the blind would be passive or try to avoid such situations.
The results of the research
have prompted us to prepare a correctional quide for visually impaired
students to encourage their more positive self-appraisal attitudes. The
quide could be used by teachers of the blind and psychologists working
with visually impaired students. The quide envisages a group work for only
this ensures reflexive tie so important for every member. The workshops
should be of three directions: discussions on different subjects, games
and other tasks, staging of difficult or unusual situations for visually
impaired people (psychodrama). All this has to be closely interwoven in
the work of a group in accordance to the current moment.
Naturally discussions on
different subjects are possible and even desirable, but there are themes
which simply have to be discussed by visually impaired students.
The themes of fate and happiness
should be discussed with the attitude that happiness depends rather on
us than on outer factors, that our fates are built by our habits, behaviour,
decisions and goals. It's also worth while talking with the students about
the value system, about failures and errors, stressing their positive side-encouragement
of perfection. More than one class should be devoted to students' attitude
towards blindness with the aim of persuading them that blindness is not
any great misfortune, but it is not inconvenience either, it is one of
the circumstances in one's life that one has to reconcile with and adjust
oneself to. When discussing the attitude of the seeing towards the blind
we stress the fact that their negative attidute concerns the mere fact
of blindness rather than personalities of the visually impaired. Besides
there are different stereotypes of attitudes among all the people including
the blind and the visually impaired, so they should be rationally accepted.
The tasks presented for
the group should be: a) for learning about oneself (cognitive) and b) for
making the self-appraisal more posuitive. In the learning about oneself
and self-appraisal much attention should be paid to students' not using
too generalized conceptions or attributes. They should rather learn how
to periphrase, soften, or make them more concrete. Self-appraisal could
become more positive thanks both to friendly words of the group members
and to successfully performed tasks. It is important that the student's
"ego" and success would associate as often as possible. Besides, the young
people should learn how to praise themselves, notice even a fraction of
success in their everyday life.
Also in a group we could
try to stage different situations in which stress and frustration is experienced
because of the visual handicap. Thus the students would experience negative
emotions and find the most efficient variants for their behaviour together
with the group.
They are working in Lithuanian
schools for the blind and the visually impaired using this guide (it is
presented in a separate edition) and we hope to achieve good results.