Meaningful and Meaningless Errors

Meaningful and Meaningless Errors

Corinne Kirchner, Ph.D.

A Compilation of Meaningful and Meaningless

Typographical Errors on Blindness and Visual Impairment

by Corinne Kirchner, Ph.D.

From the Editor: The following article is reprinted with permission from

the April, 2000, issue of the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, Volume

94, Number 4, 2000, pp. 243-246, Copyright 2000 American Foundation for the

Blind. All rights reserved. JVIB readers can find many interesting and sometimes

astonishing things in its pages, but humor is not high on the list of the expected.

Corinne Kirchner is Director of Program Evaluation and Policy Research for the

American Foundation for the Blind. She is to be commended for this insightful

compilation of information about our field.

For decades a little-known research project

has been underway at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) to collect

the most outrageous and humorous typographical errors related to visual impairment.

The effort has resulted in a bursting folder of source materials filed in the

author's office. Although an important source of the data has been articles

submitted to the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB), especially

those not published, there have been other unexpectedly fruitful sources: grant

proposals, books, speeches, newspapers, inquiries received by telephone, and

envelopes.

The Population

A major concern in compiling demographic

statistics on blindness is how best to identify which parts of the population

merit attention. A letter sent to AFB a few years ago highlighted a special

population that has been overlooked by services; the envelope was addressed

to the American Foundation for the Bland (emphasis added here and throughout

this report). National surveys do not measure the prevalence of blandness. Therefore

it is not possible to estimate how many people in the United States are totally

bland or severely bland, much less how many meet the criteria of legal blandness.

Another needy population was targeted

by an AFB researcher (former AFB researcher) while she was leading a focus group.

She had apparently made one too many references to the sample that included

blind and sighted people and therefore blurted that AFB was studying "blighted

people." The blighted and the bland should be added to the traditional

groups covered in the first edition of a book by the author, which referred

to services needed by the undeserved.

Another relevant group that is hard to

pin down for statistical purposes was featured in a chapter on vocational issues.

The title, as repeated on every page, identified that elusive group as "the

Blind and Usually Impaired."

After researchers or policymakers specify

the population of concern, there remains the challenge of how to assess which

people fit the population definition. One article submitted to (and rejected

by) JVIB made the following hard-to-assail proposal: "The system should

allow for the assessment of visual levels of functioning for people with visual

vision."

Causes and Type of Onset

AFB usually refers questions about causes

of blindness to organizations that specialize in medical matters. However, it

seemed that a religious organization might be more appropriate to answer the

consumer who inquired, "How many people are blind from immaculate degeneration?"

At least it was clear that the questioner could not be referred to the Virginia

Department for the Visually Handicapped, which (as reported by a former staff

member in that agency) once received a letter addressed to the "Department

of the Virginally Handicapped."

It may be a revelation to epidemiologists

that blindness is not only geographically linked, but may actually be geographically

caused. The evidence comes from a listserv on which a new member introduced

himself as "thirty-nine years old and blind since birth from Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania."

Closer to AFB's expertise on social aspects

of blindness are questions about types of onset; nevertheless, AFB was unable

to provide statistics matching the category listed in one paper submitted to

JVIB that referred to people who are "congenially blind." That group

contrasted with another submission that referred to people who are "advantageously

blind." Of course practitioners work toward the day when all blind people

will be both congenially and advantageously blind.

In line with these positive cultural depictions

of blindness, a newspaper clipping referred to celebrating "Helen Keller

Dear-Blind Awareness Week."

Apparently multiple impairment is also

cherished by the community. The sharp increase in age-related causes of blindness

was recognized with particular sensitivity to problems of elderly persons in

an invitation for this author to speak to an audience of practitioners. The

letter explained, "We are interested in . . . the groaning population of

older adults becoming blind or visually impaired."

Problems of Low Incidence

The sources for this project include ingenious

solutions to the persistent problem of finding sufficient numbers of blind people

for research projects. One forward-looking solution was suggested by an envelope

addressed to the American Fund of the Blind. Unfortunately, the issue remains

how to stock the fund.

There are some rather drastic approaches.

For example, a grant proposal for doctoral research (whose written report must

be presented as a bound volume) included a budget item of $200 for "typing

and blinding."

Another researcher proudly credited her

own work with creating its study population. She wrote, "We can look forward

to obtaining very useful data on children who are blind or visually impaired

from this study." (Full disclosure: That source material came from this

very author.)

Another timely and horrific idea for assuring a sizable blind population was

inadvertently proposed by a respected leader in vocational rehabilitation, referring

to employment possibilities in data collection for the 2000 U.S.

Not all such ideas yield solutions to

the need for more research subjects. There are other examples that, although

equally shocking, would have the opposite effect. For example, at an advocacy

meeting a representative signed in on behalf of "the Death Blind Coalition."

And in one state that shall remain anonymous there is a "State School for

the Dead and the Blind"--that is, according to an appropriately now-defunct

mailing list at AFB.

By contrast, it is amazing to learn that

much of the blind population might not only be assisted but actually cured by

modern information technology. That possibility is revealed in a newspaper that

reported a blind Internet user's "sight on the Web"--a remarkable

phenomenon.

An inspiring note for increasing the supply

of research subjects was sounded in a draft of an AFB policy paper. The paper

implies that many more people could achieve visual impairment with the right

motivation. It refers to "programs that serve only those who are determined

to be legally blind." You too can become legally blind, if you are really

determined.

A totally different approach that could

be adapted for recruiting volunteers as research subjects is to ignore visual

status and simply require court-approved evidence of personhood. That approach

was used by a nonprofit organization "looking for two legally people interested

in serving on the board."

Who Does What to Whom?

Up to this point this report has focused

on the recipients of services. Now it will turn its attention to types of specialized

services and the practitioners who provide those services.

Definitely the most exalted specialized

service we have encountered is "Leader Gods for the Blind." It seems

there is no training program for these rare specialists; they just miraculously

appear. It is a sharp drop from the sublime to the ridiculous in a study report

on orientation and mobility (O&M) services that dealt at length with training

in use of the long can.

As everyone familiar with the politics

of detectable warnings can appreciate, that realm of services is a battlefield

of opinions. Thus it is not surprising that one grant proposal described its

plan to study detestable warnings, and another project was titled "Tactical

Warnings in Curb Ramps."

Now this report shifts from established

service specialties like O&M to an emerging one. A grant proposal recently

stated that there is a serious need throughout the country to help blind and

visually impaired people acquire "assertive technology."

One obstacle to providing needed services

is the critical shortage of specially trained personnel. It is with mixed emotions,

therefore, that the author reports on the attempt at recruitment of graduate

students posted on the Internet by a respected university. To quote: "Enhance

your career by becoming dully certified in the field of vision impairment with

the addition of an O&M therapy certification." Of course acquiring

both certifications is probably less dull than either one alone.

As a closing note there is poetic justice

in realizing that people who might choose to become dully certified will be

ideally trained to serve the population mentioned at the outset--whose most

severe impairment is blandness.