WHAT DOES BLINDNESS REALLY MEAN?

Well it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t see anything at all. In fact most blind individuals have some degree of useful remaining vision. No two persons’ vision is exactly the same. Also, how people use their remaining vision can vary tremendously from individual to individual.

Many visually impaired individuals have a great capacity for using their remaining vision and other senses of touch, hearing, smell and ‘visual memory’ to create accurate mental images of the world around them and to undertake most everyday tasks without fear of personal danger or accidents. Children born with vision impairment are sometimes referred to as ‘congenitally blind’ whereas those who lose some or all of their sight later in life have an ‘acquired’ visual impairment. Partial sight or ‘low vision’ usually means that such people have different degrees of useful remaining vision. There is also a legal definition of blindness which means the individual may be eligible for certain federal, state and local services. Many of these people, although referred to as ‘legally blind,’ are actually partially sighted with some useful ‘residual vision.’