Access to books for the visually impaired: minimising charity and maximising choice

This research aims to find ways of making access to copyrighted books for the visually impaired as much a matter of choice as possible by moving the provision of access away from models based on charity and of building the provision of access into the mainstream. The work of third sector organisations providing access and attempts by the visually impaired community itself to enhance access are described. Realities effecting support workers in universities who have to help visually impaired students investigated. Legal disputes relating to copyright and anti-discrimination law are discussed. Developments in the ebooks market are monitored with a particular reference to attempts to build accessibility into devices like the Kindle and Apple products. The research also looks at how best to secure access to online bookshops, web pages offering ebooks for download in public libraries and ebook libraries in academia. The current level of access being achieved in this area is assessed. Next ongoing attempts to improve access and differing views on the advisability of an approach based on enforcement of the Worldwide Web Consortium’s accessibility guidelines or a more flexible approach emphasising user testing are discussed. Conclusions and recommendations: changes to copyright law and further development and clarification of anti-discrimination law as it applies to publishers are necessary. Libraries should adopt a more innovative approach and field some of the specialist provision currently undertaken by charitable organisations. Accessibility to relevant websites is probably best provided by a combination of ongoing relationship building and with web developers and a more flexible approach than rigid enforcement of accessibility guidelines. Further research is needed on exactly how libraries could undertake specialist transcription most efficiently and on how to bring multi-national companies like Adobe, Amazon and other manufacturers of ebooks reading devices unambiguously into the ambit of anti-discrimination

Visually handicapped children and their families.

Some Main Findings: Under 25% of the eligible sample group were registered as blind or partially sighted. This under representation of the problem makes planning for the future difficult. There were communication difficulties between many professionals and clients with associated differences in the perceptions of need. Professionals tend to work within their own "ivory towers" and do not communicate with professionals of other disciplines. This leads to patchy and uneven services. Low ratings of satisfaction were awarded to some groups of professionals, and these low ratings were often associated with communication difficulties. High ratings of satisfaction on the other hand tended to be awarded where the client had: an on-going relationship, with the same named person, who is an expert in the field, all three of these inter-linked factors being necessary for client satisfaction. The dynamics of family life are disturbed and disrupted by the diagnosis of blindness and the rearing of a severely visually impaired child in the majority of instances. Passage through crisis, however, does not inevitably lead to family breakdown and it is worthy of note that a number of the families studied, although severely tested, appeared to emerge from the crisis, not merely intact but actually strengthened

The welfare of the visually handicapped in the United Kingdom

The care of the blind is a long standing British tradition. Until the early years of the 20th century there was a strong dependence on voluntary enterprise. However, under the 1920 Blind Persons Act local authorities assumed responsibility for the welfare of the blind in their areas, and after this a triple partnership between voluntary organisations, central government and local authorities became firmly established. By the mid-20th century, through a combination of voluntary and statutory endeavour, services for the welfare of the blind had reached a standard above that for any other handicapped group. The cornerstone of the service was the home teacher. However, following the Seebohm Report, in 1971 the blind welfare system virtually lost its specialist service, and technical and mobility officers, along with generic social workers, became responsible for blind welfare. Services declined in many areas. More and better trained specialist workers are required. Social rehabilitation services could also be improved. However, the Royal National Institute for the Blind's new development programme will help to improve the many services for which it is responsible. The blind could be helped in several other ways. The majority of blind people are elderly and doctors and others should use an outreach approach to help these people. Often simple modifications in home lighting can dramatically improve visual performance. The majority of the partially sighted with acuity in the range 3/ 60 - 6/ 60 should be redesignated registered blind. In this way more of them could be helped by the specialist organisations. Currently the blind do not receive a pension and a blindness allowance should be introduced to compensate them for the extra costs of blindness. The Thatcher Government's social security reforms will not help the blind substantially. It is essential that the blind are integrated into society, and a comprehensive programme of integrated education and a strengthened employment quota would help to achieve this. These are important components of a progressive social policy for the blind

Disability, values and quality : a case study in Derbyshire

Cultural representations of disability reveal a cultural value system which characterises the disadvantage experienced by disabled people in terms of personal tragedy, the impaired body and otherness. The reproduction of these disabling values in the dominant discourses of British policy making have resulted in a mode of welfare production based on 'care', individualism and segregation. More recently, implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act has tended to consolidate rather than challenge this policy tradition. By contrast, the emergence of a strong disabled peoples' movement offers significant forms of resistance to dominant policy discourses through the development of social models of disability. In particular, Centres for Independent/Integrated Living have promoted an alternative agenda for enabling community support systems based on the values of participation, social integration and equality. Disabled people's organisations in Derbyshire were at the forefront of these developments in Britain. Their attempts to implement integrated living solutions within the policy framework of community care demonstrate significant conflicts over the definition of quality in service processes and outcomes. The study employs co-participatory methods to involve local service users and disabled people's organisations in exploring these issues within an emancipatory research paradigm. The data from this research highlights specific barriers to policy change and suggests that effective self-organisation within a cohesive social movement is a necessary pre-requisite for the liberation of disabled people. Ultimately, the agenda for change promoted by the disabled peoples' movement challenges not only attitudes and values but also the social relations of production and reproduction within a capitalist economy

Assessing the content of advice from practitioners claiming paranormal ability

This thesis focuses on both the development of methods for testing practitioners claiming paranormal abilities (i. e. astrologers, psychics and mediums) and the exploration of how they use various linguistic strategies to convince clients that they genuinely possess paranormal abilities. Paranormal claimants have been tested for decades with varying success. The results have provoked acrid debate, mainly focusing on the methodological issues. This thesis reviews the key issues in this debate, describes the formulation of a method of testing that aimed to prevent the many problems that have hindered past research, and how this was then used to test several professional practitioners from the main three paranormal domains. The empirical work examines the accuracy of the claimants then seeks to understand underlying linguistic causes for participants' acceptance of particular readings. Many researchers from the early 1900s involved primarily with mediumship were aware of natural psychological explanations for impressive alleged after-death communication. In addition, more recent research has examined the possible linguistic stratagems employed by pseudo-psychics to convince clients of apparent accuracy where there is none. To date this research has primarily focused on the Barnum Effect and taken a more process-oriented stance, manipulating various aspects of Barnum-type statements themselves (e. g. positive vs. negative wording) or the source (e. g. psychologist vs. psychic) to decipher the optimum conditions for acceptance. Little research, however, has examined the actual readings produced by claimants themselves. Taking it's lead from rhetorical psychology, and with a content analytic approach, this thesis examines the rhetoric of paranormal claimants using the actual readings produced in a controlled environment. The results from the accuracy tests did not support the existence of genuine astrological, psychic or mediumistic ability. Competing interpretations of these results are discussed, along with ways in which the methodology presented in the paper could be used to assess conceptually similar, but non-paranormal, contexts

Talking about learning: the role of student-teacher dialogue in increasing authenticity and validity in assessment of student learning in secondary school drama

The intention of this work is to argue that if assessment in secondary school drama classes is to achieve any reasonable measure of authenticity and validity, student self-assessment and student/teacher dialogue must be a vital part of that assessment. The first four chapters comprise an overview covering five major concept areas: the current trends in assessment towards standardization and quantification and the problems inherent in those methods; the uniqueness of learning in the arts; definition of the various types of learning that occur during students' practice of drama and the difficulties of assessing them; an overview and analysis of recent practice in drama assessment; and a proposal for using self- and dialogic assessment including a literature review addressing the problems to be solved m utilizing those means for assessment. The fifth chapter details and defends the methodology by which the data were collected and analyzed. The data were collected through Action Research using my classroom as laboratory and my students as subjects. Data were collected through four separate methods detailed in Chapter Five. Chapter Six examines and analyzes the data. The chapter offers evidence of the various types of learning operationalized in Chapter Three, examines the language of self-assessment and the growth of students' self-assessment skills, and finally describes the effect of student/teacher and student/student dialogue in guiding and optimizing that self-assessment. In the concluding chapter, I suggest that the practice of self- and dialogic assessment may be useful in increasing the validity and authenticity of assessment across the curriculum and propose some areas in which further research concerning the use of self-assessment and dialogue could be useful

The Use of Occupational Information to Improve Vocational Opportunities for Visually Disabled People

This research considers how occupational information can be used to improve vocational opportunities for visually disabled people. The literature shows that despite the disadvantage they experience in the labour market visually disabled people of working age. can achieve economic independence. An examination of models of support and intervention shows that the potential uses of occupational information throughout assessment and rehabilitation are not fully recognised in the UK. A study of tools used in vocational rehabilitation highlights the lack of instruments for use with visually disabled people. Literature is used to guide design of a new job analysis instrument for use with visually disabled people. The literature on organisational change provides guidance on the introduction of the new instrument. The job analysis instrument is tested and then adapted for use as a multi-purpose assessment instrument, for both job analysis and assessment of individuals, in order to facilitate job matching. To ensure that the instrument meets the needs of potential users the occupational information and vocational support needs of visually disabled people, employers and service providers are investigated. Analysis of potential user requirements highlights the limitations of job analysis as an approach to improving the vocational opportunities for visually disabled people so a vocational information system, based on the Internet, is designed. The system comprises a number of elements, namely a multi-purpose assessment instrument, occupational and vocational databases and a job matching service. One element, a vocational information database is already operational. The effects of organisational change in employer and service provider organisations are found to exert significant influence over vocational opportunities of disabled people and can present as barriers. Joint working to develop the vocational information system is recommended and this could assist with breaking down the barriers that exist between these groups