Do people with blindness lead a normal daily life?

The sighted world would opine - No, certainly not. They cannot do most of their own work! Etc. Etc. Etc. Well, they have sight but no vision.

People with blindness or visual impairment do lead a normal life with their own style of doing things. 

Definitely they face troubles, like many sighted people do in many areas, due to lack of sightedness, inaccessible infrastructure and social challenges. And like their sighted peers individuals with blindness or visual impairment can use assistive technology for a wide range of their daily living activities to facilitate daily living performance, to increase productivity, and independence living, participation in social life events etc. 

Activities for Daily Living and Models of Disability 

To understand the difficulties faced in Activities for Daily Living (ADL), let us recall the Models of Disability as presented in the Home page. It has two aspects:

1. Medical or Individual Model of Disability: This address the limitations caused to the person due disability like not being able to get visual information. Let us call it personal disability.

2. Social or Structural Model of Disability: This address the problems caused by inappropriate and inadequate infrastructure and societal attitude. Let us call it societal disability.

Assistive Technology (AT) can play crucial role in both, though, as of the state-of-the-art, it has been more effective in personal disability space. It still has an emerging role in societal disability (especially in terms of infrastructure). Note that often AT in personal space becomes truly effective if supported by appropriate AT in the societal space (for example, easy navigation needs to be supported by proper blind-friendly walkways).

In view of this, let us take a look at some of the daily life problems, struggles and challenges faced by the people with blindness or visual impairment in both spaces along with the pointers to technology assistance as available.

Problems and AT in Personal Disability Space

• Navigating Around Places

The biggest challenge for a person with blindness or visual impairment, especially the one with the complete loss of vision, is to navigate around places. Obviously, blind people roam easily around their house without any help because they know the position of everything in the house. People living with and visiting blind people must make sure not to move things around without informing or asking the blind person.

In Orientation & Mobility we discuss several assistance for independent navigation. Public places can be made easily accessible for the blinds with tactile tiles, braille signage, GPS etc. 

• Finding Reading Material

People with blindness or visual impairment have a tough time finding good reading materials in accessible formats. Millions of people in India are blind but we do not have even the proper textbooks in braille, leave alone the novels and other leisure reading materials. Internet, the treasure trove of information and reading materials, too is mostly inaccessible for the blind people. Even though a one can use screen reading software but it does not make the Internet surfing experience very smooth if the websites are not compliant. 

In Resources, Read & Write Braille, Read & Write Text, Read & Write Images, and Android & iOS Apps, we discuss several ways to find reading material in accessible formats. More and more content needs to be made available in accessible formats and websites made compliant.

• Finding and Keeping a Job

Work is a whole different matter if you’re visually impaired. Considering the lack of accessible work and working spaces, one can already imagine why hiring a visually impaired individual would be considered a liability for a company. This has a negative impact on the confidence and emotional well-being of the visually impaired, while it totally cripples their economic independence. 

In Training & Vocational, and Employment, we discuss opportunities for getting trained for work and for finding suitable employment. Societal attitude towards colleagues and peers who are blind needs to be lot more empathetic and positive gubernatorial policies are needed.

• Getting Devices to Become Independent

The most valuable thing for a person with disability is gaining independence. A person with blindness or visual impairment can lead an independent life with some specifically designed adaptive things for them. There are lots of adaptive equipment that can enable a blind person to live their life independently but they are not easily available in the local shops or markets. 

Pages under Assistive Technology provide a lot of information on how one can use devices for independence in reading, writing, navigation, education and the like. Further the Android & iOS Apps talks about over 200 mobile apps (mostly free) that can support independent living in various ways. While Android and iOS phones have built-in accessibility, even the range of more affordable blind-friendly mobile phones are of great help.

• Access to Information

The major sensory organ of a person is their eyes. One glimpse around us is enough to make us realize how visual is most of the information in our environment. Timetables in train stations, signs indicating the right way or potential danger, a billboard advertising a new product in the market, these are all the visual types of information we all come across in our daily life. Most of this information is inaccessible for the blind and the visually impaired, inhibiting their independence, since access to information signifies autonomy.

Several apps in Android & iOS Apps and several devices in Low Vision Aids discuss easy ways for finding and accessing information. More is available in Orientation & Mobility,  Resources, Read & Write Braille, Read & Write Text, and Read & Write Images. Android and iOS phones and affordable blind-friendly mobile phones useful devices for information access.

• Leisure & Entertainment

Leisure and entertainment, in general, is not easily accessibility for the visually impaired. There is a limited number of inclusive / accessible activities for the visually impaired, which are as simple as a museum visit. Moreover, accessible books are not abundant either. 

In spite of the limitations, a lot of emerging ways for experiencing quality leisure are presented in Entertainment. Android & iOS Apps can certainly add a lot more on to that. Readings for leisure can be found in Resources. In terms of outdoor entertainment including sports, a lot still is needed in terms of infrastructure and technology.

• Household Chores

As most of the people with blindness or visual impairment depend on the objects’ shape and texture to identify them. So usual daily chores like making tea / coffee,  arranging the laundry, take medicines, buying grocery, organizing household etc. become challenging task. Although a many people with blindness or visual impairment devise their own technique for the chores, but it still is a challenging chore. 

This page presents some options for the same.

Problems and AT in Societal Disability Space

• Societal Stigma

Being blind in a world suited for the sighted, it means there will be multiple normal mishaps. Stumbling upon an office chair that wasn’t neatly tucked under the desk or knocking a glass off the table because it was left right on the edge, are small accidents that can happen and that’s okay. However, such mishaps tend to be perceived by sighted individuals as the inability of the visually impaired to perform tasks, while, in reality, they stem from the inaccessibility of our world. Blindness or low vision does not indicate the intelligence of the individual nor how sad their life is. Just because the sighted cannot imagine their world without vision does not mean that the visually impaired have a sad or unhappy life because of their visual condition.

Besides stigma, even the insensitivity of the sighted world often hurts the people with blindness. For example, the sighted world prefers to refer as 'blind person' putting emphasis on the disability; but not on the person. It must be people first, then the disability. So we must say, "A student with a disability", rather than "a disabled student".

The Home and Guidelines & Policies pages outline how should the society behave with the people with blindness or visual impairment. Awareness & Advocacy covers attempts to spread awareness as well as efforts to ascertain the rights of PwD.

• Social Skills, Behavior and Communication

Most of the skills that sighted students use in their everyday social interactions have been learned through observing others and by imitating or modelling their behaviors and then adapting the behaviors to their interaction style. For example, a student learns how to use both verbal and non-verbal communication when greeting adults or peers by observing others in his or her environment.  These observed skills are then adapted into the student’s interaction style. 

In the absence of visual cues, the non-verbal communication skills including Eye contact, Facial expression, Gestures, Posture, Proximity, Body language, Listening, Grooming and hygiene etc. become serious challenge for students with blindness or visual impairment. Ans as they grow up, they tend to lack the overall social skills in their private as well as public life.

Kids, especially the teenagers, who are blind face a lot of difficulties in terms of their peer interactions, sex education, dating for partners etc.

This page presents some options for the same.

• Overly Helpful Individuals

It is good to be kind and help others. But overly helpful individuals often create problems for the person with blindness or visual impairment. There are lots of individuals who get so excited to help a disabled person that they forget even to ask the person whether she/he needs help or not. You might end up creating some trouble for the person with blindness or visual impairment.

In the Home page appropriate ways for interactions with persons with disability including blindness and visual impairment are discussed under "How to interact with a Person with Disability?".

• Often Living in Isolation

Considering all of the above, it’s not a surprise that living with a visual impairment might signify, often, living in isolation. Dealing with sight loss, already, is a challenge in itself. The lack of emotional support at diagnosis centers, the limited accessibility to activities and information, the societal stigma and the lack of employment, are all factors frequently leading blind or low vision individuals in isolation. 

Source

• Daily Life Problems, Struggle and Challenges Faced by Blind People, WeCapable

• Challenges blind people face when living life, EnVision

• Assistive Technology for People with Visual Loss, Delhi Journal of Ophthalmology, 2020

Further Reading

• My Son Will Not A Beggar Be by Ved Mehta

• Visual Perception

• Blind people of India: Kristian Bertel Photography

• Skills You Need for Everyday Living, VisionAware

• Can a blind person live a normal life?, 2020

Menstrual hygiene bracelets and a tactile apron on the female reproductive system helps girls understand puberty

Of India’s estimated 50,32,463 people with visual disabilities, 23,93,947 are women. If the silence and stigma around menstruation makes it hard for women with sight to manage their periods, it becomes far more challenging for the visually impaired. They are often pressured by their families to have their uterus removed so that they stop menstruating.

Now a tactile book As We Grow in Hindi and English on menstrual hygiene management is helping these women visualize and understand their bodies and the physical changes that happen during puberty. 

The tool kit includes 

• specially designed menstrual hygiene bracelets and 

• a tactile apron on the female reproductive system 

that trainers can use in schools to help visually impaired girls understand puberty. This has proved to be a big boon especially for adolescent girls from marginalized communities whose parents are uneducated.

The kits help teachers shed their inhibitions while talking about periods. According to Anita Kumari, a teacher at Saksham, talking about the male and female reproductive organs was embarrassing for many of them. “Now with the Braille book and tactile apron, we don’t feel any shame. It has given us azadi (freedom) to talk about it,” she says.

Developed by 

• • Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) 

  • Centre of Excellence in Tactile Graphics, IIT Delhi

  • Saksham Trust

  • Noida Deaf Society

Source

• How a tactile book helps visually impaired women deal with their period, The Hindu, 2019

• Young People, Chetna India

• Managing menstruation for women and girls with disabilities

Inclov

Inclov is a matchmaking platform for people with disabilities to make friends and find love.

Inclov stands for Inclusive Love. It is designed for people with or without disability to come together and meet new people around them. It is a fast growing community of 1,00,000 people with total of 30,000 unique connections. Inclov promotes inclusiveness within the community making it accessible and safe to users with visual impairment, polio, paraplegia, cerebral palsy, prosthetic foots, cancer, diabetes, thalassemia, or skin diseases like Vitiligo and Albinism, etc amongst others. Created with a vision to aid independent living and social acceptance for the community, Inclov today has the largest community of people with disability in the country and actively works with partners and corporates to create innovative & inclusive experiences for them without social bias or prejudice.

Social Spaces

Meet new people, make new friends, find love or even a life partner at Social Spaces; India’s first inclusive offline meet up platform curated for people with or without disabilities at accessible spaces in your city. The venues are 100% accessible through ramps at entry-exit doors, accessible washrooms and sign language interpreter.

Wanted Umbrella

Understanding Disability and Disability of Understanding go hand in hand.

- Kalyani Khona, Founder, Inclov

Audible Vision App is an effort towards making a meaningful impact towards the blind and VI community. App will leverage artificial intelligence to help them be independent by helping them perform some of the daily chores on their own and help stay safe through mask and crowd detection.

App has a very simple and intuitive voice driven UI interface for ease of operation. It is a one shop stop for the users to handle many activities like:

• Smart Text: Identify product name or nearby shop names.

• Expiry Date: Detect expiry date of products. This feature is in experimental stage, kindly re-confirm the expiry date with a human agent.

• Safety: In current situation, it is even more challenging for the blind people to know if their surrounding is safe.

• Mask detector: Person in front is wearing mask or not.

• Crowd detector: Equally important is to identify if the commute path is not crowded.

• Find Text: Identify products or shops through their names. For example, if a user wants to find a specific medicine in a medical box; instead of reading all the text, user can ask for a specific medicine name to be searched and the app will alert as soon as it camera is directed towards it.

• Document: Read books or text pages.

• Voice commands & feedback: The app can be controlled using voice commands and output will be communicated through voice or sound. 

Designed for the blind and low vision community, this research project harnesses the power of AI to describe people, text, currency, color, and objects.

Seeing AI is a Microsoft research project that brings together the power of the cloud and AI to deliver an intelligent app designed to help you navigate your day. Point your phone’s camera, select a channel, and hear a description of what the AI has recognized around you.

With this intelligent camera app, just hold up your phone and hear information about the world around you. Seeing AI can speak short text as soon as it appears in front of the camera, provide audio guidance to capture a printed page, and recognizes and narrates the text along with its original formatting. The app can also scan barcodes with guided audio cues to identify products, recognize and describe people around you and their facial expressions, as well as describing scenes around you using the power of AI. An ongoing project, the latest new ability to be added to Seeing AI’s roster is identifying currency bills when paying with cash and describing images in other apps such as your photo gallery, mail, Twitter.

• Turns the visual world into an audible experience — with this intelligent camera app, just hold up your phone and hear information about the world around you.

• Recognize and locate the faces of people you’re with, as well as facial characteristics, approximate age, emotion, and more.

• Read text quickly — hear short snippets of text instantly and get audio guidance to capture full documents.