The phenomenon of disability perception in blindness

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the perception differences of blind people about their blindness, the determining factors of those differences and their possible consequences. For this purpose a qualitative survey was conducted on 36 blind participants, 22 men and 14 women. The findings revealed 5 perception levels from affirmer participants to normalizers. It is found out that, while affirmers and partial affirmers view blindness as a part of their identity, a difference and are not eager for a possible cure, for negative perceivers and normalizers, blindness is certainly a deficiency and is the main causes of their troubles in their lives. Independent living skills and equal interrelation with both blind and sighted people were observed as the most determining factor of perception of disability. The role of schools for blind had dualistic effects. While they provided independence skills, they had inhibitory effects in the lives of the participants. The impact of sight degree, family atmosphere, employment area, technology and blind related NGO‟s as facilitator or inhibitory factors were also discussed. The findings showed that people with more positive blindness perception had more active roles on both blind related and other NGO areas.