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Comprehensive Examination
of Barriers to Employment Among Persons who are Blind or Visually Impaired (1998)
Technical Report: $20
Executive Summary: FREE
Results of these efforts indicate that on-the-job training programs, job coaches,
and transportation voucher systems are helpful in assisting persons who are
blind/severely visually impaired overcome employment barriers. Consumers also
typically rely on their significant other for encouragement, transportation,
and clerical assistance, while receiving assistance from the rehabilitation
providers with education and training, obtaining equipment and other adaptations,
and job placement and support services. Employers also provide adaptive equipment;
encouragement and assistance; education and training; and clerical assistance,
readers, and drivers.
Consumer and Employer
Strategies for Overcoming Employment Barriers
Priced at: $20
Focus groups of persons who are blind and employer focus groups suggested strategies/methods
for rehabilitation providers and employers assisting persons who are blind or
severely visually impaired in overcoming employment barriers. Suggestions to
rehabilitation providers included engagement in educational activities for employers
and the general public regarding the skills and abilities of persons who are
blind and the adaptive equipment available to facilitate performance of job
tasks, promotion of positive contact between persons who are blind or visually
impaired and employers, increased involvement in transportation issues, provision
of assistance to job applicants in their efforts to learn about potential employers,
and increased intervention by the rehabilitation provider with the employer.
Suggestions to employers included assigning mentors to new employees who are
blind or visually impaired, utilization of the rehabilitation professional or
human resources representative to educate other employees about issues related
to blindness, involvement in transportation issues, provision of flexible schedules,
and cooperation with the employee and rehabilitation provider in identifying
and obtaining assistive technology.
Contrasting Characteristics
of Blind and Visually Impaired Clients Achieving Successful and Unsuccessful
Job Retention (1995)
Priced at: $15
This report examined cases in the National Blindness and Low Vision Employment
Database to identify and profile environmental and personal characteristics
of clients who are blind or visually impaired and who were achieving successful
and unsuccessful retention of competitive jobs. A total of 787 cases were analyzed.
Two hundred and eighty-one competitively closed clients were profiled and compared
in detail, according to whether they retained their former job or retained employment
at a comparable job. Both groups were compared to other clients who were previously
competitively employed but who were not competitively employed at closure ("nonretainers").
Employment Retention
After Vision Loss: Intensive Case Studies (1997)
Priced at: $20
Contains 10 case studies of persons who successfully retained employment after
vision loss. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed that the job modification
strategy having the most impact on successful job retention is the use of assistive
technology. Computers with either large print access and a large screen monitor
or voice synthesis and an optical character recognition system were used by
9 of the 10 subjects. The predominant form of job restructuring was use of a
reader by 6 of the 10 subjects. Of the 10 subjects, 7 received personal adjustment
training at some point. Six of the subjects received training in the use of
assistive technology. Organized labor was not found to have any influence on
the job retention of any of the subjects.
The Impact of the Americans With
Disabilities (ADA) on the Employment of Individuals Who are Blind or Have Severe Visual Impairments.
Part I: Elements of the ADA Accommodation Request Process (2003)
Intervention Practices
in the Retention of Competitive Employment Among Individuals who are Blind or
Visually Impaired (1996)
Lifestyles of Employed
Legally Blind People: A Study of Expenditures and Time Use (1992)
Looking at employment
through a lifespan telescope: Age, health, and employment status of people with
serious visual impairment
The 1994 Survey
of Direct Labor Workers who are Blind and Employed by NIB Affiliated Industries
for the Blind (1994) Overcoming Barriers to Employment
among Persons with Visual Disabilities: Perspectives of Rehabilitation Providers (2004).
Priced at: $20 Two methodologies, a telephone survey
and a series of focus groups, were used to identify strategies/accommodations
rehabilitation providers use to assist persons who are blind/severely visually
impaired in overcoming employment barriers. Providers address attitudinal barriers
through education strategies in individual and group settings. These educational
strategies include presentations, networking, mentoring, job coaching, and on-the-job
training experiences. Transportation barriers are addressed through individual
intervention, such as relocation, transportation funds, or use of volunteers,
as well as through systems change. Administrative barriers can be overcome with
increased communication and streamlined paperwork. Barriers due to lack of skills
are addressed with training, job coaches, and mentoring activities. Programs
providers identified as particularly helpful in service delivery are also described.
Readers may identify strategies/accommodations they may replicate in their own
work with persons with visual disabilities. Opportunities for those engaged
in job development/placement to discuss and share their successful strategies
and request assistance and support with difficult barriers is recommended.
Workplace Visual
Functioning Assessment for Job Modification and Accommodation (1988)
Priced at: $20
This report, the first of three, examines the impact of the ADA accommodation request process on the
employment opportunities of people with severe visual impairments. The monograph includes an extensive
literature review of attempts to evaluate the ADA and a qualitative interview study of the accommodation
request process from three perspectives: people with severe visual impairments, rehabilitation professionals,
and employers. A draft of a survey that will be modified and used for the second phase of the project is also
included.
Priced at: $15
This study investigated the methods by which an individual can retain competitive
employment after the onset of a significant vision loss. Interviews were conducted
with 89 rehabilitation counselors across the U.S. Strategies that contribute
to successful job retention were identified as well as best rehabilitation practices
in job retention.
Technical Report: $10
Executive Summary: FREE
This reports on a sample of employed adults who are legally blind as well as
a comparison group of sighted people. It explores the impact of visual impairment
on the lifestyles of employed persons who are legally blind by applying the
following: (a) time-use methodology, as a way of exploring social participation;
(b) data on financial expenditures; and (c) data on educational background,
family situation, use of technology, and other social factors presumed to affect
time use. This study also aims to help improve vocational rehabilitation services
by broadening the view of successful rehabilitation beyond that of simply obtaining
some kind of employment.
Priced at: $25
An in-depth analysis of nationally representative data on the employment of
people who are legally blind or have other serious visual impairments, ages
18-69.
Priced at: $10
This report is a follow-up to surveys conducted by National Industries for the
Blind (NIB) in 1983 and 1987 and summarizes the results of a national survey
of approximately 500 legally blind direct labor workers. The report focuses
on the development or modification of service delivery policies in systems that
address the problems and issues currently identified by direct labor workers
who are blind.
Priced at: $10
In this study, the principles of job analysis, worker analysis, and job modifications
as outlined in the general rehabilitation and occupational literature were reviewed
and applied to the worker with a visual disability functioning in the workplace.
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and
approved.