Vision Impairment: More Than What You Can't See

Let me introduce myself. My name is Alyssia, I’m 19 and currently studying law at university. Although I’m frightfully busy with my studies, I enjoy singing, playing accessible games, doing arts and crafts, gardening and listening to audio books. I’ve been a part of the RSBC Youth Forum for two years now - where has the time gone? As I’ve been blind since birth, with only a small amount of light and colour perception, I’m very aware of the negativity surrounding disability. In this blog, I’m going to show that being disabled can help you develop some useful skills.

When you have a vision impairment, discussions centre on what you can’t do, or you encounter narratives around how you can overcome your disability, how you can succeed in spite of, not because of your disability. However, my own experiences have shown me that there’s far more to being disabled than what you can’t do. In fact, there are many skills that you can gain simply from being vision impaired and navigating a society that isn’t built for you. In this blog, I’ll explore some of these skills in more detail.

Problem-solving

As I’ve said above, vision impaired people are constantly having to navigate an inaccessible society that wasn’t built with us in mind. Many public spaces and everyday tools, such as devices and websites, are often not accessible. This means that we have to be excellent problem solvers and come up with creative solutions for these barriers. Many of us have had to put tactile markers on appliances that have flat buttons, figure out how to get around advertisement boars that may be difficult to detect with our canes, or take lots of screenshots so we can scan them in AI apps to have the text read aloud. We often have our own ways of dealing with various challenges that we’ve developed through trial and error.

 

Problem-solving skills are not just cool and helpful for puzzle games, they’re also a valuable skill to have in the workplace and everyday life. I feel that my vision impairment means I’m able to think up solutions for accessibility problems when I have them. This allows me to suggest reasonable adjustments for myself, as well as ways in which institutions can be more accessible and inclusive.

 

Advocacy

So, we’ve established that my problem-solving skills can help me come up with reasonable adjustments and solutions, but I need to explain those solutions and why they are important. Advocacy is a skill that us vision impaired people are constantly having to use. Often times, people have never met a vision impaired person before, so we may have to explain our needs. We do this to help people understand how our disability affects us and why what we’re asking for is important, as unfortunately society isn’t at a place where this is common knowledge yet. 

 

Why is advocacy important? As well as being a vital tool for getting our needs met, it also develops our communication skills. We have to advocate for ourselves in many different contexts, such as with medical professionals, friends, teachers or employers. These all require different approaches – how I would speak to a good friend is quite different to how I’d speak to a lecturer. Additionally, many people who’ve never met a VI person likely won’t understand some of the jargon related to vision impairment, meaning that we may have to explain our condition in ways that others can understand. Finally, being able to advocate for yourself and for others will allow you to speak up about issues that others could be facing, but may not feel comfortable bringing up themselves.

 

Observation

Saying that VI people are good at observing the world around them initially sound’s slightly ironic, but it’s true! Being blind means that we rely more on our other senses, meaning we often notice cues in the environment that others miss. For example at train stations, there have been points where sighted people have asked where the next train is heading and I’ve been able to tell them because of the audio announcements. Because we have to be tuned in to our environment, we often notice things that sighted people might not.

 

Empathy

Although I’ve spoken about the positive aspects of being vision impaired, I cannot deny that it can be extremely challenging. The world wasn’t made for people like us, and inaccessible systems, bureaucracy, and challenges navigating and socialising with others can take their toll. As well as this, many of us have felt isolated before in the past. This, however, means that we can empathise with people who’ve gone through the same or similar experiences to us. I find I can often relate to and have empathy for fictional characters who’ve struggled with loneliness or lack of friendships because of my own experiences.

 

Also, these experiences make us keener to engage in making the world a better place. Had I not been born blind, I don’t think I would be as passionate about accessibility, equity and inclusion. I probably wouldn’t have joined the RSBC Youth Forum and developed the confidence to use my voice and speak up for the vision impaired community, or disabled people as a whole. My disability has given me amazing opportunities to share my views on projects that matter to me, and I’m really grateful for that.

 

So, to conclude, being vision impaired can be extremely challenging, but it can also give you many skills and experiences you wouldn’t have been able to develop otherwise. This disability pride, I want to discuss what our disabilities allow us to do, rather than focusing on what we can’t do. Because after all, where’s the fun in that?