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Low Vision Services

• Sealladh
• New View
• Echolocation

Visibility's pioneering Low Vision Services are aimed at people who want to make the best use of their remaining sight. Visibility keeps itself at the forefront of research in this area in order that these techniques can be made available to people who may benefit in the west of scotland.

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Sealladh

Visibility’s Sealladh project is for ex-service men and women who have acquired a brain injury, which may have been caused by:

• Road traffic accident
• Fall
• Poisoning
• Viral infection
• Stroke
• Brain surgery
• Brain tumour

Research suggests there is a common link between sight loss and head injury.  Often people that have acquired a brain injury may not be aware that their sight could have been affected, or perhaps they are aware of the visual loss but require professional support to understand their visual changes. It is estimated that between 30% - 40% of people who have acquired a brain injury will have an undiagnosed or diagnosed neurological sight difficulties. People who experience neurological sight difficulties often present with the following behaviours:

• inability to see one side of their surroundings
• bumping into objects or people on one side
• difficulty locating objects which seem obvious to others
ignoring food on one side of a plate or shaving only one side of the face
• seeing double or objects appearing to be hazy or blurred
• difficulty moving through crowded areas
• suffering from increased glare sensitivity or difficulty making out detail in dimly lit situations
• changes in reading ability
• getting lost in familiar environments
• difficulty in recognising objects or faces

Sealladh uses pioneering Neuro Vision Technology developed in Australia to assess the person’s visual abilities using a non-invasive training package. Once Visibility has carried out an initial assessment, Visibility will work with the person to develop a training rehabilitation programme.  The programme will train the service user to use systematic static scanning techniques.  These techniques can be used in the home and can lead on to further development of communication skills, independent living skills as well as indoor and outdoor mobility.  The technique enables people to scan regularly to avoid daily collisions; it eliminates the dangers of crossing the road and unsystematic visual searching.

Sealladh has been funded by the Scottish National Institution for the War Blinded and developed in partnership with West Dunbartonshire council and covers the West of Scotland. This innovative and creative service is a unique opportunity for ex- service people to access a service that will support them to achieve their desired level of independence.

Download Sealladh Leaflet for Service Users - PDF (224KB)

Download Sealladh Leaflet for Professionals - PDF (145KB)

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New View

The New View project is for people with central vision loss who retain a degree of peripheral vision (mainly but not exclusively people with macular degeneration) and who wish to regain some functional reading ability.

We train people, with the aid of magnification, to use their peripheral vision to read. This technique is called Eccentric Reading and was developed in Sweden and America. People who have been involved in the training have found it exciting to develop this new skill. It does require concentration and can be a little tiring at the beginning, but the results are worth it.

Training can be done at our offices or at a place convenient to you.

For further information contact 0141 332 4632.

If you are interested in learning how to train others in this technique, go to Training.

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Echolocation

Echolocation is a technique used to varying degrees by many people with visual impairments to enhance their orientation and mobility skills.  The easiest way to describe it is to say that it allows a person to make use of sound waves for orientation and navigation. Visibility invited Dan Kish of World Access for the Blind to train a group from Visibility to pass on echolocation skills to others.

By developing the technique, a visually impaired person can detect obstacles in the environment and distinguish between objects such as parked cars, lamp posts, fences and hedges.  The use of echolocation can lead to increased confidence and efficiency when travelling independently

So how is it done?

A sharp click made by the tongue against the roof of the mouth generates a sound wave which is reflected back by objects in the immediate area.  By Tuition and practice, a person can learn to discriminate between different types of object and use this information in conjunction with other mobility techniques to create a more complete mental image of surroundings.

Visibility has been working with a group of 10 children age between 4 and 18 years to develop and improve their echolocation skills.  Results at present reinforce the idea that these skills can be taught and can enhance and complement other mobility techniques.  In the near future, we will be moving on to working with our first group of adults with a view to broadening access to echolocation tuition.

For further information, please contact: David Logan

For more in depth reading go to: www.worldaccessfortheblind.org.