Deafness And Vision Disorders: Anatomy And Physiology, Assessment Procedures, Ocular Anomalies, And Educational Implications

It is a well-known phenomenon that all deaf people depend heavily on their vision as a chief compensatory factor when communicating with other people. Some become very proficient with speechreading, while most depend greatly on body language and some form of manual communication. It is therefore an interesting fact that, historically, clinicians and researchers have given very limited attention to the visual acuity of their deaf subjects. The essence of this book should lead future clinicians and researchers to reverse that trend and give appropriate attention to the eyes of their subjects as well as to their ears. The primary purpose of this text is to make resource materials on visual assessment and follow-up processes more readily available to all professionals preparing to work with the deaf. Among other components, this book contains chapters on anatomy and physiology of the visual mechanism; assessment procedures and recommended test instruments and equipment; common and less common visual and ocular anomalies often found among deaf students; methods for altering the educational environment to make academic success more likely; a glossary of vision, eye-related, and other terminology used within the text; and a list of acronyms and abbreviations in common use among physicians and researchers dealing with vision and/or deafness. Everything in this book is original, including the high quality color anatomical figures that illustrate a color adaptation technique demonstrated in the chapter on color deficient vision. This outstanding book serves as a "stand-alone" undergraduate or graduate postsecondary level course text, as well as a supplement to other courses dealing with deafness. The book will also be of great interest to students in deaf education, audiology, speech language pathology, social work, and other allied health career areas such as optometry and ophthalmology.