Abstract
The primary individuals involved in a psychological evaluation are the person being evaluated, the examiner, the referring person and the parents. Focus has been upon certain perceptions, feelings and attitudes of these individuals, especially as they relate to the visual handicap of the child. Denial and passivity are often found in the child, whereas the examiner feels unwise sympathy, tends to overestimate the blind child's capabilities and tends to attribute all pathology to the blindness. Parents and sources of referral can deny the handicapping meaning of blindness and may have preconceived biases about what conclusions they would like to see reached. Such feelings serve to hinder the most adequate completion of a psychological evaluation. An open and honest approach to visually handicapped children, free of denial and delusion, has been implicitly emphasized.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.