The test instrument developed for this study seeks to measure the extent to which the subject perceives his own or a named disability as debilitating in nine life areas or skills. It was administered to 46 visually handicapped persons and to 50 sighted college students. The results indicate that there is substantial agreement between the two groups regarding the seriousness of blindness in life activities. A number of correlations between the Scale items and demographic characteristics or life function tasks are presented; for example, the less others allow the blind person to perform his own tasks, the more serious is his problem with discouragement.
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