IN TOUCH
TX:
12.07.11 2040-2100PRESENTER: PETER WHITE
PRODUCER:
CHERYL GABRIELWhite
Good Evening. "So,
exactly how much can you see, then?". It's a question the vast majority of visually-impaired people face, and quite a lot of us dread, I think. The vast majority, because it's only about four per cent of those who describe themselves as visually-impaired who have no sight at all. The rest of us cover this huge spectrum, from having just light perception, with hardly any ability to distinguish shapes, that's me, to what may appear to the public to be quite good sight which enables you to cross roads, look into shop windows, operate quite normally, but which contains huge variations: sight which changes with the degree of light, the background against which you're seeing things; the state of your health, how tired you are; whether you're hung over, whether the visual aids you're using are the right ones. It's a deeply puzzling world to those with good sight, and it's a world which those people who are experiencing it often have a deep need to explain. But how do you do it successfully and effectively? Well that's what we're setting out to explore in this programme. So by way of introducing my guests, let me start by asking you all that annoying question. Writer Redmond Zsell, so how much exactly can you see then?Zsell
On average, about 5% of what
'normal', in inverted commas, people can see. But that obviously depends on the level of light. So sometimes about 2% and sometimes about 10. I find it very difficult to track things that move. Things that are stationary are rather good.White
OK, we'll all try and stay
still for the next 20 minutes. Also with us, teacher Julia Hawkins, what about you? How much can you see?Hawkins
Well I also have 5% vision,
but all my vision is missing from the centre, so I have no detail vision at all. so I can get around OK and I'm the person who can cross the road reasonably well, look in shop windows, I can't see the prices