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 Chapter 4:
Function and Problems Of Dependence

Dependency is one of the more difficult problems the visually impaired person must face. Whether he is born blind, loses his sight at an early age, or loses his sight as an adult, there are many things he cannot do for himself. There are other things he can learn to do, but only after considerable experience or training.

The congenitally blind person is confronted with the problem of dependency from his earliest attempts to grapple with his environment. His parents may encourage him in these attempts, because they are so concerned with his safety that they never permit the child to become familiar with the things he requires to become relatively self sufficient.

The adult who loses his sight has similar problems but his reaction to dependency is affected by additional factors. Family members may encourage him to be dependent on them or they may push him into unrealistic independence. In either case, his reaction is influenced by the fact that he had many years of independence prior to his loss of sight. He was free from the need to depend on others. While he could see he could come and go as he pleased. The more complete his loss of sight, the more acutely he is aware of what he could do at one time and what he cannot do now.

Nowhere is the change more noticeable than in his ability to travel freely. Even in the familiar surroundings of his home he finds it difficult to move about. He may bump into a wall or door or become disoriented in the middle of his living room. If he can find his way about his house, he still faces the ordeal of crossing a street to visit a neighbor or walk to a store.

The specific problem of the visually impaired person is to determine what constitutes realistic dependence and what is unrealistic. Conversely, he must determine if the independence he displays is realistic or unrealistic. If he is motivated to regain his former independence, or as much of his former independence as possible, he will try to do whatever he can for himself. He will discover that he can do some of these things for himself, while others he cannot do, or at best, do them only with difficulty.

Traveling without sighted help is one skill that usually seems impossible to the newly blinded person. He has relied on his sight for so long that he cannot believe anyone can get along without it. Once he begins a course of mobility training, he becomes aware that what he first thought was impossible is within the realm of possibility.

However, even in this situation he must deal with the problem of dependency. He must determine what is realistically possible and what is not. He may begin his travel training with high hopes for complete freedom to travel but finds that his ability does not meet his aspirations. A walk in a quiet neighborhood may be entirely within his ability, but he cannot negotiate a street crossing at a busy intersection. For whatever reason, his ability is limited. He must face the fact that he cannot achieve his original goals.

When he reaches the limit of his ability, he must determine what he can do for himself and what he can do only with help. Walking around his neighborhood is possible for him, but traveling downtown on a bus is not. He may have to ask someone to travel with him. Or he may be able to travel on a bus if he can get someone to help him across a busy street to reach the bus stop.

It is difficult for most visually impaired persons to make such an objective determination for themselves. One person may feel he has reached the limits of his ability when in fact, he can learn to do more than he is already doing. Another person may not be able to admit he has reached the limit of his ability as long as he has not achieved his goal.

Such persons must have the objective help of the professional who is teaching them to travel. He watches them as they learn and analyzes their progress on the basis of this analysis he must determine whether the student has reached a temporary plateau in his learning, or whether it is beyond the ability of the student to improve his performance.

Once the instructor has concluded that the student can go no further in mobility training he should give this information to the student. Unless the instructor shares this information, the student cannot benefit from the knowledge.

When the student learns he is limited in his ability to travel he can begin to deal with the conflict between what he would like to do and what he can do. Without the knowledge of his limitation, he might retain high but unrealistic hopes of being a good traveler. He might, on his own, attempt routes or situations that are beyond his ability. As he resolves his feelings concerning his limitations, he can deal more effectively with the problem of realistic dependency. He must accept this fact if he wishes to function

Certainly it is not easy to give information that will disappoint a student. This is particularly true when the relationship is as close as it necessarily is between a mobility instructor and his student However, it is far kinder to disappoint a student than it is to allow him to struggle in a learning situation in which he can have no further success. If his lessons are unproductive, he is constantly faced with the frustration of failure. In addition, it does not help the student if the instructor is evasive about his reasons for terminating instruction. It would certainly be tempting to tell the student that he is too busy to continue instruction, that there is a long waiting list, or that agency policy limits the number of lessons he can give to each student. But, if the student does not know he is being terminated because of his limitations, he might continue to apply for additional training from one instructor or another. Eventually, someone may again begin instruction with him and he again faces the frustration of trying to learn something that is beyond his ability.

If a student is actually limited in his ability to travel, this is what he should be told. The instructor can then deal more fruitfully with the student concerning how and when he should be dependent. Because the instructor is helping the student to deal realistically with his problem of dependency, he is providing the help the student really needs.

An additional problem faced by mobility instructors is that of the student's dependency on him. This dependency is stimulated by the very nature of the instructor-student relationship. The instructor is the professional - the authority figure on whom the student depends to acquire the skill of traveling with little or no sight. Furthermore, during the early phase of mobility instruction the student feels and often is very helpless. He depends on the instructor for his safety. Thus, the dependency of the student on his instructor is both unavoidable and desirable. It is unavoidable because of the limitations imposed by visual impairment. It is desirable because the student must develop some degree of trust in the instructor if he is to gain from the experience.

The entire process of mobility instruction is one of alternately developing and using the dependence of the student and pushing him toward greater independence. It is a sequence that is repeated over and over as the student proceeds from one phase of instruction to another. The student trusts the instructor and allows himself to depend on him. The instructor uses this to advance the student to more complex or difficult tasks in the course of training.

Dependence, in this sense facilitates the instruction process as long as the instructor can maintain the proper balance between dependence and independence. If the student has been comfortable in his dependence on the instructor during early phases of training, he will be more likely to allow himself to depend on the instructor in later and more difficult phases of instruction. The instructor who is aware of this attitude in a student can feel confident that as lessons progress the student will continue to trust him and depend on him. He knows what to expect of the student and knows what demands he can make on him.

Dependence, however, when it is not controlled can interfere with the learning process. If the instructor is not aware to what is going on in the mind of the student, the balance can shift to the side of abnormal dependence. He knows the student is taking inordinately long to complete a particular phase of instruction but does not know why.

The student may have become so dependent on the instructor that he cannot function independently when he is asked to do so. He might be able to cross an intersection quite well when the instructor is present but is unable to do so when he thinks he is alone. It is possible that his difficulty is caused by extreme anxiety. However, it is also possible that the real problem is his inordinate dependence on the instructor. In either case, the student is unable to deal realistically with the problem. If the instructor is to help the student, he must be aware that inordinate dependency is a factor in the training process. With such knowledge he can help the student achieve a balance between realistic and unrealistic dependence and use this to facilitate the training process.

 

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