There Are No Limits on Careers for Blind and Visually Impaired Individuals

Pennsylvania Association for the Blind

555 Gettysburg Pike, Suite A300
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

717-766-2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Katie Schock
Ditector of Public Relations
(717) 766-2020

As part of our year-long Blindness Awareness Program, the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind wants employers to know that there is a huge untapped resource among people who are blind or visually impaired.

People who are blind or visually impaired can perform almost any job you can imagine: lawyer, artist, accountant, secretary, customer service representative, food service worker, factory worker, financial analyst, teacher, medical transcriptionist, day care worker, counselor, computer programmer, cook, salesperson, clerk, and more. We cannot count the number of different jobs people who are blind or visually impaired are engaged in today or will be in the future. The possibilities are tremendous.

People who are blind or visually impaired have a wider array of career possibilities than ever before in history because of a combination of events since the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Legislative and societal changes have been aimed to reduce discrimination toward visually impaired workers as attitudes toward people with disabilities generally have improved. Employers, especially in midsized and large businesses, routinely follow equal employment opportunity practices and have diversity and disability-accommodation processes in place. Available assistive technology makes it easier for people who are visually impaired to perform many jobs that they never could have before. Proper training, appropriate tools, the ability to sell oneself, and a willing attitude on the part of employers constitute a winning formula. And yet, the unemployment rate among working age blind people is 70%.

No two visually impaired people have the exact same level of functional vision or the same approach to executing work-related tasks. Some use their vision more than others; some may work more efficiently when they use non-visual techniques. Many blind people learned to perform the essential functions of their jobs before they became visually impaired and simply need to learn adaptive techniques to retain or return to competitive employment. The majority of people who are blind or visually impaired will benefit from simple, inexpensive accommodations or modifications to their work environment in order to perform competitively at work.

Accommodations in the Workplace Accommodations are adjustments to the work environment or an individual's work situation that enable a person with disabilities to perform work duties as well as (but not always in the same way) as his or her co-workers without disabilities. Accommodations that have proven effective and affordable for workers with visual impairments include the following:

Glare reduction and adjusted lighting.
Voice or e-mail messages instead of handwritten notes.
Desk or laptop computers adapted with screen-reading (synthesized speech), screen magnification, and/or optical character recognition (OCR) software.
Scanners, larger-than-average monitors, and/or Braille display devices can be added as peripherals.
Large print, tactile, or talking calipers, scales, tape measures, thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, calculators, money identifiers, and cash registers

Aids to mobility for people who are blind or visually impaired include long canes, dog guides, electronic travel aids, special telescopes to read signs, use of public transit, and carpooling.

About the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind (PAB)
The PAB is a private, nonprofit, charitable organization comprised of 28 member agencies and founded in 1910 for the purpose of helping Pennsylvanians prevent, prepare for, and manage vision loss. PAB is funded, in part, by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services, Office of Vocation Rehabilitation, in the Department of Labor & Industry.