This is me: A qualitative investigation of young people’s experience of growing up with visual impairment

Childhood visual impairment (VI) has a profound impact on many aspects of childhood and adolescence. This is well-documented in cross-sectional and/or quantitative studies utilizing self-report instruments which compare children with and without VI. Young people's views on the experience of gro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2021-07, Vol.16 (7), p.e0254009-e0254009
Main Authors: Robertson, Alexandra O, Tadic, Valerija, Rahi, Jugnoo S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Age
Biology and Life Sciences
Blindness
Child development
Children
Children & youth
Childrens health
Developmental stages
Growth
Impairment
Interviews
Medicine and Health Sciences
Monitoring instruments
Physiological aspects
Practice research
Psychological factors
Qualitative research
Quality of life
Social aspects
Social Sciences
Teenagers
Vision
Vision disorders
Visual impairment
Young adults
Youth
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Summary:Childhood visual impairment (VI) has a profound impact on many aspects of childhood and adolescence. This is well-documented in cross-sectional and/or quantitative studies utilizing self-report instruments which compare children with and without VI. Young people's views on the experience of growing up with VI as a developmental, change-driven process remain largely unexplored. As part of our broader research programme on quality of life of visually impaired children and young people in the United Kingdom, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted between March and June 2015, with a stratified sample of 17 young people with VI, aged 16-19 years. An age-sensitive, empirically-based topic guide encouraged retrospective reflections on participants' experiences of growing up with VI, including age-normative and vision-specific challenges. Descriptions of growing up with VI largely centered on an overarching higher-order theme labelled becoming me. Four themes representing everyday activities, attitudes, preferences and perceptions in relation to i) social relationships, ii) independence and responsibilities, iii) the future, and iv) rising to challenges emerged and were used by participants in their description of three stages in which they developed a sense of self: i) laying the foundations, ii) testing the waters, and iii) this is me. Differences in manifestation of VI influenced how young people made sense of their experiences and their sense of self.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0254009