Guest Editor's Page

Abstract

When I was approached to serve as guest editor for the Special Issue on Critical Issues of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB), I had not yet announced my retirement. Now that I am retired, editing this issue has been an amazing experience, both in learning how JVIB reviews and selects articles, and in learning that my career is not quite over. I thank JVIB's editors-in-chief, Diane Wormsley and Sandra Lewis; the Editorial Advisory Board; and Rebecca Burrichter, JVIB's senior editor, for believing I could do this, and for helping me to do it. This issue does not reflect the universe of critical issues in blindness and visual impairment, nor could it hope to do so. I had anticipated many more responses to the call for papers, but nevertheless what you will find within this issue is a microcosm of what people are concerned about today. Holding the privilege of guest editorship allows me to write about my own soapbox issue--research--in rehabilitation, special education, and early intervention services. Although I specifically address educational research, because that is my experience, students with visual impairments inevitably graduate into the rehabilitation system. The issue affects all of us in the field of visual impairment. Unlike larger special education fields, visual impairment has no research institutes, no research-dedicated faculty, and very few organizations that are able to support a systematic program of research. Scientifically based research for infants, children, and youths with vision loss is notoriously underfunded, understaffed, and often overlooked. Although the complexities of conducting research with low-prevalence populations--small samples, geographic dispersion, inappropriate or inadequate comparison groups, and heterogeneous subjects--do indeed pose huge barriers for researchers, these issues are not insurmountable. Of greater concern is a crumbling research base that no longer applies to a changing population and a special education faculty who are facing multiple responsibilities that leave little time to engage in a program of inquiry. As a consequence, the field of visual impairment has little hard evidence to support the methodologies and practices it implements on a daily basis. The foundation of research in this field is built on case studies, anecdotal reports, individual philosophies, common sense, intuition, clinical practice, and word-of-mouth. Although these traditions are valuable, they are insufficient for today's educational environment. We know what we need to do, but we do not always know why we need to do it, or how, or even if it is the best procedure to use. Without evidence to support and validate our work, we cannot even be sure that what we do is beneficial to the children and families we strive to serve. Those of us in the field of visual impairment remain a kind of folk art, working in isolation in a cultural tradition based on intuition and clinical practice instead of acting as a profession that continuously renews itself by pursuing new knowledge and establishing research-based practices. Although the field of visual impairment has a long, impressive body of literature, the capacity to conduct scientifically based research with interventions and comparison groups has been largely unfulfilled. A series of literature searches conducted collaboratively by the fellows of the National Center on Leadership in Visual Impairment documented that less than 1% (n = 16) of peer-reviewed intervention studies met the criteria for scientifically based research--see the definition at [section] 9101(37)(B) of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Other analyses have found similar results. Significantly, no two studies have investigated the same outcomes using the same independent or dependent variables. Only one study has ever been replicated (Mason, 2012). Interventions cannot meet evidence standards unless they have been tested by multiple researchers with different groups of children and in various settings. …