Visual Functioning of Persons With Severe and Profound Intellectual Disabilities: Observations by Direct Support Workers and Staff Members and Information Available in Personal Files

Despite the high prevalence of visual impairments in persons with severe or profound intellectual disability (ID), often a formal diagnosis is unavailable. Direct support workers and staff members have access to the information of the visual functioning through the personal files and build knowledge based on their own experiences. In order to provide individualized and high quality support in daily life, the accuracy and availability of this information of the visual functioning is essential. This study investigates the knowledge of direct support workers and staffmembers on the visual functioning of their clients and the written information available in the personal files. It is investigated to what extent they do agree on their knowledge and how certain direct support workers and staff members are about their knowledge on the visual functioning. Additionally is investigated to what extent the information available in support files is based on formal assessment. For 104 clients with severe or profound ID a direct support worker and a staff member filled in a questionnaire about their visual functioning. Next, the personal files were analyzed. Direct support workers and staff members respond significantly differently on the questions on the impaired visual functions. Direct support workers rate the certainty level of their knowledge on their clients' visual functions higher than staff members. The personal files lack information on the visual functioning. If information is available, it is mostly based on subjective impressions. The knowledge of direct support workers and staff members and the information available in the personal files provide no comprehensive picture of the visual functioning of the persons with severe or profound ID.