Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780309083485)

When children and adults apply for disability benefits and claim that a visual impairment has limited their ability to function, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) is required to determine their eligibility. To ensure that these determinations are made fairly and consistently, SSA has developed criteria for eligibility and a process for assessing each claimant against the criteria. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits examines SSA's methods of determining disability for people with visual impairments, recommends changes that could be made now to improve the process and the outcomes, and identifies research needed to develop improved methods for the future. The report assesses tests of visual function, including visual acuity and visual fields whether visual impairments could be measured directly through visual task performance or other means of assessing disability. These other means include job analysis databases, which include information on the importance of vision to job tasks or skills, and measures of health-related quality of life, which take a person-centered approach to assessing visual function testing of infants and children, which differs in important ways from standard adult tests.

Author: National Research Council,Division of Behavioral and Social Scienc,Board on Behavioral Cognitive and Sensor
ISBN-10: 0309083486
ISBN-13: 9780309083485
Publisher: National Academies Press
Language: English
Published: 08/17/2002
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.71lbs
Size: 9.94h x 7.06w x 0.88d