Selective placement for the handicapped : information for the placement of disabled applicants in competitive employment / War Manpower Commission, United States Employment Service.

Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selective placement for the handicapped : information for the placement of disabled applicants in competitive employment / War Manpower Commission, United States Employment Service. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    impaired near vision. Normally one holds printed or written matter about 14 inches away from the eyes in order toread. When persons wearing glasses do work requiring only near vision, and their near vision is normal with correction, Selective Placement is not needed. 20/70-20/100 in better eye (with cor- rection): Range of jobs is very wide. Only such jobs as engraving, requiring close and continuous use of eyes, might prove unsuitable. 20/100-20/200 in better eye (with correction): Jobs in which vision is re- quired primarily for guiding move- ments of the body and hands rather than inspecting the materials or objects. Examples: Suitable Laundry Work Shaker] In flatwork—finishing depart- olde: } ment of a laundry. Body presser—shirt or blouse. Packing, wrapping, shipping. Probably Unsuitable Laundry Work Inspector. Hand-finisher or folder. Weighing and reading from a scale. 20/120 or worse in better eye (with correction): Continuous work with written materials—as in stenography or bookkeeping—may strain the eyes too much. Typing from copy might be difficult for one with 20/100 or worse. Other clerical jobs such as duplicating- machine or dictaphone operator might be more suitable. Most outdoor jobs— skilled, semi- or unskilled—may be un- Suitable: Workers in a construction gang, for example, may trip over some- - thing on the ground, stumble into a ' ditch or get hurt by a moving object. As the visual loss approaches the threshold of industrial blindness, it be- comes increasingly desirable that the person work either in a confined area (factory machine operator, salesman) or in an outdoor environment not in- volving danger (greenhouse or poultry farm). 2. Relation of Illumination to Visual Acuity bearing on the degree to which anyone gets maximum utilization of whatever visual acuity he possesses. Careful and extensive tests have proved that for best seeing the brightness of the sur- roundings should approximate the brightness of the task. All the bright- ness or darkness surrounding the work or printed matter on which the eyes focus contribute favorably or unfavor- ably to seeing conditions. A bright area of sky seen through a window or a glaring light on a dark wall not only reduces visibility but also may affect the ease of seeing to the point of tense- ness and obvious discomfort. Not only should the task and the immediate surroundings have almost the same brightness, but it is also im- portant that when a job requires look- ing back and forth rapidly at different surfaces, the two or more surfaces in- volved should also be of equal bright- ness. Exposure to constant glare may cause muscular tension in and around the eye, thus producing strain and fatigue. Per- sons with impaired vision and espe- cially those whose eyes are very sensi- tive to light require the reduction of such glare, which may be accomplished by the use of shades and diffused light. It is interesting to note that colors which reflect light with varying de- grees of intensity, play an important role in illumination. For example, the use of lemon yellow, the most highly visible color, is helpful in marking dangerous parts of machinery or safety aisles. . 3. Visual Field and Evaluation __ if Visual field is the total. area. per- ceived when the eyes are focused straight ahead. This comprises both the small area on which the eyes are focused for a sharp impression (cen- ual acuity) and the larger area which is seen “out of the corner of the eye” (indirect or peripheral vision). Indi- rect vision registers on the outer or peripheral areas of the retina, is in- distinct, but makes for convenience or