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.

Recent vision research has led to the emergence of new techniques that offer exciting potential for a more complete assessment of vision in clinical, industrial, and military settings. Emergent Techniques for Assessment of Visual Performance examines four areas of vision testing that offer potential for improved assessment of visual capability including: contrast sensitivity function, dark-focus of accommodation, dynamic visual acuity and dynamic depth tracking, and ambient and focal vision. In contrast to studies of accepted practices, this report focuses on emerging techniques that could help determine whether people have the vision necessary to do their jobs. In addition to examining some of these emerging techniques, the report identifies their usefulness in predicting performance on other visual and visual-motor tasks, and makes recommendations for future research. Emergent Techniques for Assessment of Visual Performance provides summary recommendations for research that will have significant value and policy implications for the next 5 to 10 years. The content and conclusions of this report can serve as a useful resource for those responsible for screening industrial and military visual function.

Comprises selected contributions to the Optics Within Life Sciences first conference. The first in the series, it is intended to serve the need for interdisciplinary information and communication in the domains of Optics Within Life Sciences.

Based on the First Biannual Lifespan Development Conference, this volume offers a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to the study of lifespan development in the areas of neuropsychology, cognition, behavior genetics, and perception. The objective of the conference was to provide a lively forum for the discussion of issues related to lifespan development and to reflect on important topics challenging the field during the 1990s. The chapters in this book, motivated by the conference presentations, cover: * the assessment and evaluation of developmental changes in visual perception; * the contribution of behavioral genetic factors to development; * the predictability of perinatal risk factors as they relate to cognitive and linguistic outcomes; * the neuropsychological changes during aging; and * innovative approaches to the study of cognitive development using neuropsychological testing methods.

The aim of this book is both to reflect current knowledge of perceptual development and to point to some of the many questions that remain unanswered. The study of perceptual development is now a sophisticated science. The majority of the chapters tell a fascinating detective story: the way in which infants perceive and understand the world as they develop. Each of the major sections is prefaced by introductory comments, and the book will be useful for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, and other professionals who have an interest in early perceptual development and in infancy in general.