Almost half of visually impaired kids are bullied

[KamaAina]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/almost-half-of-visually-impaired-kids-are-bullied-1-3712026

A DAMNING report has revealed that 43 per cent of blind or visually impaired children are being bullied at school by their peers and excluded from day to day activities by adults.

This behaviour can lead to children facing various forms of bullying, with 86 per cent verbally abused, 74 per cent ignored, and 44 per cent facing physical violence.

The research, carried out by Blind Children UK, discovered that parents of sighted children will deliberately not invite blind children to events.

Almost half of parents with sighted children questioned admitted they would not feel comfortable inviting a blind or partially sighted child to their home without a parent or guardian.

Disability and LGBT groups have come together around this issue.

[mnhtnbb]

1. My youngest son is visually impaired

(sight is 20/200) and his friends in middle school and high school were wonderful. Our school district allowed
him to go to the high school (not our assigned one) where all his friends were going from
middle school. Once the friends started driving, someone always came and picked him up
to go to events/parties/get togethers at somebody's house.

He is legally blind and will never drive. It never stopped him from doing anything he wanted to do. He
went to UNC Chapel Hill, graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a double major; got a Fulbright
scholarship to spend 10 months in Berlin and is now a grad student at Yale School of Drama.

So...don't believe everything you read about how kids who are visually impaired may be bullied
or excluded from activities by adults. It all depends upon the community. And we have the
good fortune of living in a progressive community of intelligent and caring people.