relationships with peers without disabilities and engaging in age-appropriate
activities. In fact, 85% of the books exclusively involved relationships with sighted
peers. Of particular concern was the tendency for relationships to be circumstantial
(usually familial) rather than friendships based on mutual interests. The overall
weighted average for relationship type is 4.72, which corresponds to the "Needy
Blind" relationship. Furthermore, only 50% of the books involved same-age
relationships. Of the 15 stories that focused on family relationships, these
relationships were primarily with the parent(s) or grandparent(s) rather than
siblings. Another four stories depicted neighbor relationships, in which there
usually was a significant age gap. In addition, many of the children-to-children
interactions were as classmates who struggled to truly accept the character with a
visual impairment as they were more concerned about helping them. Moreover,
there were two books that focused on human-animal friendships, and one book that
involved imaginary friends.
Based on this analysis, recommendations for authors regarding the
development of quality relationships are as follows: 1) avoid the need for the
character with a visual impairment to have to win acceptance; 2) base friendships
on mutual interests and reciprocity; 3) model strong, appropriately interdependent
support networks in which all individuals receive and provide different types of
supports to one another; 4) portray the character with a visual impairment as equal,
