VIDBE-Q Volume 69 Issue 4
that would typically be needed by students, and our findings suggest that more
training while in school could be beneficial. Interestingly, Tuttle and Carter (2022)
identified a gap in device use and instruction provided in document scanning in
their study of AT use among students.
Limitations of our study should be mentioned. First, traditional limitations to
data collected via surveys apply to this study (e.g., sampling bias, response bias,
measurement error). Our study utilized data from two separate surveys,
administered approximately one year apart, and we made some changes to our AT
list between the surveys. Thus, our AT list for skill level and training needs does
not match exactly to the list for learning methods. We may have underestimated
the AT training needs based on how we limited who was provided the question.
Finally, we anticipate that the participants in this study would have had access to a
TSVI, as they were all blind or had low vision while in K-12 education in the mid-
1980s or later, but we do not know the extent of services, if any, they received
from a TSVI. We also do not know if the participants utilized the AT they reported
using at work while attending K-12 school.
Despite these limitations, the findings from this study should be of interest
to professionals who work with students who are blind or have low vision. This is
the first study to investigate AT used in the workplace by young adults with
blindness or low vision and to document training needs for this population. Being
