As JVIB Publishes Another Double Issue Teaming With Research and Practice, Everybody Wins

Abstract

Readers who subscribe to the print issue of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB) may have been tempted to offer their postal carrier some sympathy for having had to carry the giant-sized March-April 2022 issue to their mailboxes. At 176 pages, it was by far the longest, most dense, issue that the journal has published in a long time. Even the fingers of scrolling online readers, reviewing the table of contents, no doubt were fatigued by the time its end was reached. What a great summer treat to have that issue arrive just when work was slowing down a bit. And, if you haven’t already noticed, this July–August 2022 issue brings more of the same—15 research and practice articles from which to select the ones that best match your need for professional growth. There are plenty of research and practice papers in this issue, which offers double the opportunities to learn about any number of topics. Two articles on assistive technology: Tuttle and Carter describe the results of their survey of teachers of students with visual impairments about assistive technology use among their students; Booths has explored this same subject from the perspective of students. Two articles on orientation and mobility: Ambrose-Zakin’s research report focuses on a device designed to improve independent walking in young children with visual impairments and Rashid and colleagues focus on their findings of a study that compared postural sway in women with and without visual impairments. Two articles on assessment: of glare evaluation by Maffit et al. and of cognition using a haptic nonverbal approach by Cassar et al. Two papers related to tactile graphics: Gupta et al.’s study demonstrating that tactile shapes can be used to facilitate encoding of new information and their suggestions for design strategies for tactile materials; design strategies for tactile graphics are also a topic that Wu et al. also explore. There are two Practice Reports of specific interest to rehabilitation therapists: one by Farrow on using knitting and crocheting to create social connections and one by Moffitt et al. on the value of developing and using a comprehensive resource list. Finally, two articles on personnel preparation are included: one by Probst and Morgan describing a national intervenor training project and another by Harpster exploring the need for training in cortical visual impairment by teachers of students with visual impairments and occupational therapists. Other informative articles include one by McDonnall and colleagues on the earnings of people with visual impairments, a historiography on audio-description by Koirala and Oppegaard, and a description of successful advocacy efforts by professionals in California to improve access to off-campus orientation and mobility instruction by Shupin et al. Why the sudden explosion of papers published in JVIB? When SAGE first began publishing the journal in 2018, a strict limit on the number of pages that each issue could contain was established. Only about eight articles could be included in each issue, which was not enough allocated space to accommodate the number of manuscripts that the journal’s editors typically accept. As might be expected, a backlog of papers occurred. Thanks to persistent advocacy by JVIB’s stakeholders and because of SAGE’s recognition of the high value of the work published within the journal’s pages, the journal now has the freedom to publish as many papers as it wants. This Editorial