الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Visual handicap is one of the sensory handicaps. A person is visual considered blind if he has central acuity of 6/60 or less in the better eye with correcting glasses. It is a global public health problem, but it is more prevalent in the developing countries than in the industrialised countries. due Blindness be to may genetic infectious diseases, or chromosomal origin, injuries, tumours and/or unspecified causes. Whatever the of visual loss is, unless successful cause rehabilitation measures are provided, it would interfere with one’s physical, social or emotional growth and development. This study was initiated aiming at studying the ecological factors contributing for Visually different handicapping conditions and the different rehabilitation services Also to offered study -the to the students. attitude of the school staff towards the pupils. All students Qf ln both the the two sexes institutes of blindness in Alexandria formed the target population of this study. A control group of matched sex and level of education were chosen. Also all staff members (teachers, administrators and auxilIaries) were included in the study. For the execution of this work, an interviewing questionnaire was constructed covering a variety of items concerning the personal and familial characteristics of the visually handicapped children and their controls. Another interviewing questionnaire including attitude certain statements to evaluate the staff’s was performed. A check list to register the rehabilitation services was also prepared. The results obtained ln this study could be summarized in the following items: - The number of recorded students (boys and girls) is less than the real expected number of visually handicapped students in Alexandria. - The majority of the students were of low and very low socio-economic standards. - The most important causes of visually handicapping condition were hereditary causes. Consanguinity of parent s was significantly higher among the studied group than their controls. Acquired causes as eye infection, measles, accidents and tumours play an important role in causing visual loss. - The later the birth order of the child the more the prevalence of the handicapping condition. - No antenatal care, exposure to hazardous factors during pregnancy, natal and postnatal problems were leading causes of visual handicap. - Incomplete vaccination and lack of health supervision either in the neonatal or in the preschool periods were among the ecological factors of blindness. - The majority of the staff members had positive and strong positive at tit udes towards the visually handicapped students. - The rehabilit at ion services offered to the visually handicapped students were not sufficient and there is lack of modern techniques and visual aids which help in medical, educational and social rehabilitation. - The physical environment of the schools is not fitting to the visually handicapped students as these schools were not designed for the blind. To lmprove the conditions of the blind at their schools and for an attempt to prevent blindness, the following recommendations were given for that study: - Establishing repeat,:ed training programmes on the problem of the visually handicapped students and their rehabilitation for teachers, administrators, workers and medical personnel in contact with the children. - Separation of dormitories of the young primary level st udent s from those of the preparatory and secondary levels of education. A counsellor for each age group should stay with the students in the afternoon. Campaigns against consanguinous marriages to inform the people about the drawbacks and side effects of these marriages. - premar it al counselling and examination at the MCH and health centres. - Accident prevention programme to decrease the incidence of handicapping conditions from accidents. Plans to construct institutes for the blind in the differ’ent governorates to accomodate the existing visually handicapped chiidren. - Collection of information and researches about the number and distribution of blind and visually handicapped persons all over the country.^leng