Psychosocial Services Division

Those of us who work with individuals who are experiencing visual impairment or blindness are aware of the immensely positive impact of exposing our students or clients to successful role models with visual impairments. There is something unique and particularly efficacious about input coming from those who have walked or are walking, the road of vision loss.

Some of us have ready access to role models, but for others, providing good role models in person may be a challenge. However, think about it: All of us have materials on our office shelves—books, recordings, DVDs, films, and other media that can provide a plentiful supply of information about role models. And although not exactly on our shelves, our computers provide websites giving us access to a wide variety of VI role models, past and present.

In an effort to organize these resources and to make them readily available to our AER Membership, the Psychosocial Service Division has been, and continues to be, soliciting contributions from our AER colleagues on the role model resources they have on their shelves. We are compiling this information to create an online directory of VI Role Models on a Shelf. Please check out our “work in progress” directory as it currently stands. We hope you find it useful. And see below for how you can be a part of this project.

Please consider contributing your favorite role model materials on your shelves. FIRST: check the list below to be sure that your resource has not already been submitted. If it is not already on the list, get it to us! Help us make this directory a valuable, usable, ever-growing tool!

• Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life (autobiography of Geerat Vermeij)
• Art of the Eye, 2nd edition (biographies and personal statements by artists who have visual impairments.)
• And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseryran (autobiography of Jacques Lusseryran)
• Touch the Top of the World (autobiography of Erik Weihenmayer)
• No Finish Line: My Life as I See It (autobiography of Marla Runyan)
• The Blind Roper-Jerry Long (autobiography of Jerry Long)
• Planet of the Blind (autobiography of Stephen Kuusisto)
• Together: A Novel of Shared Vision (fiction written by Tom Sullivan with Betty White)
• If You Could See What I Hear (autobiography of Tom Sullivan)
• Whistling in the Dark (autobiography of Fred Lowery)
• Triumph over Darkness (biography of Louis Braille)
• Do you remember the color blue? (autobiography of Sally Hobart Alexander)
• Helen and Teacher (biography of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy)
• Small Victories (autobiography of Mary Lou Dickerson and other adults blind due to ROP)
• Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness (autobiography of John Hull)
• Career Perspectives (interviews with professionals who are visually impaired)
• Jobs To Be Proud Of (interviews with professionals who are visually impaired)
• Business Owners Who are Blind or Visually Impaired (interviews with entrepreneurs who are visually impaired)
• Teachers Who are Blind or Visually Impaired (interviews with education professionals who are visually impaired)
• Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness (autobiography of John Howard Griffin)
• Surpassing Expectations: My Life with Blindness (autobiography of Lawrence “Larry” Scadden)
• Crashing Through (biography of Mike May)
• The Blind Doctor: The Jacob Bolotin Story (biography of Jacob Bolotin)
• The Miracle Worker (biography of Helen Keller)
• Beauties and Achievements of the Blind (biographies of Homer, Blacklock, Holman, Wilson, Huber, Alice Holmes, Frances Jane Crosby, Cynthia Bullock, L. V. Hall, Frances Brown, Margaret Belches, Michael M’Guire)
• A Singular View (autobiography of Frank B. Brady)
• White Coat, White Cane (autobiography of David Hartman)

• From Us To You: Stories of Adjusting to Vision Loss (five individuals talk about their successful adjustment to blindness)
• Marla Runyan Videos (Marla Runyan)
• The Miracle worker with Haley Mills; a film published about Helen Keller’s life and journeys (Helen Keller)
• Reclaiming Independence: Staying in the Driver’s Seat When You No Longer Drive (interviews with older adults who had to find alternative transportation when they lost their vision)
• The Overlooked Labor Resource (employees who have a vision loss and those who have employed them)
• Everyone Can Work (a look at successes in supported employment)
• Brighter Visions (focuses on seniors who are adjusting to vision loss)
• Bridges To Independence (focuses on teens, confidence building, self-advocacy, independent living skills and working with their families, friends, and professionals)
• Work Sight (focuses on adults who are visually impaired and their successful adjustment to working life)
• Teen Scene (KY teenagers successfully adjust to vision loss)
• The Miracle Worker (biography of Helen Keller)

• APH Career Connect (successfully employed adults who are visually impaired)
  https://aphconnectcenter.org/careerconnect/

• https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/fanny-crosby

• Sally Hobart Alexander
• Thomas Rhodes Armitage
• Frankie Armstrong
• Tilly Aston
• Thomas Blacklock
• David Blunkett
• Andrea Bocelli
• Dr. Jacob Bolotin
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Sidney Bradford
• Louis Braille
• Jessica Callahan
• Clarence Carter
• Appius Claudius Caecus
• Judi Chamberlin
• Ray Charles
• Tim Cordes
• Frances Jane Crosby
• Gustaf Dalen
• Enrico Dandolo
• Honore Daumier
• Samuel H. Day, Jr.
• Edgar Degas
• Frederick (born Fritz) Theodor Albert
• Delius
• Eamon de Valera
• Didymus the Blind
• Diodotus
• Eratosthenes
• Leonhard Euler
• John Fante
• James Leonard Farmer, Jr.
• Henry Fawcett
• Jose Feliciano
• Ella Jane Fitzgerald
• Galileo Galilei
• Martha Gellhorn
• Jhamak Jumari Ghimire
• Elizabeth “Bessie” Gilbert
• Thomas Pryor Gore
• Francisco Goya
• John Howard Griffin
• Gordon Gund
• W.C. Handy
• Blind Harry, also known as Harry, Harv or Henry the Minstrel
• Jeff Healey
• Albert George “Al” Hibbler
• James Holman
• Homer
• Francois Huber
• John Hull
• William Holman Hunt
• Therese-Adele Husson
• Aldous Leonard Huxley
• Isaac Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman
• Blind Lemon Jefferson
• King John the Blind of Bohemia
• John II the Faithless also known as the Great
• Lady Bird Johnson