Self-advocacy skills of youth with visual impairment

Samozastupanje je jedan od važnih faktora koji utječe na uspjeh socijalnih interakcija. Osobe s invaliditetom, pa tako i osobe oštećena vida tijekom povijesti smatrane su bespomoćnim članovima društva pa su njihovi članovi obitelji ili druge bliske osobe često donosili odluke umjesto njih. Osobe oštećena vida, zbog nedostatka mogućnosti ili zbog smanjene mogućnosti primanja informacija iz okoline vizualnim putem, često imaju poteškoća u razvijanju socijalnih vještina. Cilj ovog rada bio je ispitati samopercepciju mladih osoba oštećena vida na području vještina samozastupanja. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 28 studenata koji studiraju na području grada Zagreba, od čega 17 ženskih, te 11 muških ispitanika u dobi od 19 do 30 godina. Među ispitanicima je bilo 10 slijepih i 18 slabovidnih studenata od kojih je većina bila uključena u neke od rehabilitacijskih programa. Za prikupljanje podataka u ovom istraživanju korišten je upitnik vlastite izrade, a ispitanici su prikupljeni metodom snježne grude. Za deskriptivnu analizu rezultata korišten je standardni Statistički paket za društvena istraživanja IBM SPSS 20, a za testiranje razlika između skupina ispitanika model Robustne diskriminacijske analize. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da postoji statistički značajna razlika u samopercepciji vještina samozastupanja između muških i ženskih ispitanika, kao i između slijepih i slabovidnih ispitanika u samopercepciji svih navedenih vještina samozastupanja; na području komunikacije, preuzimanja inicijative, informiranja te samopoštovanja.Self-advocacy is one of the important factors that influence the success of social interactions. People with disabilities, including visually impaired people, have been considered helpless members of society throughout history, so their family members or other close people often made decisions for them. People with visual impairment, due to lack of, or reduced ability to receive information from the environment visually, often have difficulties developing social skills. The aim of this paper was to examine the self-perception of young visually impaired people in the field of self-advocacy skills. The study involved 28 students studying in the city of Zagreb, of whom 17 were female and 11 were male students, aged 19-30. There were 10 blind and 18 students with low vision among the respondents, most of whom were enrolled in some of the rehabilitation programs. In this study, a self- made questionaire was used to collect data and the respondents were gathered by the snowball method. A standard IBM SPSS 20 Social Survey Statistical Package was used for descriptive analysis of results, and the Robust Discrimination Analysis model was used to test the differences between groups of respondents. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in self-perception of self-advocacy skills between male and female respondents, and that there was a statistically significant difference regarding to degree of their visual impairment in self-perception of all of the mentioned self-advocacy skills; in the areas of communication, taking the initiative, gathering information and self-esteem