ABSTRACT The Social Support Networks of Blind & Visually Impaired Young Adults

This research was undertaken to analyze and to describe the social support networks of a non-random sample of 55 legally blind and visually impaired young adults, 20 to 50 years, inclusive. Modified versions of the Arizona Social Support Inventory Scale (Barrera, 1981, 1983), and the Network Analysis Profile (Cohen and Sokolovsky, 1978) were used to exam1ne key aspects of network structure and to evaluate the attributes of network links. The study centered around 11 hypotheses which explore the extent to which vision-related and socio-demographic variables such as: degree of visual impairment, age of onset of blindness, acceptance of blindness, level of self-sufficiency, type of school attended, cause of blindness, the presence of a secondary disability, age, gender, race, marital status, employment status and education influence network structure (viz.; network size, network composition, proximity), network attributes (e.g.; multiplexity, duration, intimacy, frequency of contact, dominant and relational content), and access to support. Results from this study indicate that with the exception of network size