How can education and career guidance help?
If Usher is diagnosed before the young person has left school the teaching staff will need advice on handling the pupil with RP. Informing the school that the child has Usher syndrome is not enough, precise information about the field of vision, the extent of central loss and whether he needs protection from extraneous light will be required. There are some Low Vision Aids such as magnifiers, binoculars and Closed Circuit Television which could benefit the student’s visual performance and he should be referred to the Low Vision Aid Clinic at the nearest hospital for an assessment. The class teacher will also need advice on the best lighting conditions for the particular student together with use of contrasting tones to make things easier to see. Career Guidance must be realistic but not too restrictive; labels like ‘deafblind’ to an employer mean ‘unable to hear or see anything’. With Usher’s this is rarely the case, particularly in the young adult. What needs to be answered is, ‘can t
