Marzenna Zaorska

Issues of anxiety, including fear of heights, for blind people are an important issue not only in modern education and rehabilitation of blind and visually impaired people. However, despite mant' years of interest in the topic, the problem of the presence of anxiety of height in people who have been blind since birth or early childhood, its nature, and possible symptoms has not been clearly defined to date. A significant number of people with visual disabilities from birth declare no height anxiety, but there are also people who pay attention to having this type of anxiety. Therefore, the article presents reflections on the fear of height in people blind from birth or early childhood and the results of own research conducted on a group of 10 people (5 women and 5 men) based on the individual case method and interwiew technique.

For people with disabilities, including those with visual impairment, creative activity could be the opportunity for psychosocial activating, self-realizing, as well as performing skills and talents compared to people without disabilities. Creative activity helps in identifying and improving talents and aspiring to a set of goals, eventually improving the quality of disabled people’s life and satisfaction. The paper presents a single case study of Szymon Wasiłowicz, a young man with visual impairment; in particular it emphasizes the impact of creative activity on Szymon’s life. Despite his visual impairment Szymon performs a high level of individual activities and achievements, being awarded a prestigious prizes in music, poetry and sport. Szymon’s life is an outstanding example how recognizing the importance of making effort and being empowered to realize potentials one may perform very creative style of life, as well as obtain its highest quality, that eventually leads to meaningful results and successes, regardless of the impact disability imposes on life.

Disability, no matter how hopeless and misfortune it seems, need not mean to give up on life and supposing it no longer worth living. Even facing severe or profound disability directly effecting in a serious and complicated life situation, a person could benefit from joyful experience and comapassion that lead to self expansion and many more amazing results as well self-realization and autonomy. Undoubtedly creative activity appears an important factor to overcome limitations and barriers imposed by serious hearing and vision impairment. Aleksander Suworow, a deaf – blind person presented in the paper, shows how to successfully overcome disability by performing creative activity. For Suworow creative activity is an important form of communication. It enhances his self-image and gives him an chance for expression that transcends cultural and physical boundaries. Creative expression is not only enjoyable, but also connects people to the world and helps them convey the uniqueness of who they are, what they reason and feel, and how they learn about themselves and live a fulfilled life.

Development of civilization, science, technology, means of communication, the growing quality of life, the noticeable changes in the accepted rules of social coexistence and in the system of values, are all creating new, ethical amongst them, challenges for the modern human to overcome. The article undertakes an attempt of analysis, from a bioethical and a post-Darwinian perspective, on the subject of special education in the future. 

The subject of communication is one of the most essential matters in the process of aiding the development, rehabilitation, education, socialization of children with multiple sensory disability, affected by it from the moment of birth or early childhood. Depending on how this essential matter is handled, future functionality and life of a person with simultaneous impairment of hearing is determined. Also the self-fulfillment and acquired level of personal and social autonomy is influenced. Due to the aforementioned. the choice of an adequate, to the needs and capabilities of a specific person with multiple sensory disability, method of communication with environment involves not only the communicational, educational and banausic, but also, and foremostly, the ethical and humanistic aspects.

The issue of communication with the use of alternative methods of information transfer generates many doubts not only of substantive, methodical, but also ethical nature, doubts including, inter alia, intimacy issues, consent to intimacy and the principles and conditions governing the crossing or not crossing the limits of intimacy. Basically, it applies to people with deeper, severe disabilities, often coupled with sensory disabilities in combination with limitations in terms of intellectual, somatic and physical functioning. The awareness of the presence of intimacy in alternative communication seems to be important not only for the quality of communication relations, but above all for their humanization, respect for the subjectivity and autonomy of a disabled person using alternative methods of transmission and reception of information. Therefore, the content of the article indicates the specificity of signalling communication relations and their possible conditions for partners implementing such relation