FEARS IN VISUALLY-IMPAIRED AND NORMALLY SIGHTED CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

The Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children was administered to 129 visually impaired and 129 normally sighted children. All of the subjects were attending schools in Australia. We found that visually impaired and normally sighted children did not significantly differ on overall level of fearfulness, although the sighted children expressed a greater level of fear on two factors. These findings are inconsistent with those of a similar study reported on U.S. children and youth. However, it was noted that the totally blind children, of which there were only a small number in that sample, reported a higher level of fear than sighted children. Consistent with previous research findings, girls reported greater fear levels than boys. There was no significant relationship between age and self-reported fear. © 1990.