Information Center - Defining Blindness - Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Defining blindness

Legal Blindness
Legal blindness is a level of visual impairment that has been defined by law to determine eligibility for benefits. The definition includes a central visual acuity of 20/200 or worse in the better eye with the best possible correction, as measured on a Snellen Vision Chart or or a visual field of 20 degrees or less.

Low Vision
Low Vision occurs when the vision loss is severe enough to impede a person’s ability to carry on every day activities, but still has some useful remaining sight. It cannot be cured, but with the help of low vision devices, people can benefit from a variety of available optical devices. These could include such items as electronic magnification devices, eye-glass mounted telescopes, hand-held magnifiers and distance devices. Special software for computer users is available that enlarges text or reads the text aloud. Braille software is also available.

Vision Statistics
blind woman and dog waiting to cross the street

More than 5.5 million older adults are blind or visually impaired.

There are approximately 93,000 blind or visually impaired students living in the United States.

Over 10,800 individuals are deaf-blind.

There are approximately 55,200 legally blind children in the United States.

Approximately 109,000 people with visual impairments in the United States use long canes to help them move about safely

More than 7,000 Americans use dog guides. Every year approximately 1,500 individuals graduate from a dog guide user program.

In the United States, approximately 5,500 legally blind children use Braille as their primary reading medium.

Accessibility Statement

Clovernook Center for Blind and Visually Impaired's website has been designed to be as accessible as possible to all website visitors. As such this website has been created to be accessible to those with varying degrees of visual impairment and has been found to be compliant using the former Watchfire WebXact and Bobby systems. This site strives to be accessible to all, if you have found content that you are having difficulty accessing, please contact us at accessibility@clovernook.org and we will address the issue.