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for some readers, she’s a rather pathetic, perhaps helpless person; other readers see her as far
more capable and level-headed than she might at first seem

Laura is a more complex character than she first appears.  It is easy to put Laura into a category, such as pathetic, handicapped, disabled or helpless.  What I see when I read this play is that Laura may in fact be slightly physically handicapped, but her emotional disability is her real problem.  And this really breaks down to being excessively shy and self-conscious about herself.  Once she overcomes this, as she does with Jim, the gentleman caller, she is the most normal character in the play.

In the beginning of the play when the reader discovers that Laura quit the Rubicam's Business College because she got so nervous when they gave her a typing test that she threw up on the floor and never went back, we think that she is a quitter, a loser, so intimidated by life that she can't cope with something simple like a typing test.

However, I look at if from another angle, Laura probably didn't want to go to business school, it was Amanda who forced her to go and so she went, only to discover that it was not for her.  Laura has the strength of character to decide what is good for her and what is not.  She skips out on the school and spends her days free, wandering around, going to the zoo, museums, enjoying her time outside the apartment.

She does just fine outside the apartment.  I think that Laura would make a wonderful Kindergarten teacher, she is kind and patient, and love animals. 

Laura also rises to the occasion when Amanda and Tom arrange for the gentleman caller to come for dinner.  However, she gets shy and uncomfortable when she discovers that the gentleman caller is Jim.  Laura panics and we think that she will cop out on the whole evening.  But once she is in the room with Jim, she actually blossoms and enjoys herself.  She is able to enjoy his company, she responds to him and then when he kisses her, she is changed forever. 

Laura is strong, she recognizes that the enchanted evening that she has had with Jim, even though it will end, it has changed her.  She gives him the glass unicorn.  She understands that now she is different, like the unicorn, now without the horn, he is just like all the other horses.