[blindkid] unreliability of low vision

Leah leah at somazen.com
Tue Dec 9 14:46:11 UTC 2008


Carrie,

I agree. I wouldn't be happy if someone tried to train my son to use  
vision more than is practical or safe. In that email I was actually  
trying to think of something helpful that came from the school  
district. As a sighted person I also interpret blurs, but specific to  
my level of sight. I thought it was interesting to be reminded that my  
(low vision) son was also doing this, but specific to his level of  
sight. In this case the lesson didn't extend into overuse of sight.

I have a balance disorder and it would make me mad if someone implied  
that I couldn't use the alternative tools I have developed, and had to  
work on training my impaired balance. (Actually they tried that and it  
made my balance worse, though I know for some it can help.) It was  
actually during the time I was introduced to NFB literature that I  
realized I was doing something similar to what my son would have to  
do. I used other senses, sometimes quite creatively, to allow me to  
function. The way in which this process is portrayed by the NFB helped  
me to feel not sick and damaged, but strong and responsible. It helped  
me to not focus so much on the scariness of the loss, which can be  
draining.

Though it's hard to be exact for many reasons, my son scored 20/100  
this year in the better eye for the first time on the Teller Cards,  
making him officially no longer legally blind..until a future  
evaluation I guess. Unfortunately the better eye has very limited  
movement. He honestly does use vision in a lot of things and I  
probably didn't mention this in the first message. But it's good to  
remember that I need to support him in developing what he needs to  
keep full access and interaction with the world, even if he appears to  
be "seeing a lot."

It's funny, I thought my son had memorized one particular playscape.  
It was the one where he first learned to use his hands to measure  
steps up and down before crawling forward. But I've realized that he  
uses a visual cue (the visual contrast of level changes) to decide  
whether to use his hands! A couple of weeks ago we were at the park  
late. It became dark and he missed a level change because he didn't  
have his visual cue to put out the hands. He fell on his nose and lip,  
with only a small cut. I could see the steps in the dark, but he  
couldn't. This would be a great opportunity for us because he does  
rely on vision a lot. We could expand his skills by deliberately  
playing at dark at a playscape so that he could feel with hands first  
with each step, as an exercise. I will be right there this time of  
course :) Then eventually if he misses a step he can do so by being  
careless and forgetting to use a resource that he has (when it's dark,  
feel more than usual).

My son is so dependent because of his cp and because he's little that  
I can forget many many times that there are things he can do for  
himself, in a way that is specific to him. Sometimes I get so tired  
from all the doctors and therapies that I just do for him so it can be  
done and we can have a break. I think there is a large theme that I  
need to explore - the balance between the experts and the expenditure  
of energy it takes to be with them, and the role of the parents which  
has the potential to be the most deeply educating. Thanks for taking  
the time to reply about that.

PS what is a lighted rectangle?

Leah

From: Carrie Gilmer <carrie.gilmer at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] unreliability of low vision
To: "'NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)'"
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 10:20 AM

Dear Leah,
What a wonderful post and testimony, thank you so much for sharing. I  
look
forward to hearing much more from you!

I would like to comment specifically to one part that you wrote in the  
end
of your post...

[Two of the helpful things that school district personnel did tell me  
were
1) that the child will be able to learn to interpret blurs as things  
come
close and go far away - as in "oh that brown blur is my dog!"]

This idea is very prevalent, and is even sometimes "trained" by
TVI's. It
can however be very misleading and even at times dangerous for the
child/student. My son's teacher's were big on this idea. Interpreting
"blurs" and "lighted rectangles" (for those with LP) while
being somewhat
useful occasionally, is more often than not unreliable and the person  
can be
wrong, very wrong. It can also give the student the idea that their  
vision
CAN be relied upon, and they can transfer that idea to other places  
(being
too young to discriminate). In my son's case he transferred the idea  
(which
he got from his O and M and Teacher of blind students very strongly) for
awhile (unbeknown to me for awhile) that he could tell soon enough  
when a
car was coming by vision, or in another case when it was safe to slide  
down
a busy hill (ended up with two black eyes one swollen shut). It is very
important that the student realize just how wrong and unreliable this
"method" can be for orientation or accurate information.

That brown blur may be A dog, but not HIS dog, is another example of the
kinds of errors I have witnessed low vision children use. That blur  
may be
my mom--or it may be a stranger. The child usually doesn't KNOW for  
SURE by
vision--. They are so good already at incorporating their other  
senses, they
don't realize it is often other things, sound, head knowledge of who to
expect at a certain time, that gives them the definitive answer, but  
they do
it without much thought, naturally, and no one usually points it out, so
they have some false idea too of how much they are really using their  
vision
to accurately KNOW something. I probably have a thousand examples of  
my son
early on learning the unreliability of his vision. One particular I can
recall...

His older sister came home from college fro the weekend. A new friend
dropped her off and came in to the door to meet us. She was tall, like
Jordan's sister, her outline was similar. Jordan did not check, he  
relied
on
his vision...he ran up and gave the wrong girl a great big hug. He was  
about
13, he was pretty embarrassed. Although that was essentially harmless  
it was
a lesson that he will never forget.

Sincerely,
?
Carrie Gilmer, President
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
A Division of the National Federation of the Blind
NFB National Center: 410-659-9314
Home Phone: 763-784-8590
carrie.gilmer at gmail.com
www.nfb.org/nopbc




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