[blindkid] Technology and Little Kid

[Bonnie Lucas]

I am going to make just one comment here. At seven years old, I began first 
grade which is when I began learning Braille. this was some years ago at the 
School for the Blind in Berkeley, CA. At that time, I began learning on the 
Braille writer. Then, one day when I got sick and had to go to the school 
infirmery, the girl who was my room mate was in third or fourth grade. The 
nurse brought her a slate and stylus and though I had seen them, I hadn't 
learned how to use one. I distinctly remember her telling me a little about 
how  to use the thing and low and behold, because I was determined to do 
some writing to occupy myself, within the hour I was writing up a blue 
streek. It was great fun and I used the cool piece of tech through college 
(dating myself). Here's the deal. When writing with the Braille writer, you 
have to remember that the 1 is on the left and you write and read from the 
left. No right involved. When writing with the slate, the 1 is on the right 
and you write from the right. The only time you do anything from the left is 
when you turn the paper over and read from the left. At my current age, 
writing for long periods on the slate hurts my wrist though using the softer 
paper helps a lot. However, in the past week, I have written things down 
twice because I carry one in my purse, no matter what else I have with me 
and believe me, away from home it is never a Perkins, there is always a 
slate and stylus with me.

I cannot say that using a slate and stylus would have been the same had I 
had the option of a BrailleNote and computer. My daughter, Aubrie, 13, knows 
how to use the S&S but definitely does not use it much compared with her BN 
and the computer.
With that, my best suggestion (hope I'm not out-of-line for saying this) I 
think it's time to find something else to write about.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Heather" <craney07 at rochester.rr.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 8:31 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Technology and Little Kid


> Several people have brought up the reversal issue and I think it depends 
> on the age it is introduced, because for someone who already knows braille 
> it might literally mean reversing the letters, whereas if a kid learns it 
> in kindergardin both brailler and slate might become second nature. 
> Bottom line, as a home educator of my own son I would show him both, and 
> if he took to the slate like a duck to water, i would encourage him, but 
> if it frustrated him to the point where he wanted nothing to do with 
> braille or the perkins, it would be put on hold.  I would like him to be 
> proficent at both, but I want him to naturally love reading both in 
> braille and on recorded media, and if pushing a particular skill looked as 
> if it would harm that natural love of learning, especially learning 
> literature and braille, I would not allow that to happen.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Albert J Rizzi" <albert at myblindspot.org>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)'" 
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 8:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Technology and Little Kid
>
>
>>I do not even know where to begin. First wow! these few  threads have 
>>given
>> me more insight and have shifted my position on things as never before. 
>> 1. I
>> am sickened by the fact that braille is not introduced to children at as
>> early an age as possible. 2. I have learned how mentors can  color 
>> choices
>> by predetermining  what is or is not best for children and 
>> unintentionally
>> limit that children's academic growth. 3. I learned braille as a sighted
>> person and I too was forced to believe that writing braile with a slate 
>> and
>> stylus was best learned by inverting  or perverting braille as I now have
>> learned. In this one thread I understood and now own why I do not and
>> eventually will carry a slate and stylus as I was inverting or reversing 
>> the
>> image. when I used my perkins brailler I see the dots on the page just as 
>> I
>> would feel them as I ran my fingers across the page. Now I realize that 
>> is
>> what keeps me from using a slate. I either use a hand held recorder which
>> unnerves others, or as I recently experienced  an intern of mine only 
>> uses
>> his computer. We were in a meeting and he did nothing but tap tap tap on 
>> the
>> computer. I had to stop him and ask him if he was paying attention or 
>> not.
>> He told me that he was taking notes. I knew he had to be missing much of 
>> the
>> important   conversation that was going on. I immediately  suggested he
>> invest in a hand held recorder. He is 26, and has been blind all his 
>> life.
>> My senior in a way. yet he did not take notes with braille as I later
>> learned he was not expected to know it for some reason. now I learned
>> braille as a sighted individual he learned it as a blind individual, yet
>> neither of us used it to take notes quietly and unobtrusively which is
>> always possible with a slate and stylus. I will most certainly be trying 
>> to
>> walk the walk and talk the talk and use my slate more then my handheld. 
>> Very
>> sobering  and eye opening thread.
>> Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
>> CEO/Founder
>> My Blind Spot, Inc.
>> 90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
>> New York, New York  10004
>> www.myblindspot.org
>> PH: 917-553-0347
>> Fax: 212-858-5759
>> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who 
>> is
>> doing it."
>>
>>
>> Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of H. Field
>> Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:42 PM
>> To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)
>> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Technology and Little Kid
>>
>> Dear Richard,
>> The young child has no difficulty with the mirror image concept of
>> braille because he/she doesn't have one. The reason is simple. If a
>> child, is taught that "l" is dot one, two, three,then, wherever the
>> child is told he/she will find dot one, two, three, there they will
>> push the stylus. In over 30 years of teaching young blind children to
>> write braille using a slate and stylus, I have never had a child who
>> experiences difficulty with reversing things. I myself was first
>> taught braille as a five-year-old using a slate and stylus. I was not
>> given a braille writer until third grade. I can vividly remember
>> learning to write with both devises and reversals was never an issue.
>> If a child clearly knows the dots required for each letter then all
>> they need is to be told where to press each dot, given some practice
>> and feedback and reversals are a complete non-issue. I would strongly
>> encourage you to work with your daughter on developing at least basic
>> competence with the slate and stylus.
>>
>> This idea that writing on a slate is fraught with the problem of
>> reversals is, in my experience, a problem suffered by sighted learners
>> who are used to picturing things in their heads. Indeed, this very
>> fact is a major reason why adult teachers don't want to teach the
>> slate. They think the child will have the same problems with reversals
>> that they do. But, as usual, it is plain stupid reasoning when one
>> makes the jump from "I as an adult have trouble with braille and the
>> slate and stylus" to "so I won't ever teach it to a blind child." I
>> have met one extremely competent blind person, a braille user, who
>> doesn't like the slate. Guess why? She lost her vision around age ten
>> and her sighted braille teacher said that to write on the slate she
>> would need to reverse everything in her head. What an impossible and
>> totally unnecessary task. Of course no one could achieve any speed or
>> accuracy using that method, and, after such torture, would not have
>> any fondness for the slate and stylus.
>>
>> But, even if a young blind child did experience some initial trouble
>> with reversals when writing on the slate, does this mean that the
>> child should be deprived of the nonvisual equivalent of a pen or
>> pencil? Just because some young print writers sometimes write "b" and
>> "d" or "q" and "p" the wrong way, do early childhood teachers across
>> the nation abandon the use of pencil and paper for young sighted
>> children? Of course not and no one would be so irresponsible as to
>> suggest that we do so. Yet, this is largely what has happened
>> regarding the slate and stylus. The decline in slate usage was aided
>> by the rise of the "print at any cost" philosophy among sighted
>> teachers of children with low vision. Though many of these children
>> were Functionally Blind, they were told to use what sight they had.
>> completely nonfunctional strategies, such as the following, were, and
>> still are, taught to children with low vision. "well, you can use
>> print because, provided you have the right lighting, a very specific
>> kind of very dark ink pen, the correct dark line paper, can write
>> slowly and are not having trouble with eye-strain today, you're a
>> print reader. You don't need braille and certainly don't need a slate
>> and stylus to take notes." The fact that many of these students never
>> manage to write fast enough and rarely experience the perfect
>> conditions required to enable them to cmpete on equal terms with their
>> sighted peers/colleagues, does not appear to be a concern to the
>> teachers taking this stand. Somehow, in some strange, deep part of the
>> human psyche, having the student act sighted and using print, even
>> when they can't read what they write, when the student is complaining
>> of eye-strain and head-aches and print is not working for a student,
>> seems to be preferable to calling a child blind and giving them
>> totally competitive tools, like a slate and stylus and braille. Sadly,
>> because of the misconceptions about blindness, many parents would
>> rather have a print using pretend sighted child than a real, braille
>> using blind child as well.
>>
>> Why have I gone onto my antiprint rant you may ask? Because I believe
>> that there are psychological reasons, such as seeing the slate as
>> old-fashioned and low tech, too hard, too slow, too blind, and too
>> hard to teach, that influence teachers who don't or won't teach it to
>> today's blind children. There's no real data on slate usage among
>> those who are profficient users. I've never seen a survey seeking real
>> data on the value, or nonvalue, of slate and stylus to blind people.
>> Yet, somehow the decision that slate skills are no longer necessary
>> has been made.
>> This is sheer foolishness, the kind of logic that says because we can
>> now drive cars we don't need bicycles, or because we have replaced the
>> outdoor Main Street shopping experience with indoor shopping malls, we
>> don't need umbrellas.
>>
>> I cannot imagine the innumerable inconveniences I would experience
>> without recourse to my slate. I Write shopping lists on the bus, I
>> take notes quietly in meetings, I jot down phone numbers and addresses
>> of new contacts, I write or retrieve information in extremely noisy
>> environments with ease, I have quickly made notes for an impromptu
>> meeting, written down doses and instructions at the doctor's, copied
>> out a recipe I found in a magazine in the dentist's waiting-room,
>> noted the name and number of taxi drivers whom I wished to report for
>> good or bad reasons, written down info a bus or train clerk gave me on
>> my next connection, and who knows what I may still use it to write.
>> The
>> possibilities are endless... rather like the excuses that people give
>> why young children should be denied the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
>> to learn to be competent slate users.
>>
>> As for technology for a young child, it depends on many factors but
>> should include games and teaching/learning devices that offer the same
>> exposure to the concept of what techology is and does that sighted
>> children are given. The child's preferences, parents' preferences and
>> the available budget as well as the co-operation of local educators
>> are all factors that will influcnce choices.
>>
>> Warmest regards,
>>
>> Heather Field
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
>> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
>> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 11:42 PM
>> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Technology and Little Kid
>>
>>
>> Certainly the slate and stylus (as someone else mentioned) is not a
>> bad idea, but a child in this age range is probably not going to have
>> the fine motor control to master the tool's use easily or likely be
>> ready for the whole mirror image concept.
>>
>> A child of nearly any age can begin using a Perkins Braillewriter-- I
>> know we were using one by at least age three. At the very least a
>> braille novice can "scribble" on a braillewriter, just like my sighted
>> almost-4-year-old scribbles on paper with a crayon all the time.
>> Braillewriting skill with a young child emerges at least somewhat like
>> writing emerges with a sighted child-- not all letters at once and at
>> first, just like penmanship is typically pretty poor-- this after the
>> child has first just pressed the keys at random-- indeed "scribbling"
>> just like sighted kids. Getting the feel of the tools to use is an
>> important first step. It is hard for small hands to properly press and
>> form braille mechanically with a Perkins, but you are building hand
>> and finger strength and forming braille concepts all along the way.
>> Many schools can provide a second braillewriter for the student to use
>> at home for free once the child is in school.
>>
>> I think that often the way to go is to immerse the child within all
>> the options that can be gotten as the child appears ready to take to
>> them-- at least that was our theory when our daughter was born, and in
>> fact, it continues to be the same way to this day, then we focus on
>> what she seems ready to take to-- she'll ultimately use most all of
>> these things. There is also an entire range of tactile graphics
>> solutions and manipulatives. You can produce these with pipe cleaners,
>> and a bottle of glue, or you can use a multi-thousand dollar
>> thermoform; quite a range of options exists.
>>
>> Now at age 7, Kendra uses a BrailleNote and PAC Mate daily but still
>> uses a Perkins often, as well as an abacus for her math, JAWS on her
>> computer and so forth. She also works well with refreshable braille
>> and that can be a really handy option. The next big challenge I see
>> for her is needing to learn a qwerty keyboard, so there can be a lot
>> of technology in use by an early age.
>>
>> It is also really important to expose the child to braille as much as
>> possible. A sighted child sees print everywhere. Make certain this
>> child runs across braille often. Now in first grade and a proficient
>> braille reader, our first grade daughter still runs across the braille
>> stickers on things all over the house-- refrigerator, dishwasher,
>> table, drawer, oven, door, bed-- you name it. This will cause the
>> child to ask questions-- just like a sighted child-- "what is this"
>> and later "what do these letters say?-- what do they mean?" Also, use
>> twin vision books-- sighted kids look at letters while parents read
>> most every time. Blind kids can do the same-- that's why it is best
>> when adding braille to a print book to always put the braille below
>> the print-- a sighted reader can still read while small hands are
>> exploring the braille.
>>
>> Screen readers can be used at that age as well as a victor reader.
>> Things like Mt Battens are expensive but potentially useful, but be
>> careful that an electronic (and expensive) solution like a Mt. Batten
>> or a PAC Mate is not learned at the expense of being able to use a
>> mechanical braillewriter as that need will almost certainly come up
>> all of this child's life, at least from time to time.
>>
>> I'd like to rework this link, and our site is about to get a facelift
>> overall too but here are some technology ideas that you might direct
>> her towards. Let her see a range of options and then she can decide
>> which way she wants to proceed.
>>
>> http://www.gopbc.org/gopbc_technology.htm
>>
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 17, 2010, at 10:01 PM, David Andrews wrote:
>>
>>> I got asked a question, the other day, and since most of my
>>> experience is with blind adults -- I didn't know quite what to say.
>>> A woman said she had a four year old totally blind daughter, and she
>>> wanted her to keep up with her peers in technology, so what
>>> assistive technology/technology is there  -- should she start using
>>> with her child?
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
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>>
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