[blindkid] Does your child have an Acrobat or similar style CCTV?

Heather craney07 at rochester.rr.com
Sat Jan 16 02:38:45 UTC 2010


Several blind children that I have known have had access to only one CC TV 
and as they are pricy, relatively fragel pieces of equipment those had to 
stay in one place.  What happened in most cases that I saw was that the CC 
TVs were not used past fourth or fifth grade, as they were simply not 
efficent at all in a high school setting and no blind college students, 
partials that is, use them either.  For the elementary set the general 
practice seamed to be to keep it in their main classroom, for reading 
purposes and to bring things like projects from art class, or simple music 
sheets from music class to the cllassroom to view after class or during a 
free period.  If a child has enough vision to benifit from a CC TV, then 
they can, in most cases, draw, paint, etc in art class by putting their face 
closer to the paper and sitting in bright sunlight or under a high entensity 
lamp.  Those lamps are very effective and not terribly expensive, as buying 
a second CC TV would be.  Magnifiers, hand-held or full page or large print 
materials are also usually still helpful, when the CC TV is not available. 
They even make magnification aids, sometimes complete with an attached light 
that clip onto a music stand.  If your son can see well enough to benifit 
from a CC TV, but has a degenerative or potentially degenerative condition, 
or requires really extreme magnification, that standard produced large print 
cannot fulfill, than he should be using Braille anyway, in addition to 
print, and this could help supplement in times when no CC TV is around.  As 
a former music major, I can reccomend that if your son has any real interest 
in and aptitude for music that he at least have a basic working knowledge of 
both Braille and print music.  Understanding print music can serve even a 
totally blind student, when it comes to having readers or translation 
software working with them to complete a music theory assignment or learn 
their orchestral or choral music.  Additionally, Braille music is extremely 
important to learn young, because it is drastically different from print 
music, from Braille Nemith code, or even from standard literary Braille.  I 
have seen tallented blind adults have to drop out of music programs, because 
they got by brilliantly in band or chorus by recording and memorizing their 
music, or super-enlarging print music to do very simplistic music theory 
assignments.  But, when they had to keep an entire recital repetoir up in 
college, and do complex analysis of orchestral works or transpose and 
arrange pieces for a grade, they were utterly lost and wound up having to 
abandon or put their musical careers on hold while they struggled to master 
Braille music as adults.  Musical literacy should be fostered from infancy 
up, just like print literacy.  A fact that music educators are just recently 
beginning to really implament and advocate for.  I would imagine that the 
most important things to display on the CC TV would be pictures, graphs and 
diagrams that have too little contrast to be easily seen on plane paper, and 
or that are too complicated to simply recco-fuse or have made into raised 
line media, which would support the notion of leaving it in the main 
classroom.  It is expensive, but perhaps if an AV cart, provided by the 
school could be acquired, and fitted with especially non-skid surfaces and 
higher edges to ensure against breakage, the CC TV could be taken from room 
to room, but it would also be essential that you, the TVI or the adaptive 
technology specialist do a short training with any teachers, music teacher, 
art teacher, etc to ensure that they can assist the student with the machine 
and not dammage it through well-meaning ignorance of this particular 
technology.  Finally, a simple light box might be a slightly less expensive 
alternative for materials that are big enough, but simply not in a high 
enough contrast.  I have even seen students pair a back lit diagram on a 
light box with a full page or hand held magnifier, or a hand held magnifier 
with a high intensity lamp.  I hope some of that is helpful.  And, feel free 
to share your long story.  Especially if a little ranting will make you feel 
better.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "holly miller" <hollym12 at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>; "Discussion and Support List Concerning Albinism" 
<albinism-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 6:30 PM
Subject: [blindkid] Does your child have an Acrobat or similar style CCTV?


> Quick question,
> If your child uses an
> Acrobat<http://www.enhancedvision.com/index.cfm/pid/207/Products/Enhanced/Vision/Acrobat/LCD>or
> something similar, where is it used?
> If they move from class to class, does it go with them to all classes?
> What about specials like art or music?
> Do they essentially have free access to it or is the times they are 
> allowed
> to use it dictated by the school?
> What grade is your child in now and when did they start using it?
>
> Long story as to why I'm asking :::sigh::::
>
> Thanks!
> Holly
> aka Hank's mom
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