[blindkid] social skills

[DrV]

Hi Zunaira,
A few additional thoughts:
We brought in fun modified games for our kids to play with their
classmates in preschool through 1st grade or so.  My wife put together one
that was a "sorting game" that was really popular with the kids.
Aides are a touchy & emotional subject on this & other listservs, but in
our case the aide facilitated socialization.
Through 5th grade we created a handout for our kid's classmates' parents
that we would pass out at the beginning of the school year that had info
about our sons & on suggestions on how to encourage interactions. I
included some kid-friendly websites & also photos of each of them doing
fun age-appropriated activities like rock climbing, surfing, skiing,
snowboarding etc. The parents really appreciate this & it opens up
opportunities to talk with parents & to be invited to birthday parties &
such. I can email you a copy if you like.
In California playdates are popular & are a really nice way to foster
social interactions.
My younger son really benefited from the social interactions in the speech
therapy group sessions.
Best wishes.
Eric V

On 12/29/11 7:51 PM, "Penny Duffy" <pennyduffy at gmail.com> wrote:

>Zunaira,
>
>I think its very common for blind and visually impaired children to have
>issues socializing with peers.  My daughter became blind last year.
>Sometime before she ended kindergarten and she is in second grade right
>now.   Its been an adjustment for my daughter socially.  She has always
>been a very social and kind child.  One issue she has is finding her
>friends during recess.  How we handled this was we gave her ideas and we
>had her come up with her own solution.  She will try and pre-plan who she
>will play with during recess and set up a spot to meet the friend she is
>playing with.  Her friends are well 'trained' They still say who they are
>when they come up to her even though she knows who it is most of the time
>by voice.  Abby  has some of her peripheral  vision but in a crowd of
>people she can't pick anyone out. She has a very understanding group of
>friends that have learned that she can't find them on the playground.
>
>She has a very hard time with those temporarily friendship situations.
> Like meeting someone new at a park you may never meet again or going to
>camp for a week.       She miss all visual clues like smiles and waves.
>It
>takes her longer.
>
>Does the school facilitate social interaction with her peers?  Like
>breaking them down into pairs?  It may help her if you arranged 1 on 1
>playdates with peers.  There is so much going on that sometimes large
>group situations can be overwhelming. Little bites and take it slow. My
>son
>is not blind but he has struggled life long with speech issues.   He has
>always bonded more with adults. He has slowly started to make friends with
>peers. I realized that it was the adults that had more patience deal with
>is difficultly talking.
>
>There is no quick and easy answers. Its hard to see your
>child struggling socially. I will say i know a lot of blind children who
>are true social butterflies.
>
>-
>--Penny
>----------
>A lucky mother to two amazing children - visionfora.blogspot.com
>
>
>On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Zunaira T. Wasif <zwasif at fau.edu> wrote:
>
>> Do any of your visually impaired children have trouble socializing?  I
>> have a four year old in pre-school who has miner difficulties with
>> inniciating conversations and so forth with other children in her class.
>>  Do you know of any interventions for the mainstream class room setting
>> that work?
>> Thanks
>> Zunaira
>>
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>
>
>
>-- 
>--Penny
>----------
>A lucky mother to two amazing children - visionfora.blogspot.com
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