[blindkid] I need help

[Richard Holloway]

"Not ready for a cane yet" is an old song, but not one I would have hoped to hear from a school for the blind quite so much these days. 

Conventional (read: "old school") wisdom suggests that kids need to be "ready" for a cane. I disagree entirely, and we fought a similar battle with some O&M specialists when our daughter, now 10, was just a toddler. I tend much more towards the philosophy of Joe Cutter, among others, who suggests getting a cane in a child's hand before they can even stand or walk, and barring that, start with something like a wooden spoon just to extend a very young child's reach. Simply stated, I don't think there is such a thing as "too early" for a cane, so long as the child can physically grasp a cane with even reasonable control of it, once in hand. 

The argument you are likely to hear is that blind kids will ultimately have to UN-learn "bad" habits before they can learn proper cane technique. I would challenge any of these experts to provide factual evidence of this actually happening. It is much like suggesting that a typically sighted child should be prevented from attempting to stand or walk until he or she can demonstrate a clear understanding and mastery of the CONCEPT of walking. That simply isn't how learning works. If you research some of Joe Cutter's writings on the topic, he explains this much better than I can...

I think the Braille argument is harder. Without O&M, there is no self-sufficient option, so a child is stuck with a sighted guide if he doesn't have enough vision to safely travel, and as someone already mentioned, if he has enough sight not to need this (O&M) or to need to read Braille, why would they have accepted him into the school for the blind? I think I would ask them this directly, if it were me. 

With the Braille, you're likely going to hear that they don't need to provide Braille because he can be a print reader. It would seem that you're going to need to persuade the powers that be that even if your son is going to be okay without Braille for a short period of time, that is not a reliable long-term solution for him. Also, I believe you may be able to find a number of sources which support the notion that older children and adults who learned Braille at an earlier age consistently have much faster reading rates than those who actually learn to read Braille as older kids, or adults. If he is on par with his sighted peers based on age/development stage, it can be a real mess to argue. If he is not, I would quickly point out that lack of early Braille skill may be a big factor.

What troubles me the most is that a school for the blind should have plenty of experience to know all of this and much more already. I suppose my hope would be that they mean he needs to focus on either Braille or print more for a period (my daughter has no light perception so i cannot speak to that from experience) but I cannot imagine it would be a problem to, for example, begin teaching the initial steps of Braille while working on print. (Or vice-versa.) 

Of corse you can begin by teaching him the basics of Braille yourself, and generally exposing him to Braille. Get some Braille labels on things around your home-- anything he tends to touch or handle, and get some dual print books (print and Braille) and share them together, so he can begin to associate the little Braille dots under his fingers with reading, while you find the best path to help you move forward...

Likewise with a cane. Get him a cane (free through the NFB if you like) and let him explore and learn. We also used a "teaching cane" with our daughter, or so I think we called it. My wife or I would walk next to our daughter with a cane in hand and we'd give her a cane too. She would want to copy what we did as we walked about tapping our own cane. Step one for a young child is simply to get a cane in their hand. Learning to use information the cane conveys will likely follow quickly thereafter. 

Good luck!

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 25, 2012, at 12:08 AM, sonya weatherly <rannaichang79 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a 5 years old son who is visual impairment . I will like him to
> learn braille and to use a cane. but the school he goes to said that he
> have too much vision to learn braille and he is not ready for the cane yet
> . he does have some delays in fine motors skills and speech but i now begin
> to understand that he need one. he goes to the Indiana school for the blind
> here in Indianapolis. i need help to get my son what he need. they said
> that he can't learn print and braille at the same time . is that true?
> please answer this post I really need help. I am also visual impairment .
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