[blindkid] Blind child and day-care. (Was Hello)

[Heather Field]

Dear Sarah,
You have had some wonderful advice about organising your little girl's world 
to make it motivating and interesting. I agree with all that has been 
suggested. However, I want to encourage you to remove your daughter from 
that day-care situation as soon as you possibly can. It is extremely 
unlikely that they are treating her like a bright, inquisitive, competent 
little girl. I imagine they expect her to be retarded in her development and 
intellect because, at the moment, she is not behaving like the other 
children her age.

If you surround her with the sorts of motivating experiences which have been 
suggested, and you find therapists who begin to treat her like a child who 
needs motivation and choices, rather than manipulation, then I've no doubt 
that she'll start to develop and improve dramatically.

However, ten hours a day in a day-care that is not interacting with her in 
lots of ways for lots of time will result in a very sad, despondent, and 
perhaps even angry little girl. She is full of needs that she doesn't yet 
know how to meet ... the need to move, to know, to interact, to understand, 
to relate, to succeed. Yet, she doesn't know how or believe that she can. 
I'm not saying this to upset you, I'm sharing your daughter perspective with 
you.

Several years ago I began teaching a 5-year-old, blind girl (we'll call her 
Katie) who had been put into a prestigious day-care/preschool when she was 
18-months old. Her parents worked, and they believed she needed the 
experience of other children and the help of professionals. even after she 
had been through two years of the county's programme for blind children her 
emotional and developmental level were astonishingly low. While Katie also 
had some other physical issues, her main problem was the lack of stimulation 
she had received and the way she had been moved and manipulated all her 
life. When she came to me she moved like a zombie, afraid to put one foot in 
front of the other. Her hands flopped beside her for she didn't know that 
life was for her to "take hold of". She had not been taught to dress 
herself, put on her shoes, or backpack. she didn't know she could search the 
shelves and choose an activity. She didn't initiate conversation with other 
children and didn't know how to carry on a conversation if another child 
spoke to her. she didn't know how to play; to pretend that a ball was 
chasing her or that a rocking horse was trying to buck her off. She didn't 
know how to even roll play. She was frightened of stairs, of the sand-box, 
of slides of jumping of a step...it was as if she was scared of life itself.

she had not reacted to her situation with tantrums and fury, like some 
children, she had reacted by withdrawing. She had no love of life; in fact, 
she had the worst case of learned helplessness that I had ever seen in over 
20 years of teaching. When she was asked to put on her shoes she would push 
her foot into the first shoe she touched - whether it was hers or not and 
irrespective of whether it was a right or left shoe - and would then lean 
back on one hand while flopping her other hand about on the shoe as if she 
knew she was supposed to do something, but didn't know what. It was very 
apparent to me that she had never been properly shown how to do the job. 
She'd had people grab her hands and do "hand-over-hand" (a largely 
ineffective method) demonstration. Then she'd been told to repeat the task. 
But, for a child who hadn't learned to use her hands to manipulate and 
explore her world, she didn't have the prerequisite skills. but, far worse, 
she'd been so manipulated and grabbed and moved, she didn't know that she 
could do it herself. She had no belief that she could actually do things 
herself. Why try if you know the outcome will be failure? My heart broke for 
Katie because her problems were not the result of blindness; they were the 
result of people who didn't know how to interact with a blind baby. No 
bouncing on someone's lap, no singing and rolling games, no crawling under a 
pile of cushions. She didn't know how to jump, or run, or climb, chase. She 
wasn't much interested in food, or smells or stories or pretending. No fun 
for Katie, no joy of living, no meaning no understanding. Just lying and 
sitting still and alone in the crowded day-care and then, with no warning 
and no recognition of the therapists by voice because of the time passed 
between visits, *grabbing* and *making* and *pulling* and *moving* and 
*forcing*! Then, with no language to express her misery and fears and 
loneliness, she was left alone again.

Was this because she she was blind? No, blindness doesn't cause any of these 
things. It was because of how they interacted with Katie during her long 
hours at the day-care.

This is not what you want for your little girl. If you can find a family 
day-care setting where she can have more, small group, interaction this 
would be better. If you could find one person who might have her in their 
home while you work that would be even better. Or, perhaps you may need to 
stay home with her for a year and play with her and love and encourage her 
into life. If you'd like to contact me and discuss things I'd love to help. 
Please just email me off list and we'll organise to talk.

Incidentally, Katie is now a wonderfully social little girl who loves life 
and people. She has made unimaginable progress and is on grade level in most 
areas though she has areas of delay that we're still working on. But, things 
could have been so very different for Katie if people had known that the 
child was normal, she just didn't interact with the world using vision. 
Katie's problem was the lack of correct information possessed by her 
parents, therapists and teachers. Blindness, of itself, is not the problem.

I applaud you for reaching out Sarah and I implore you to trust your 
instincts as a parent. You have a lovely little girl who just needs to learn 
that she can interact with her world. Please keep in touch and we'll help as 
best we can.

Warmest regards,

Heather


-----Original Message----- 
From: Sarah Dallis
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 8:12 PM
To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindkid] Hello

Hi. My daughter, Ellie, is almost 16 months old and completely blind. She
had a VEP two months ago and it came back inconclusive. She may have had
her eyes closed or she's completely blind with no light perception. It
helps me to go ahead and think she's completely blind, I'd rather have the
surprise then to have to lose an expectation, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, she has other health issues (septo-optic dysplasia, optic nerve
hypoplasia, hypo-pit, diabetes insipidus, so on and so forth). Those are
all back seat drivers to her vision in the sense of development.

She doesn't walk, crawl, or stand. She likes laying on her tummy but more
for sleep so we're working on her pushing up and reaching for things. She
can roll.

My husband and I are both active duty Air Force so she goes to daycare
about 10 hours a day. I'm having problems with my confidence in her daycare
and therapists. I'm debating on whether or not I should switch my
daughter's OT and PT. She is always unhappy and crying during therapy. They
force her hands and body into positions and make her stay there or do
something. She's not quite 16 months and her PT session lasts 45 minutes.
What do you all think? She also receives feeding therapy but she's showing
more progress withth at then she is with OT or PT.

In my signature block the second link is to Ellie's blog if you want to
read more about her. Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing
from you all!
-- 

Sarah Dallis

Pampered Chef Consultant

Order 24/7 Online: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/sarahdallis

Mom to Ellie: http://elliesgrace.blogspot.com
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