[blindkid] BrailleNote use

Carly B barnesraiser at gmail.com
Thu Sep 6 02:44:16 UTC 2012


Hello all!

I am hoping to get some thoughts/advice regarding my son's school
situation. My son is 10 and he just entered 4th grade at the state academy
for the blind. He's been there since 1st grade. At his IEP meeting last
spring, I asked that he be provided with a Braille Note for his home use. I
thought I had requested it starting at the beginning of the summer (2012)
but that it would be something he would use at home during the school year.
Somehow this was misconstrued and it was entered in his IEP that he would
be provided the Braille Note for the summer only. Sadly, the instructor in
charge of technology (even though I had communicated with him *months*
prior to the IEP meeting and had gotten his "buy-in" then) did not have the
Braille Note ready for our son's use until the end of July. It was really
frustrating to be put off for 4-5 months after our initial request, but
since I thought that once we had it, we would have it indefinitely, that
helped.

Well, we've had the use of it for 4 weeks and I just received a request to
return it. Reading the IEP a little more carefully (yes, I glossed over
portions, including that one) I realize now there was a misunderstanding
about it.

But my question is: how many of you have technology at home provided by the
school? I mean, how unusual a request is or isn't this? Early on in this
process I encountered several TVI's who said they provide Braille Notes to
their students for use at home and school from an early age. So I got the
idea that it is somewhat standard.

Should I request another IEP meeting and make the request again, being
clear this time what I want? Should I expect to receive it? I mean, the
Braille Note is available to my son at school for *maybe* 30 minutes a day.
The amount of Braille material we have at home is quite limited. The
Braille Note is like a Kindle for Braille books... my son is part-way
through two books he downloaded from BookShare that he would not be able to
finish. He needs the extra practice time to increase his proficiency and
his reading speed. Of course I'm afraid they will say that he doesn't need
that...

Anyway, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I just need to figure
out what to do from here...

Thanks in advance!

:) Carolynn aka Brian's mom



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