[blindkid] BrailleNote use

Thu Sep 6 04:23:24 UTC 2012

My understanding is that many schools provide this. We have a daughter in 4th grade who has been bringing home a BrailleNote since... well I guess that started in first grade. She used a Braille'n Speak before that which I do believe stayed at school (in Kindergarten) and if memory serves was also using that a bit in pre-k.

The way our kids get proficient with technology is by USING the technology. If your son is exclusively, or at least largely a Braille reader, I would suggest they need to present a compelling reason why they should NOT assign a unit for his exclusive use.

Expect to have to sign a document agreeing you are responsible for loss or damage. Apart from that, why would the not check out a unit to you? All I can guess is they are trying to use the unit for multiple students, but by his age, if he is a typical student, I would expect him to be using the BrailleNote for most of his schoolwork. There are a few situations where a Perkins can be more appropriate-- mostly in math work in our house, but I can say with some certainty that our 4th grader completes the VAST majority of her work at school and at home on her Apex.

Being at the state academy, they really should know better, but they also have (presumably) many blind students the. The IEP is supposed to consider the needs of the student without regard to available budget and equipment cost, etc. Reality tends to differ somewhat. When a student like our daughter has an assigned BrailleNote, while being the only blind student in her school, the unit is going to be in her hands or or on a shelf at the school. Again, that your son's unit might be used to serve multiple students SHOULD have no bearing, but there is the theory and there is reality. 

The workaround would be this: he needs the unit for all (or virtually all) of his classes at school. If he is using it nearly all day, no other students could be sharing it at school, so then why not send it home? 

In our case the charger lives at home and we send the unit to school fully charged each morning. They should also check out a Perkins for him to use at home, if they have not. Other items such as an abacus, if he is using one should come home as needed too. If a sighted student's typical scholastic needs require adaptive equipment for your blind student I would expect support beyond typical consumables like Braille paper. 

We have at times had a printer provided for the BrailleNote as well, but the current solution is she does the work on her apex and prints it as needed for school. 

I don't know that I would focus on what might be considered pleasure reading though I agree that supports the larger goal of general proficiency. Focus first on direct support of his academic goals. We request books, including text books on the BrailleNote (when possible) as well as Braille copies on paper, AS WELL as print copies so we can follow along as well.

Kendra does everything from daily work on her Apex, to taking most quizzes and tests. She maintains journals and notes there. It is her scratch paper. When teachers loose her work, which they do, she can regenerate it for them. Periodically, I backup all her data offline. I cringe at the thought of the hundreds and indeed thousands of additional pages of Braille we would have stacked all over the house if we did not have regular access to a BrailleNote.

I hope that helps a little.

Good Luck!

Richard

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 5, 2012, at 10:44 PM, Carly B <barnesraiser at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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