[Gopbc] HELP FOR THE CONFUSED

[Richard Holloway]

Hi Heather, 

Stephanie’s husband here. I agree with Stephanie’s suggestions. Anything Chase might be fond of playing with could be a motivator. One main thing that drives typically sighted kids to crawl, walk, etc., is they want to reach something that interests them. Something shiny, a pet they can see, the sight of a favorite toy, or maybe just where a parent is standing within sight. The main difference for a blind child is the specific stimulus which grabs their attention— most likely the will need to HEAR an inspiring sound (or maybe smell something) and want to move towards it.

If you don’t have a white cane yet, until you get your hands on one (I would absolutely order one first chance you get) ANYTHING that extents your son’s reach may help. A wooden spoon seems to work well. For a child with no vision, their early world is really (for the most part) just the area they can reach— draw an arm’s length circle around the child and that’s pretty much what he or she is able to interact with. Something as simple as a wooden spoon can double the size of the world a young child is interacting with, and even once your son has a cane, he will likely be using various other things (perhaps items similar to a wooden spoon) to extend his reach.

Don’t expect the cane to immediately get your son walking, but like the spoon, it will extend his reach, and you absolutely want that cane to become a part of him— a thing he grows up with in his hand and wants to carry around. I know our daughter dragged her cane behind her for quite a while before we ever made much progress with using it conventionally as a cane, but many kids who get canes a bit later in life, initially just want to just throw the cane down— it can be a real battle. After a while, they will realize what their cane can “tell” them (like where a doorway or wall is) and they will begin to use the cane more and more. From what I have seen, kids are much more likely to want to hang onto a cane if they start using one at a young age.

For the walking, the good news is that there may well be a huge shift just as soon as he realizes what he can do by walking. There’s a good chance his sighted sibling sat for a long time trying to figure our how to access things walking now allows. Chase probably isn’t yet aware that if he walks, he can make things which previously appeared “by magic” (generally when an adult brings the thing close) suddenly come into reach under his own control. So you mate have both of your twins BOTH all over the place before you know it!

We were told not to expect our blind daughter to walk until something like age three, and if we had listened to the “experts” who said this, I expect she wouldn’t have. Instead, we had her walking well before she was two. I’m sure the Pip Squeakers helped inspire her to put weight on her feet— it gave immediate gratification to trying to stand for her. Then various other interesting sounds got her actually moving. Before we knew it, she was ready to walk, and I can remember very well my daughter standing and reaching for me as I slowly backed away from her talking to her so she could touch me, but had to walk to keep trying to reach me.

As he begins to learn what more and more words mean, you can also use the tactic of telling him what his sister is doing. He will probably want to do the same thing she is doing and want to move in position to do so. I hope that helps a bit. Don’t hesitate to ask for more feedback if we can be of help!

On Dec 31, 2013, at 8:50 AM, heather campbell <heather.campbell792 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Good morning, I am the proud mother of three BEAUTIFUL children one of which is blind. My son Chase is 23 months old and spent his first month and a half in the NICU where he was first initially diagnosed, here is where I'm confused he's not walking yet and only started crawling at 18 months am I the only parent who is dealing with this? (by the way Chase's twin sister is running ALL over the place). Please share thoughts.
> 
> Heather
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