[nabs-l] Personal aides and other services in school

[William ODonnell]

This is a good topic to discuss.  I attended school as a child growing up in the late 80S and through the 90S when progressive computer technology was in its infancy in this country.  
I came from a large school district on Long Island, NY where there were TVI’S who traveled to each school in the local district.  They were required to see there students on a one-to-one basis each day on a specific schedule.  I was the only blind student in the schools I attended so, I was given basic Braille instruction and O&M instruction.  I learned to use a cane when I was 10 years old since my school did not want me to stand out or hurt anyone with it.  While I was in elementary school, a Para was hired to be an escort and assist the teachers who did not know how to deal with a blind student.  In most cases, I navigated on my own or with other classmates.  My day-to-day social interactions with other students were somewhat limited due to administrations fears of personal injury and the good old words, liability, insurance, etc do to blindness.  
Since the internet was unavailable in most of my life growing up, I did not have any knowledge about the NFB or any advocacy organizations.  In addition, as a result of this, adequate information and resources to proper services were unavailable for my family and I to utilize. My family and I believed that what was going on was OK.  
	When I was around middle-school age, I did receive training on something called a Braillemait for note-taking purposes.  Later on, we learned that this peace of equipment could only handle small tasks and could not be used for creating large text files.  I was then instructed on the use of a Dos PC for using WordPerfect for this task.  Once the internet boom of the late 90S was upon us, I was able to begin using a PC with Jaws, as well as a dos-based device for note-taking called an Aria  
When my district kept socially promoting me and denying me to take the standardized tests for college as a result of a “learning disability”, I required them to send me to Perkins School for the Blind, to fix the inadequate education I received.  The false reports and inadequate information lead the individuals at Perkins to first think that I had a learning disability.  Unfortunately, funding was short so Perkins could not pick up the slack for 12 years of improper education and fix it in 2.  As a result, I started college with many struggles but was later relieved to find out through extensive testing and remediation that I never had a learning or cognitive disability.  I have become a successful college graduate after all of this.  As a community, we are responsible for our future generation.  In essence, I fell that we need to go person by person, family, by family to insure that these problems become diminished since all families in our
 community do not have support and endurance for handling the inadequate educators in this country.  


--- On Sat, 9/4/10, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal aides and other services in school
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010, 9:39 PM
> Hi Arielle,
> Great topic!  In elementary school and my last year of
> high school I was at a public school with a vision resource
> room.  They are rare in the country; its a room where a
> few TVIs were stationed and several blind students from the
> county went to this school although the majority were
> mainstreamed from the beginning.  I spent a half day
> with the TVI in the resource room if I remember correctly.
> 
> Then I was mainstreamed in my home school and saw the TVI
> most days of the week for a short time.
> At this point the TVI was itinerant and traveled to several
> schools.
> While mainstreamed I received accomodations including
> alternative forms of handouts, alternative formats of
> textbooks and extended time on tests.  I grew up
> reading and writing braille from second grade; I started
> reading print.
> 
> Growing up I did not have aides.  I think students
> need O&M instruction, braille instruction and technology
> instruction.  Beyond that other services such as Ot and
> speech therapy are individualized and should be determined
> in the IEP meeting.
> In elementary school the only tech training was for typing
> on an Apple computer.  All my assignments even
> homework, were done by hand in large print or on the perkins
> and my TVI transcribed them.  In fifth or sixth grade I
> received a Braille n' speak which was my first
> piece of technology I took to school and used in the
> classroom.  I'm really glad to hear some students such
> as
> Julie had jaws and a scanning program.  I did not get
> this instruction in school.  I learned about jaws and
> Openbook in late high school years and in college through
> someone from the Dept for the blind.
> 
> I also received mobility instruction but the quality could
> have been better. O&M was given for an hour or two every
> other week.  It helped me learn some basics of O&M
> such as cane techniques, orientation to school, soliciting
> assistance in stores and traveling on simple streets. 
> But we did not do anything complex nor did we cover public
> transportation.
> Overall I was fortunate to have good services in school and
> feel sad to hear other students have to fight for something
> like braille texts and handouts when I had them
> automatically.
> 
> Good topic.
> 
> Ashley ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arielle
> Silverman" <nabs.president at gmail.com>
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 6:27 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] Personal aides and other services in
> school
> 
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > At this year's NFB convention, improving education of
> blind children
> > was an especially prominent theme, and for good
> reason-we would all
> > say that the ability for the blind to be fully
> participating members
> > of society starts with a quality education. I am on a
> couple of
> > listservs for parents of blind children (the NFB
> parents of blind
> > children list as well as another one that's not
> affiliated with any
> > organization), and discussions frequently come up
> about the myriad of
> > special services that parents often have to fight
> school districts to
> > get for their kids in public school. These special
> services range from
> > Braille instruction and provision of Braille learning
> materials, to
> > O&M, to technology instruction, to having a
> teacher's aide assigned to
> > help the blind student with visual tasks, to auxiliary
> services like
> > occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT),
> speech, etc. When I
> > take part in these discussions as someone who grew up
> blind, I always
> > wonder which of these services are absolutely critical
> to helping
> > blind students get a sound and effective education,
> and which of them
> > may be nice, but not necessary. For example, I think
> it's clear that
> > quality Braille instruction, cane travel teaching and
> tech instruction
> > are top priorities, but what about the other
> services?
> > 
> > I'm just curious to know what kinds of services those
> of you who grew
> > up blind received, and if you think these services
> were adequate,
> > inadequate, or superfluous. In particular, I'm curious
> whether you
> > guys had classroom aides (or someone besides your TVI)
> help you with
> > classroom activities or getting around and if you
> think this kind of
> > help was appropriate. When I started elementary school
> (kindergarten
> > in 1990), I had a classroom aide in kindergarten and
> first grade and
> > then the aide was discontinued in second grade and
> thereafter. From
> > what I remember (although I know memories from
> kindergarten can be
> > notoriously inaccurate), the aide basically served as
> my sighted guide
> > but didn't help me with classroom activities. In
> hindsight I wonder if
> > not having the aide would have forced the O&M to
> teach me independent
> > cane travel at an earlier age. But, more importantly,
> I didn't have
> > someone in the classroom describing things to me
> except when the TVI
> > was there, which I think was only one or two class
> periods per day in
> > the beginning and eventually she basically served as a
> braillist. I'm
> > therefore a little surprised to hear how common it is
> for blind kids
> > in this generation to have classroom aides working
> with them, offering
> > verbal descriptions of visual activities, etc. I feel
> like my own
> > education was relatively good, in part, because I
> didn't have the
> > luxury of getting so much information and I had to
> learn how to follow
> > what was being taught using nonvisual techniques, as
> well as actively
> > gathering information from others (like the teacher
> and fellow
> > classmates), skills that are critical for success in
> college. But, I
> > can also see the argument that having someone describe
> goings-on in
> > the classroom to a young child might give them an
> advantage and help
> > them gain a stronger understanding of visual concepts.
> What do you
> > think?
> > 
> > Arielle
> > 
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> 
> 
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