[nabs-l] developmental delay and blindness
Karl Martin Adam
kmaent1 at gmail.com
Tue Dec 30 23:08:05 UTC 2014
Hi Andrew and all,
Like Michael I'll begin by pointing out that I'm neither a doctor
nor a neuroscientist. As Arielle and Kaiti have pointed out,
blindness often is caused by an underlying condition like
premature birth or a brain tumor that affects other areas of the
brain causing cognitive disabilities. There are also genetic
links between blindness and other disabilities in some cases. I
have significant doubt that the lack of visual information in
itself causes developmental delays as opposed to the delays being
socially caused by people's reaction to blindness. When blind
children are prevented from exploring their environment out of a
mistaken idea that it would be too dangerous for them, for
instance, it's no wonder that their brains don't develop
properly. Social situations also can have a huge impact. I
personally know several blind people who were put in resource
rooms with multiply-impaired children instead of being
mainstreamed and basically learned to be autistic by doing what
children do and internalizing the behavior of their peers as the
proper way to behave. Even mainstreamed blind children are often
not held to the same social and academic standards as their sited
peers, and this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy--students
end up being behind in math or reading because they are not
expected to practice as much or with as challenging materials as
sited students for instance. Like Kaiti's example of being
prevented from crawling none of this is caused by the blindness
itself.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kaiti Shelton via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
To: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>, National Association
of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 13:26:36 -0500
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] developmental delay and blindness
Hi Andrew and all,
Arielle and Michael spell out what they've said very well. From
the
perspective of someone who is going into a profession where
people
with disabilities are viewed as being "served," I can say that
that
abelist view tends to creep into professions like this more than
it
probably should. I've attended national and regional conferences
and
sometimes heard blind clients described in ways like, "His lack
of
spatial awareness causes significant balance issues." Sometimes
there
is another underlying cause of these difficulties, such as
Cerebral
Palsy which accounts for the balance instead of the loss of
vision,
and that condition is mentioned almost as an afterthought. In
many
cases, I think these professionals who work with the blind and
the
blind with other disabilities don't know what they really don't
know,
and use blindness as the catch-all. Of course, this is something
that
is really concerning.
I am also not a doctor, but I do think it is important to take
the
specific developmental delay this person is claiming you have
into
consideration. Also, if they are not a medical doctor and are
not one
of your physicians, I wouldn't take their diagnosis too
seriously. If
they have the distinction of doctor because they have a PH.D in
their
field, that still doesn't give them the knowledge or freedom to
diagnose you, not to mention they don't know your entire case
like a
physician who regularly sees you would.
The term "Developmentally delayed" is often handed out pretty
liberally, I think, but as Arielle said it really doesn't have to
mean
much in the long run. I was considered developmentally delayed
for a
while when I was really little. I had just had a bunch of eye
surgeries, and my parents were worried I'd bump into something
and
hurt myself so they didn't put me down on the floor much to let
me
crawl. In that case, my blindness or another syndrome wasn't
even the
issue; it was human interference. Likewise, my sighted sister
was
thought to have something wrong with her brain because though her
hips
were fine, she just decided she would crawl and drag one leg
behind
her. In both cases, neither of us grew up with lasting effects
of the
"developmental delay." Einstein is another example, and I'm sure
there are plenty of others. It has been speculated that Mozart
even
had some developmental problems, and like Einstein he was really
successful.
I really wouldn't worry too much about it. Unless your M.D
doctor
mentions a concern I don't think you have to worry. If you are
though, you could mention the claim at your next check up and see
what
your doctor says.
On 12/29/14, Arielle Silverman via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
wrote:
Hi Andrew and all,
Great question. First let's define developmental delay.
Typically this
term means that a young child achieves certain milestones like
crawling, walking, talking or socializing later in life than the
"average" child. Obviously there is a huge range as far as how
old
children are when they achieve milestones, but it is possible to
calculate average ages and label a child as developmentally
delayed if
they deviate far from the average. Having a developmental delay
as a
child does not necessarily mean one is less successful as an
adult.
For example, I have heard that Albert Einstein did not speak
until he
was 4, while most children start speaking between about 9 and 18
months. Einstein was developmentally delayed, but obviously
successful.
It is fair to say that many blind children show developmental
delays.
However, the cause is hard to identify because most blind
children
have neurological impairments in addition to blindness, and
neurological impairments also cause delays. Oftentimes blindness
is
caused by premature birth or a syndrome that also causes other
disabilities, and these other disabilities may not be diagnosed
right
away. Some researchers have argued that even kids who are blind
with
no known disabilities tend to be delayed in crawling and
walking. This
issue does not affect every blind child however. Sighted babies
move
about in response to things they see and vision has a lot of
nice
properties. For example, a sighted baby can stare at a toy for a
long
time and then decide to reach for it. A blind baby might hear a
sound,
but if that sound comes and goes, the baby may not realize the
sound
is coming from an actual object. Blind babies who are exposed to
a
lot of items that make noise or that they can touch are less
likely to
have developmental delays. It concerns me when people
automatically
assume a delay is "normal" for a blind child because they may
then not
encourage the child to explore their world or make as much
effort to
expose them to new experiences. Such an assumption might also
lead
parents or doctors to not look for other medical conditions that
could
be causing the delay. As Michael said, this assumption is
ablest. In
short, I would posit that if blind kids are at risk for delays,
this
is not because of blindness but because the environment they are
in
doesn't offer enough accessible experiences (like with objects
they
can touch or that make continuous sounds) to aid their
development.
Arielle
On 12/29/14, Andrew via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
Hi Michael thank you for your note it is a great topic by the
way I
will be looking forward to hearing the other's views on this.
On 12/29/14, Michael D Ausbun <mausbun at unr.edu> wrote:
Hello:
First, a couple of disclaimers.
1) No question is ever dumb.
2) I'm not a doctor, medical or otherwise, nor is Nero
cognition my area
of
expertise.
With that said, I would like to propose two different theories.
First,
I'd
argue that developmental delays ought to be normal for most
blind
individuals. A large part of human adaptation comes from visual
analysis;
if
we lack that capability, then adaptation is slower and thus,
development
is
slowed. Now, with that said, I know there have been studies (at
my
University and probably others), in the neuroscience field,
which show
that
other senses (smell, sound, etc.) Produce responses within the
visual
cortex of blind individual's brains (there is a gentleman from
California,
by the name of Brian something, who was on the discovery channel
who
referred to this as a form of echo location). This would
expedite the
development somewhat I'd think, but not to the same degree.
My second theory is that people are more inclined to label
visually
challenged individuals as developmentally delayed, in order to
explain
the
inability to grasp certain things (personally, I'd argue this is
ablest
in
nature). What I mean is, if a blind person does not receive
tactile
representations of inherently visual things, but a person
expects them
to
know what it is (I.E. a round-Square), they might decide that
person is
merely developmentally delayed.
I don't know if either theory is accurate, perhaps Arielle
or someone
with
a little more relevant expertise might be able to give you a
better
answer.
Respectfully,
Michael Ausbun
________________________________________
From: nabs-l [nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Andrew via
nabs-l
[nabs-l at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 11:46 AM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nabs-l] developmental delay and blindness
Hi all
have a rather dumb question. Is developmental delay quite
common
amung blind people or is it not that common the person who
works with
just disability people over all said i have a slight
developmental
delay that is why i am asking. like they re fer to her as a
doctor
so and so but not really medical doctor though. but anyway is
this a
common thing?
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--
Kaiti
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