[Pibe-division] Losing Sight in Middle School

Dr. Denise M. Robinson dmehlenbacher at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 22 14:01:41 UTC 2011


Losing 
Sight in Middle School 
J was in 
middle school a year before I had met him. He had an incredible Special 
Education Teacher who noticed that he was getting closer and closer to his pages 
of work as the months went on. She also noticed that he would not walk around in 
any dark places. She convinced the parents to take him to an eye doctor and sure 
enough, he came back with a diagnosis of Retinitis Pigmentosa RP).

There 
was no Teacher of the Blind in the area, so the Special Ed teacher did the 
research on the Internet to pull a program together for him to start teaching 
him Braille. A year later, I enter the scene greatly impressed with what she 
created. She knew someone blind so she knew how to position his fingers on the 
braille sheet and brailler and she picked out a wonderful Braille program called 
"The Braille Connection" for children who knew print but were transitioning to 
Braille. J had learned many letters and some contractions, but his progress was 
slow. J was several grade levels behind his peers and struggled with learning. 
He was one of the kindest gentlest people I have ever met and he had many 
friends. His special ed. teacher was incredibly fond of him as all people in the 
building and really wanted to see him succeed so was really hoping there were 
more tricks to teaching students braille.

He had been very active in 
sports but started missing the ball; or rather, the ball started hitting him 
because he could not see it coming. When I talked with him, he said that he 
noticed something funny about his seeing years ago but never said anything to 
his family. His family was very poor and their focus was on survival. He just 
did not want to burden them. 

One of the biggest challenges was J did not 
want anyone to know he was losing his sight and he said he would not do any 
blind skills outside the room. So for 1 hour a day, he would learn blind skills. 
I combined his learning of hard copy braille and the brailler with the Braille 
Note. As soon as he put his fingers on the Braille Note, brailled a letter and 
it gave him verbal feedback as well as tactile, he was hooked. He was so hooked 
that he wanted to take it home and practice. He knew he could succeed because 
the Braille Note told him what he was brailling and if he made a mistake, it was 
easy to correct. Within 2 years, he had learned the Braille code. This child 
labeled "slow" learned the whole Braille code in 2 years. 

To challenge 
him, I would give him Braille to read from and he would either input it into 
Duxbury or the Braille Note...This is the way he did homework also. Then he got 
hard copy braille reading practice and brailling practice at the same time. 
While in school, he always wanted to use Duxbury. He could enlarge it enough to 
see the braille, so what he was seeing matched the braille display hooked to the 
computer and to what he was hearing with JAWS. With him "seeing" the braille, 
then hearing it, then touching it, he was able to excel in his 
learning.

I have discovered there are many children that need multiple 
ways to learn one thing. By giving a myriad of options, people excel in the 
process. 


       Denise 
 
Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D. 
Teacher of the Blind & Visually Impaired
TechVision-Independent Contractor
Specialist in blind programming/teaching/training
509-674-1853     deniserob at gmail.com

http://blindgeteducated.blogspot.com/
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