[Pibe-division] Reading Braille with Special Hands

[Dr. Denise M. Robinson]

Reading Braille with Special Hands 
I am always blessed to teach. I love teaching and seeking out the best 
methods that will help my students the most keeps me going, so I have to phrase this next sentence carefully because all my students bless me in different ways.

In the last few years, I have been so incredibly blessed by one 
particular child. The second grade teacher had gotten a hold of me at 
the end of the school year, saying this particular student was having a 
great deal of difficulty seeing and accessing her school work and 
wondered if I had any ideas for her.  This young lady was not on grade 
level and struggled with everything. She has a  condition where she was 
very small and has partial limbs; she had a useable finger, and 
half-useable thumb on one hand and the doctors actually made a finger of
 sorts on the other fixed limb. She had had many facial surgeries and 
just many surgeries in general. I could easily pick her out when I 
walked into the room. I just watched her for some time, in her adorable 
pink outfit, on her tiny frame. She had figured out how to grasp a 
pencil and was leaning over about 2 inches from her paper, slowly but 
surely printing out letters. When recess came, I asked if she would stay
 in with me and she agreed. The first thing I always ask children is 
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" She immediately replied, "A 
Princess." I smiled. Of course. Most girls want to be a princess. She 
was just like everyone else. We all are inside and it does not matter 
what the outside looks like.

Because it was the end of the school year and she had several more 
surgeries scheduled, I could not begin instruction with her until the 
middle of third grade. During the fall, I worked with the special 
education teacher, the Para educator and mom; teaching them braille and 
the technology that she would be using. She had an incredible team, all 
dedicated to her success. As we began instruction, I noticed that the 
"finger" the doctors had created and attached to one limb did not really
 have receptors to read braille, so I was depending on that one little 
finger on her other hand to read. I did have her use that specially 
created finger on the other limb to track the braille as she read with 
her right finger so she could create some type of speed. Over a couple 
of years and a lot of braille reading and computer instruction, that 
wonderful brain created enough nerves in that "finger" to start reading 
braille or at least the first word or two of each sentence. She 
increased her reading speed to 115 words per minute with practice. Those
 tiny little fingers started to fly across the page. Her computer skills
 accelerated her also and with her blind skills, she is now on grade 
level. I might add that she has the most supportive mom who followed 
through on every lesson I handed out. Truly, her team of people at 
school and home has contributed greatly to her success.

She has become one of my brightest shining stars...literally. She is the
 first student I try out my new technology adventures with and she loves
 it. She can email, text or SKYPE me, which has become her favorite mode
 because of its accessibility features and ask how to solve a problem. 
With a simple reply, she can fix whatever her issue is. She gets it, 
remembers and is now excelling and succeeding in life. Where humans 
place such value on beauty, her brains and abilities now can take her 
further than any pageant queen.
 
       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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