[stylist] DBG (chapter 4)

[Judith Bron]

Lori, The part about not being able to hear when more than one person is 
talking at you is normal.  Usually when more than one person is involved 
they tend to shout or raise their voices.  This can be very disorienting. 
So, when you tell the group that only one  person can talk at a time you are 
right.  It's not just you, but anyone who is teaching.  Remember in school 
when teachers refused to listen to more than one student at a time?  Now you 
know why.  Judith
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <LoriStay at aol.com>
To: <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] DBG (chapter 4)


> Hmm.   Eight years later?   That's stretching it a bit.   How old is the
> child we're reading about in the second chapter?   Six or seven?   Eight 
> years
> later she would be fourteen or fifteen, and I can't see her mother forcing
> her to try to fly (or float) because she would then be adult in size.   A
> lot of child abuse stops when a person reaches the teen years because all 
> it
> takes is one slug in the gut from the kid to the parent to stop the 
> bullying.
>  Bullies are usually cowards.
> So since it can't be the same child, who are we reading about?   Sorry if
> I'm confused!
>
> I first realized that low vision people might use braille and canes in
> 1981, when I attended a seminar at the NFB in Baltimore.   It was an eye 
> opener
> in more ways than one.   On one side of me sat Joane Fernandez (later 
> Joanne
> Wilson) who wore glasses, but still wrote her checks using a guide and
> Braille, and on the other sat Ramona Walhoff, knitting or crocheting 
> something
> during the seminar.   I think Ramona has no vision at all.   Joanne also 
> used
> a cane.   Some years later, she became the director of the Louisiana 
> Center
> for the Blind and after that she was head of Rehabilitation Services in
> Washington.   She took herself quite far using the skills of blindness. 
> It's
> not something one forgets.
>
> On the other hand, I have a friend who is partly deaf and partly blind who
> refuses to learn Braille or sign.   Communication with her was extremely
> difficult.   I had to email her, and have her expand the message to better 
> than
> 18 point on her screen.   We encouraged her to get cochlear implants, 
> which
> have helped somewhat, as she now augments her enlarged screen with a 
> screen
> reader.   Cochlear implants are not perfect, however.    Aside from the
> difficulty she had getting them installed (the first one had her on the
> operating table all day, and failed to actually install it!), if several 
> people are
> talking at once, say in a party, they are useless.   I sometimes have
> similar problems!   I taught a class a couple of years, and finally had to 
> tell
> the people (all adults) that "If more than one person talks at a time, I
> can't hear either of them."   I still tell this to a group I lead.   They 
> think
> I'm kidding.   And I'm classified as fully able to hear.   I'm not so 
> sure.
>
> Anyway, could you clear up my confusion about the main character?   What's
> her name?   Do you have an outline of her life to date (not too detailed)?
> Or are we talking about two girls, both daughters of the mother who tries
> to kill her?
> Lori
>
> In a message dated 9/7/09 5:07:49 PM, dreamavdb at googlemail.com writes:
>
>
>> Hi Laura,
>> yes Fiona (the 3ft 7 lady) does make an apearance but you have to wait
>> several chapters before she comes into it again, since the first
>> chapter happened 8 years after the second one, so that time has to
>> elapse before we get to meet Fiona again.
>>
>> Your spot on about oralism. I feel my education has suffered due to
>> the lack of more visual clues but since I was just HOH nobody
>> considered signing as neccessary. It's the same when blind kids have
>> some useful sight. Braille goes out of the window and they are
>> expected to use large print and not encouraged to use a cane.
>> I used a cane when I still had low vision and found it very useful.
>> Another strange thing is that while low vision people are discouraged
>> from using canes, people seem ok about them using a guide dog. I never
>> quite understood that.
>> If you need a guide dog your vision is automatically bad enough to use a
>> cane.
>>
>> Helene
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Writers Division web site:
> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>
>
> stylist mailing list
> stylist at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> stylist:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/jbron%40optonline.net