[blindkid] Identify yourself please

Sat Nov 22 02:39:27 UTC 2008

One of my adult daughters, who is totally blind, knows a person's name after the first time she meets them, even if they change their voices slightly!!  I don't know how she does it, but once she says she then is able to figure out about how tall they are also.  Another daughter, who is also totally blind, is 20 years old, and it takes her ages to remember people's names based on their voice.  She says it is embarrassing, because she doesn't want to hurt the person's feelings, so she will usually just pretend she knows their name, and hopefully it won't be  brought up (like she hope a younger sibling doesn't say right away, "What is their name?"  I have the same problem, and I can see just fine...
Bye for now,
Gloria

--- On Fri, 11/21/08, Barbara Hammel <poetlori8 at msn.com> wrote:

From: Barbara Hammel <poetlori8 at msn.com>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Identify yourself please
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Date: Friday, November 21, 2008, 12:21 PM

I think some of it may be personality.  I don't like to ask everyone who
says hi to me who they are.  In fact, sometimes if I'm out with my husband
and we meet someone who knows us I'll ask who it was when we walk away.
I've got one man at church who thinks it's funny to talk in a different
voice--just makes it lower than his own--because he must think he's funny. I
just say hi back to him in a lower voice than my own.  In fact, if I get to say
hi first, I'll still do it.
I used to have a friend who would ask everyone she spoke to what their name
was.  One Sunday when she came to visit me, she insisted that the whole room of
25 to 30 people tell their names.  (I wanted to fall through the floor with
embarrassment.)
Mainly, if someone says hi to me, and I don't recognize their voice, I just
pretend like I know them and figure out who they are by the kinds of things that
come up in conversation.  Did I say I'm shy around folks I don't know
well?
That's just my two-cents worth.
Barbara

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Carrie Gilmer" <carrie.gilmer at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 8:45 AM
To: "'NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind
children)'" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [blindkid] Identify yourself please

> Hi All, Especially to our blind colleagues and friends.
> 
> 
> 
> I have one thing with Jordan that has improved but still is an
"issue". I
> think it bugs me way more than him, and likely that is why it is still an
> "issue".
> 
> 
> 
> Jordan often does not ask people to identify themselves. It is one thing,
> and understandable to me, when he is in the very crowded school hallways
and
> some voice calls out, "hey Jordan!" in a passing greeting and he
simply
> calls back hey-but has no idea who that hey came from and to not yell out
in
> a crowd "hey who are you?",
> 
> 
> 
> But there are many times.
> 
> At the state fair, in a store, even at a lunch room table!, where he
THINKS
> he is talking to one person and discovers mid-conversation that is not who
> he is talking with (and never says anything or finds in the end who it
was),
> or we walk away from the teen working the register or who has come up in
> Best Buy and said "hello" and I ask "Who was that?"
and he says I have no
> idea.  I know that sometimes because he is one of 3,000 at school-and
> because he has the one and only thing, a lot more people know who he is
than
> vice versa and sometimes he really doesn't know who they are, but not
> uncommonly it is evident the kid who is greeting him, he should know, but
he
> doesn't ask. I know that sometimes he thinks it is rude, if the other
kid
> thinks Jordan should know who they are.the same way if I forget
someone's
> name and I should definitely know it, and I am thinking how can I ask
> without offending?...But many times he is just too "shy" about
it. I have
> seen on the student list before threads where lots of kids are somewhat
> uncomfortable with this one. Any strategies that you blind folks have come
> up with to gain the confidence or decide when to do it? Is it just a
> personality thing, because I know many blind folks who are not shy about
it
> and simply say, "Who are you?"
> 
> 
> 
> Should I just let this one go now as a mom-especially since he is now a
> senior in high school?
> 
> 
> 
> Carrie Gilmer, President
> 
> National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
> 
> A Division of the National Federation of the Blind
> 
> NFB National Center: 410-659-9314
> 
> Home Phone: 763-784-8590
> 
> carrie.gilmer at gmail.com
> 
> www.nfb.org/nopbc
> 
> 
> 
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