[blindkid] School cane O/M issues

[Richard Holloway]

In a way, the worst part to me is that these people generally seem to  
have the best of intentions, but most of us have no need to be saved  
from ourselves, LOL. I was really pleased that our O&M person (whom we  
ultimately had for over 4 years) came around to the NFB way of  
thinking in many ways after the first couple of years. We were really  
lucky though-- we had developed a good relationship with her and the  
the national convention was in our city so it was not all that hard to  
get her to come!

Richard



On Oct 21, 2009, at 8:21 PM, holly miller wrote:

> I'm beginning to think there really is only one O&M person out there  
> and
> she's just teleporting herself from school to school all across the
> country.  Or maybe she cloned herself LOL!
>
> Holly
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:06 AM, Richard Holloway  
> <rholloway at gopbc.org>wrote:
>
>> Holly,
>>
>> It isn't just the low vision kids who encounter resistance to cane  
>> use from
>> O&M professionals. We ran into huge opposition to our daughter  
>> using a cane
>> at 18 months and she has no light perception. We were told she was  
>> "too
>> young" and would have to "unlearn bad habits" if she started using  
>> a cane so
>> early. Rest assured we gave her the cane and insisted she use it  
>> for O&M.
>> (They wanted to use big awkward "pre-cane devices" made of PVC with  
>> the kids
>> her age.)
>>
>> On the folding cane, absolutely there are times for that and it is a
>> personal decision in any case but all too often the professionals  
>> want to
>> shift to a different primary cane because it is what the teacher is  
>> used to
>> or prefers for whatever reason. We've had some battles over that  
>> too. The
>> bottom line is she's our daughter and this is our adaptation of  
>> preference.
>> Our choice needs to be respected for our child.
>>
>> One interesting footnote. While one of our later O&M teachers (who  
>> also
>> preferred a different cane) did ultimately comply with our  
>> insistence for
>> using the NFB cane, she continued to use her own more conventional  
>> teaching
>> cane with the heavy tip and so forth. A couple of years later, we  
>> got her to
>> a National NOPBC / NFB convention. She left the convention with an  
>> NFB cane
>> and used it from then on as her teaching cane-- another small step  
>> for our
>> kids...
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
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