[blindkid] Technology and Little Kid
Richard Holloway
rholloway at gopbc.org
Thu Feb 18 05:42:50 UTC 2010
Certainly the slate and stylus (as someone else mentioned) is not a
bad idea, but a child in this age range is probably not going to have
the fine motor control to master the tool's use easily or likely be
ready for the whole mirror image concept.
A child of nearly any age can begin using a Perkins Braillewriter-- I
know we were using one by at least age three. At the very least a
braille novice can "scribble" on a braillewriter, just like my sighted
almost-4-year-old scribbles on paper with a crayon all the time.
Braillewriting skill with a young child emerges at least somewhat like
writing emerges with a sighted child-- not all letters at once and at
first, just like penmanship is typically pretty poor-- this after the
child has first just pressed the keys at random-- indeed "scribbling"
just like sighted kids. Getting the feel of the tools to use is an
important first step. It is hard for small hands to properly press and
form braille mechanically with a Perkins, but you are building hand
and finger strength and forming braille concepts all along the way.
Many schools can provide a second braillewriter for the student to use
at home for free once the child is in school.
I think that often the way to go is to immerse the child within all
the options that can be gotten as the child appears ready to take to
them-- at least that was our theory when our daughter was born, and in
fact, it continues to be the same way to this day, then we focus on
what she seems ready to take to-- she'll ultimately use most all of
these things. There is also an entire range of tactile graphics
solutions and manipulatives. You can produce these with pipe cleaners,
and a bottle of glue, or you can use a multi-thousand dollar
thermoform; quite a range of options exists.
Now at age 7, Kendra uses a BrailleNote and PAC Mate daily but still
uses a Perkins often, as well as an abacus for her math, JAWS on her
computer and so forth. She also works well with refreshable braille
and that can be a really handy option. The next big challenge I see
for her is needing to learn a qwerty keyboard, so there can be a lot
of technology in use by an early age.
It is also really important to expose the child to braille as much as
possible. A sighted child sees print everywhere. Make certain this
child runs across braille often. Now in first grade and a proficient
braille reader, our first grade daughter still runs across the braille
stickers on things all over the house-- refrigerator, dishwasher,
table, drawer, oven, door, bed-- you name it. This will cause the
child to ask questions-- just like a sighted child-- "what is this"
and later "what do these letters say?-- what do they mean?" Also, use
twin vision books-- sighted kids look at letters while parents read
most every time. Blind kids can do the same-- that's why it is best
when adding braille to a print book to always put the braille below
the print-- a sighted reader can still read while small hands are
exploring the braille.
Screen readers can be used at that age as well as a victor reader.
Things like Mt Battens are expensive but potentially useful, but be
careful that an electronic (and expensive) solution like a Mt. Batten
or a PAC Mate is not learned at the expense of being able to use a
mechanical braillewriter as that need will almost certainly come up
all of this child's life, at least from time to time.
I'd like to rework this link, and our site is about to get a facelift
overall too but here are some technology ideas that you might direct
her towards. Let her see a range of options and then she can decide
which way she wants to proceed.
http://www.gopbc.org/gopbc_technology.htm
Richard
On Feb 17, 2010, at 10:01 PM, David Andrews wrote:
> I got asked a question, the other day, and since most of my
> experience is with blind adults -- I didn't know quite what to say.
> A woman said she had a four year old totally blind daughter, and she
> wanted her to keep up with her peers in technology, so what
> assistive technology/technology is there -- should she start using
> with her child?
>
> Dave
>
>
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