[blindkid] o&m issues

[Jessica Brown]

Hello Everyone,

I am responding to Doreen's post from October 20th. unfortunatly, I have not had the time to read them every day so they pile up. Anyhow, Doreen stated that her 5 year old who is partially sighted is not getting the services she needs (most important O&M right now because of safety). My daughter is 3 and totally blind. Her O&M told she would not be getting a cane until she was in school. I immediatly went to the NFB and purchased a cane. She takes it everywhere we go. She only receives O&M once a month for 60 minutes due to the lame excuse of not having enough O&Ms in the area. In fact we were lucky to get him at all. I have since come in contact with a women that has been totally blind since birth and said she is not certified but would like to help. However, we are not going to quit fighting for the appropriate services for her.

Meanwhile, at school there is a child in 5th grade that is legally blind that has never received any braille instruction and is not receiving O&M because he "doesn't need it". He was just recently diagnosed with epilapsy and now the medicine is reducing his vision more! I find this infuriating! Just because the school or a "professional" thinks our children do not need a service does not mean that they won't someday. If their vision is already low there should be no question whether they should have instruction.

Good luck Doreen, keep fighting for daughter and thank you Heather for the advice of putting the cane the in the IEP. I will keep that in mind if I run into problems with that.

Jessica