[blindkid] LED backlit TV -- is it a good choice for low vision kid?

Bonnie Lucas lucas.bonnie at gmail.com
Thu Jan 13 18:39:20 UTC 2011


Great response Kim!
Bonnie Lucas

-----Original Message-----
From: Kim Cunningham [mailto:kim at gulfimagesphoto.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 5:36 AM
To: (for parents of blind children)NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindkid] LED backlit TV -- is it a good choice for low vision
kid?

Amy,
I can't reply to whether a back-lit LED TV is an option, however I would
like to suggest watching descriptive movies as an alternative. You can
download movies for free at 
http://www.blindmicemart.com/assets/product_images/movies2.html. You can
also purchase many videos in stores which contain descriptive videos. These
videos have both a picture for the sighted to view, and description of the
movie for the blind and low vision. Doing this would allow the entire family
to watch TV together and would not single the child out, being left alone.
My daughter is now 19 yrs. old and has "some" vision. I understand that, for
the most part, many educators and therapists, grasp on to the fact that our
children have "some" vision and want to treat them more sighted than blind.
How can a child with permanent vision loss ever have the ability to function
as fully sighted? How can a low vision child ever compete on equal grounds
with sighted children without the proper tools? I can tell you by
experiencing this personally, you must teach your child with low vision the
same techniques totally blind children learn such a braille, and great
mobility skills. My daughter was told to use her vision throughout her life.
Her reading speed was at best, half of her sighted peers. This is not an
equal playing field. She will NEVER visually read or accomplish a task the
same as sighted children. It is a misconception to believe learning visually
will give the child confidence and the ability to compete equally,
 eventually leading to competing equally in the workforce. In the end, we
all want our children to be successful throughout their educational careers,
thus leading into a successful employment career.
Braille and cane travel shoud be taught to low vision children the same way
a totally blind child learns. By knowing these techniques, our children can
participate in activities when it is dark, too bright, and in unknown
environments, all the while creating self-confidence in their abilities.
I look forward to meeting you and hope you will plan to join the NFB family
during our National Convention in Orlando this summer. 
Regards,
Kim Cunningham
President, Texas Parents of Blind Children
www.tpobc.org

--- On Wed, 1/12/11, amydarlington at comcast.net <amydarlington at comcast.net>
wrote:


From: amydarlington at comcast.net <amydarlington at comcast.net>
Subject: [blindkid] LED backlit TV -- is it a good choice for low vision
kid?
To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 7:16 PM




Hi, hope it's okay to cross-post this. We have two kids -- one of which has
albinism. She's sensitive to light and sees better if objects are high
contrast. She also needs to be pretty close to see images well. We're not
big TV watchers and rarely watch, but she is 3 now and a great age for
videos and things like Leapfrog (they have great Letter Factory CDs). We'd
like to set up an area where she can actually get close enough to the screen
to see. We have a place now for the TV where it will be at about her eye
level and she can get close. (Our other TV now is up in an armoire, so she
really can't see the picture.) 
We're looking at different models and trying to weigh what will be best. I
was wondering if anyone has thoughts about the LED- backlit LCD televisions.
They are just a little more but advertise a brighter display with better
contrast (and less power consumption). Does anyone have a child with low
vision who sees better with high contrast, and have they noticed a
difference with these? We really want to keep the cost down but if the LED
backlighting is really helpful, we might go with it. 

Thank you for any comments/suggestions! 

Amy 
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