[blindkid] Article about blind student

[Carol Castellano]

That was nice of you, Heather.  We're having a 
beautiful spring-like day here in NJ--hope you 
all are experiencing the good feeling that beautiful weather can give!
Carol

Carol Castellano
President, Parents of Blind Children-NJ
Director of Programs
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.blindchildren.org
www.nopbc.org

At 09:30 PM 2/21/2012, you wrote:
>Hello everyone, The link is not working for 
>anyone using screen-readers because it has 
>spaces in it and also words which aren't part of 
>the link. For future reference, if one is really 
>interested in making the link work, you can copy 
>and paste everything into notepad and then take 
>out the spaces, random words etc. For everyone's 
>convenience, I have done just that, visited the 
>website and copied the article. Here it is 
>below. Regards, Heather Eagle Scout honored for 
>Braille project at LSU By Mark H. Hunter Special 
>to The Advocate February 21, 2012 0 Comments 
>Michael Taboada was a high school senior 
>visiting the LSU campus during the 2010 Spring 
>Invitational when he had to use the restroom. 
>Most people can just look for a sign, so finding 
>a restroom is no big deal, but Taboada, being 
>almost totally blind, has to find buildings, 
>classrooms and restrooms by touching Braille 
>signs. After asking for directions, he found a 
>restroom and filed its location into his memory. 
>But what he learned is that in many older LSU 
>buildings, restrooms are not marked with Braille 
>signs — a discovery that sparked an idea that 
>would  net him the 2011 Eagle Project of the 
>Year for the Boy Scouts of America’s 13-parish 
>Istrouma Area Council. Taboada, a licensed 
>amateur (ham) radio operator, who plays the 
>piano and trumpet, practices tae kwon do as a 
>second degree black belt, has even learned to 
>snow ski, so he is used to taking on challenges. 
>He and his pals from Boy Scout Troop 5 last year 
>applied more than 100 clear vinyl labels he made 
>with his Braille printer to men’s and 
>women’s restroom doors in several dozen LSU 
>buildings. They also applied some labels in a 
>few elevators to mark the floor numbers on the 
>control panel. “A big part of the Eagle 
>project is supposed to be service to the 
>community and in this case the LSU community and 
>the blind community,” said Taboada, now an 
>18-year-old LSU sophomore. “Not only will it 
>help me, but it will help a lot of people, I 
>believe.” He knows of at least five other 
>blind students his project has assisted. 
>“Michael Taboada is leaving his mark on the 
>LSU campus, and all vision-impaired students at 
>the university will benefit from his passion and 
>willingness to make a difference,” said Tammy 
>Millican, manager of communications for the LSU 
>Facility Services in an email. Taboada made his 
>own signs, he said, because such building laws 
>as the Americans With Disabilities Act don’t 
>require Braille signs in older buildings until 
>they are renovated. “Since LSU really 
>doesn’t have the money to renovate a lot of 
>the buildings, and I don’t see them being 
>renovated in quite a few years, that’s quite a 
>few years they won’t have Braille signs except 
>the ones I put up,” Taboada said. Millican 
>said it costs LSU from $120 to $200 per sign to 
>install actual ADA signage. J. Lea Callaway, 
>executive director for the Boy Scouts’ 
>Istrouma Council, characterized Taboada’s 
>Project of the Year award as “huge,” and 
>reported that it will be submitted to the 
>national Eagle Scout project contest. Cathie 
>Louis, a longtime volunteer in the Istrouma 
>Council who organized a recent awards ceremony 
>at the Catholic Life Center, said of Taboada, 
>“What he has in common with a lot of Eagle 
>Scouts is that he has the ability to set goals. 
>They know what they want and they know they have 
>to work for it and they’re not afraid of going 
>for it.” Taboada has grown up in Baton Rouge, 
>the son of Joseph Taboada, a veterinarian and 
>associate dean at the LSU School of Veterinary 
>Medicine, and Sandy Merchant Taboada, also a 
>professor at the LSU Vet School. He graduated 
>from McKinley High School in 2010, a year early, 
>and has one brother, Robert, 16, who attends the 
>Runnels School. Michael Taboada was 2½ when it 
>was discovered that he had a pituitary tumor 
>called a craniopharyngioma, his father said in 
>an email. The tumor was removed at Ochsner 
>Hospital in New Orleans. “I was throwing a 
>ball with him the day before surgery, and he had 
>no difficulty catching it,” Joseph Taboada 
>wrote. “But when he came out of surgery he was 
>blind.” Michael Taboada said he can see 
>shadows and outlines but cannot read or clearly 
>see a TV or computer screen. He utilizes audio 
>programs, such as on his cellphone, and reads 
>with Braille or someone reads his homework 
>assignments to him. He is pursuing a double 
>major of computer science and math and hopes a 
>master’s degree program in computer gaming is 
>soon created so he can attend that program. He 
>wants a future career in computer gaming, he 
>said, and is already creating games featuring 
>audio signals to indicate what is occurring in 
>the game play. Taboada lives on campus in an 
>honors dorm and walks everywhere, at a brisk 
>pace, using a long white, fiberglass cane to 
>feel the ground in front of him. He sweeps it 
>from side to side and when his cane hits an 
>object he generally knows whether it is a curb, 
>or a step or wall or doorway. “One time I 
>almost lost my cane down a storm grate,” he 
>said with a laugh while striding across campus. 
>Students around him are often courteous and get 
>out of his way and open doors for him. He also 
>listens carefully to noises around him and has 
>much of the campus memorized, including where to 
>turn and how many steps are in his path to a 
>certain place. His father gives a lot of credit 
>for his son’s progress to a blind couple named 
>Ed and Toni Ames who are advocates for service 
>dogs and members of the National Federation of 
>the Blind. “We met so many successful blind 
>people through the NFB, and we realized that he 
>had a future and that he could do anything that 
>he set his mind to,” Joseph Taboada wrote. 
>“I really believe that there was some divine 
>intervention that steered us here (in 1988) 
>because 
 despite all of the  problems with the 
>schools in Baton Rouge, EBR had one of the best 
>programs for blind children in the country. 
>Michael had great teachers, especially Ms. Gail 
>Canova, who were able to help him fulfill the 
>promise of a gifted student who happened to be 
>blind.” As a lifelong Scout, Michael Taboada 
>has not shied away from the usual outdoor 
>activities of camping, hiking, fishing and 
>canoeing. He described family snow skiing trips 
>in Colorado and Montana. “At first, when I was 
>learning (instructors) had this bamboo pole 
>they’d hold, one on each end, and I’d be in 
>the middle, so they could help me learn how to 
>turn,” he said. “And once I got better they 
>basically just told me when to turn. “At first 
>it was scary, because I didn’t know how I 
>would do it, but once I got better at it, it 
>wasn’t too scary,” Taboada said. “It’s 
>pretty fun feeling the wind whip across you and 
>knowing, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m going so 
>fast.’” To earn his ham radio license, his 
>mother read him the entire Federal 
>Communications Commission book of rules and 
>regulations so he could pass the test, his dad 
>said. Those skills paid off after Hurricane 
>Katrina when he helped emergency responders. 
>“One time I was moving through the different 
>repeaters in Baton Rouge and I heard someone 
>calling from the Texas Emergency office for the 
>Louisiana Emergency preparedness people and no 
>one was answering,” he said. “I happened to 
>know that a link between repeaters had become 
>undone so I had to relay traffic between 
>them.” As a member of the National Federation 
>of the Blind, Taboada is interested in 
>increasing the public’s awareness of the 
>issues affecting visually impaired people and 
>the language and terms used for various 
>impairments. He wants others to see visual 
>impairment as a personal characteristic, “like 
>having brown hair,” rather than as a 
>“disability.” “Don’t let it make you 
>think of us any different,” he said. Taboada 
>plans to stay involved in Scouting, too, “I 
>think Scouting should be a lifelong thing,” he 
>said. “I think it teaches you a lot of ethics, 
>morals, and it gives you life skills that you 
>may not gain by yourself.” -----Original 
>Message----- From: Sally Thomas Sent: Tuesday, 
>February 21, 2012 3:37 PM To: NFBnet Blind Kid 
>Mailing List,(for parents of blind children) 
>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Article about blind 
>student Nice article Sandy!  I'm going to make 
>sure David reads it.  The braille in his school 
>building here is nonexistent. Maybe he can get 
>some tips from Michael on getting braille in the 
>buildings. Sally Thomas On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 
>4:13 AM, Dr. S. Merchant 
><smerchant at vetmed.lsu.edu>wrote: > This may not 
>have gone through in an accessible link, am 
>trying again. > > > > Article in our local Baton 
>Rouge paper about my son Michael Taboada > > > > 
>Sandy Merchant Taboada > > > > > > > > > > > < > 
>http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://theadvocate.com/utility/homepagesto  
> > > 
>ries/2006772-129/soaring-service.html&ct=ga&cad=CAEQAhgAIAAoATAAOABAtNCO-gRI  
> > 
>AVgBYgJlbg&cd=fGr2yzausQ4&usg=AFQjCNHsieQzqktIufEStsNU7lJ-MOESKA> 
>Soaring > service > The Advocate > > > > > > 
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