Future

Volume 20, Number 3 Barbara Cheadle, Editor Fall 2001

Join the Club! Braille Readers Are Leaders
Club for 2000 - 2001 NFB 2002 Scholarship Program

For more information about blindness and children contact the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
1800 Johnson Street * Baltimore, Maryland 21230 * (410) 659-9314 ext. 360
www.nfb.org * nfb@nfb.org * BCheadle@nfb.org

Editor’s Note: Over the past year I have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Zaborowski on one of the most innovative, exciting Braille projects since the Braille Readers Are Leaders National Contest was launched about 20 years ago. The Braille Is Beautiful program could, I think, do more to promote the cause of wide-spread acceptance and integration of blind kids into their schools and communities than any other single program that has come along in decades. The key to its success, however, is implementation. I urge readers to contact local schools and ask them to get a Braille Is Beautiful Curriculum kit and USE IT! Several organizations around the country – NFB state affiliates, schools for the blind, libraries, instructional resource centers, and so forth – have already purchased the kit and will make it available to teachers and schools who want to implement the program.

The following information about the program is the text of a colorful brochure we have published to disseminate information about this unique, one-of-a-kind curriculum kit. If you want brochures and/or other information about the program (including information about kits that are available for loan in your state), contact:

Dr. Betsy Zaborowski
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
(410) 659-9314
BZaborowski@nfb.org

Dr. Betsy Zaborowski presents the
Braille Is Beautiful program to the
2001 NFB Convention.

To promote Braille literacy among the
blind and to increase awareness of the capabilities of blind and visually impaired people the National Federation of the Blind has released “Braille is Beautiful,” a
Braille awareness curriculum program
for grades four through six.

Braille Is Beautiful is an engaging experiential learning program for developing basic skills in reading and writing in Braille. Combining language arts and social studies skills, Braille Is Beautiful helps sighted and blind students to understand Braille as an important tool of literacy while developing a greater and accurate understanding of blindness.

Braille Is Beautiful was designed for use with sighted children in grades four through six. However, the program can be used effectively with younger or older children and community youth programs as well as by schools. The Teacher’s Guide is structured in five learning units and is highly flexible. Teachers may implement the full program or use select units while maintaining the overall purpose of the program.

The primary objective of this program is to create environments where blind children can be proud of using Braille and be easily integrated into classrooms with their sighted peers. The more sighted children, their families, and their teachers understand Braille and blindness, the easier it will be for blind children to learn and flourish in school and the community.

The Braille Is Beautiful Video Set contains the videos Jake and the Secret Code^©, 2001, and That the Blind May Read^©, 1994. Jake and the Secret Code (15 minutes) is an engaging video depicting a mother and her ten-year-old son, both sighted, visiting the National Center for the Blind. While at the Center, the two get separated, and Jake has a set of experiences that expands his and his mother’s understanding of Braille and blind people.

That the Blind May Read (18 minutes) is a video designed to familiarize adults with issues related to Braille literacy among the blind. It is included as background information for teachers and parents and will be appropriate for older or accelerated youth working on independent studies.

These videos are accompanied by a presentation discussion guide packaged in an attractive case.

The Teacher’s Guide includes all the background information, lesson descriptions, and exercises necessary for the five instructional units. Included with the Teacher’s Guide is a select guide to high-quality resources, and a letter to parents informing them about Braille Is Beautiful. The curriculum is designed to establish a basic knowledge of Braille, then move the student toward an accurate awareness of blindness through learning to read and write basic Braille.

30 copies of Braille Under My Fingers, a paperback book that contains stories written by blind persons about Braille

6 copies each of The Seeing Summer, What Color is the Sun, and I Can Feel Blue on Monday for small-group reading

There are a variety of learning formats within this diverse curriculum, including Full Group Discussion, Small Group Work, Fact Sheets, Quizzes, Interactive Games, and Applied Projects. Topics covered in the program include:

Sighted and blind students can learn together how this tactile method of reading and writing is interesting and fun.

Blind and visually impaired students will be more motivated to learn and use Braille as their peers find Braille interesting.

Sighted children will learn to view the blind as normal people who use other methods to live independent, happy lives.

The National Federation of the Blind is the nation’s oldest and largest organization of blind individuals, parents of blind children, and professionals working with blind and visually impaired persons. Founded in 1940, the NFB is organized in every state with over 50,000 members participating directly in the over 700 local and state affiliates. Each year approximately 3,000 persons attend the National Convention of the Federation – the largest gathering of blind people in this country.

Braille Monitor Sample Issue Request
National Center for the Blind
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Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Note: The Braille Monitor is also available by email subscription. For more information please go to “publications” on the NFB Web site at

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So, your child is now grown up. Congratulations! It seems amazing that we have been publishing Future Reflections long enough that the children of some of our readers are now ready to leave home and go out on their own.

This means that most of you will no longer need or want to receive Future Reflections. That’s understandable. I’m glad that you and your child have outgrown Future Reflections. However, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) still has much to offer your family – most especially your grown-up son or daughter. For example, the NFB publishes a monthly magazine, the Braille Monitor, which addresses the multitude of issues facing blind adults. The Braille Monitor takes over where Future Reflections leaves off. It is the kind of publication that will give your son or daughter the information, encouragement, and resources necessary to meet the problems commonly encountered by blind persons in our society. In your new supportive role, you may also find the Braille Monitor a helpful publication.

To help you and your young adult son or daughter decide if you would like to get the Braille Monitor, the NFB will send either or both of you some sample issues in the format – large print, tape, or Braille – of your choice. (By the way, a subscription to the Braille Monitor is one of the benefits of membership the NFB. We will be glad to send membership information, too.) To get the free sample issues of the Braille Monitor, and/or find out whom to contact in your area about membership, just fill out and send in the following request form.

We are glad that you allowed us to be a part of your lives, and we wish all the best to you and to your adult son or daughter!

Braille Monitor Sample Issue Request
National Center for the Blind
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Note: The Braille Monitor is also available by email subscription. For more information please go to “publications” on the NFB Web site at

1. Name

Address

City State Zip

Phone and/or email

[ ] Yes, please send me contact information about my local or state NFB affiliate

2. Name

Address

City State Zip

Phone and/or email

[ ] Yes, please send me contact information about my local or state NFB affiliate

Editor’s note: How long does it take a child to learn to read? For thirteen-year-old Anna Miller, who is blind and multiply disabled, the road to literacy has been a long road, indeed. Was the struggle worth it? The final chapter is not yet written – most of Anna’s life is still before her – but Anna’s mom, Sally Miller, has no doubts in her mind about the worth of literacy. Here is Sally’s inspiring account of the triumph of patience and persistence:

I believe every child should receive a good education with reading as the foundation. Whether I believe this because I am a teacher, or simply because I am a mother and reader myself, I don’t know. At any rate, I am convinced of the value of literacy for all children.

When I was young I loved to read. I carried a book with me wherever I went. I read at every chance I got – while riding the bus, waiting in line, eating lunch, before I’d go to sleep at night. Later, when I had a family of my own, I read at every opportunity – when my babies were sleeping in my arms, and while the clothes were in the washer. And I read to my children. I wanted to ensure that they would have a good foundation for wanting to be readers, too.

My oldest son took to reading with enthusiasm. At 26 he’s still an avid and excellent reader and writer. Our second child enjoyed having others read to him; but didn’t master it as readily as his brother had. After he was diagnosed with a form of dyslexia, and once it was addressed, he too, learned to read. Recently, my husband and I were reflecting on how difficult it had been to help our now 21-year-old son achieve this important milestone in his life compared to our first son’s ease in learning to read. We finally decided that God had a plan – to prepare us for the struggle that would be the journey toward literacy for our third child.

When we adopted our daughter there was no doubt in our minds that she would learn to read. After all, we were readers; we had helped our first two children learn to read; Anna would also be a reader. Therefore, there was never any question about when or how she would learn to read. It was just understood that SHE WOULD READ! Unfortunately she had a mountain of obstacles in her way. Let me explain.

Anna came to us as a foster child at the age of four. She was born blind – totally blind. Her birth family considered this a severe handicap, and they mistakenly believed she was unable to learn at all. Because they had no expectations, they did not provide her with even the basic stimulation all babies need in order to learn. When she came to us, she was depressed and really didn’t have any skills.

Fortunately, she had been referred to, and tested by, the local school district at the age of three, which led to her inclusion in a pre-school program for the visually impaired. It was difficult for her teachers to deal with her because of her behavior problems; but they did begin pre-Braille skills when she was four. It was an uphill battle. Anna was tactually defensive. This isn’t unusual for a child who can’t see; but in this case her defensiveness was compounded by past abuse at the hands of both children and adults. She fought like a little tiger because she was so afraid. And she was a biter. Oh, was she a biter! Few people could get near her, let alone touch her. Our first hurdle to reading was gaining her trust.

While we worked daily to love her we were also teaching her that she could trust both those at home and those at school. It was a combined effort and one that eventually paid off. Pulling her out of her private little world inside her head – feeding her regularly, potty-training her, and even bathing her – were daily challenges. Getting her to touch Braille letters or words on a page were excruciating tasks. She didn’t want us to hold her hands where they needed to be and she couldn’t abide the feel of the raised dots on her fingertips. We devised all sorts of alternatives. We had her touching and playing with marshmallows, JELL-O, flat plastic disks, whipped cream, candies of every flavor, and different textures. Eventually she began to trust us, and by age seven she was finally learning the letters of the alphabet.

Can you imagine a five-year-old not knowing how to crawl or use her hands? We couldn’t either. But there she was on our living room floor with our two teenage sons, one in front and one in back, moving her hands and feet to simulate the crawling motions. Her tendency was to use the backs of her hands to push her body up from the floor and was quite indignant that we insisted on her using the palms of her hands for this task. No matter how stubborn she was about doing it her way we were more stubborn and determined that she do it our way. It was always a test to see who could be stronger. We didn’t always win; but then, neither did she.

Gymnastics classes and occupational therapy helped with body awareness and to show her the possibilities of moving her body for fun. She didn’t know at the time that it also helped strengthen her hands as well as her whole body. Her gross motor skills continued to develop and become second nature to her. All the while she was learning to recognize the alphabet in Braille, and finding out that they could be put on paper to tell stories about her.

Then came the Braille writer. Oh, the Braille writer! First of all, Anna considered it work. That is, WORK, spelled with capital letters. She hated it. And when she was told that she had to use her fingers independently – well, that just made it worse than anything we’d had ever asked of her. It was more than she was willing to confront. However, we were more stubborn than she was. One letter at a time, one reward after another (Okay, so they were bribes!), one day after another day, on and on…. By the age of nine she was writing the alphabet on the Braille writer.

Reading and writing. All schoolchildren learn to do it. Anna was destined to read and write. Right? Well, not if she could help it. She did everything in her power to keep it from happening. Papers were torn from the Braille writer, the raised letters were scratched out with her fingers, and she would refuse to read. She definitely didn’t pay attention to what she was reading and asking her what a story was about was impossible. The lessons were turned into confrontations. Meanwhile, whether she liked or not, she was learning to read. We marked the milestones as we went along. We congratulated her on the smallest of victories, made celebrations of mastering a new word or contraction. Reading the letters were good, reading a whole word was terrific, making it all the way through a sentence (even if it was only three words) was magnificent. Slowly but surely she was getting the words from her fingertips to her brain, the electrical sparks were flying and she was learning to read paragraphs and stories – “Pam and Tim were playing on the seesaw.” Spelling words were being read from the page and spelled back out through the Braille writer. By the age of eleven Anna was grudgingly reading short stories.

Braille literacy doesn’t come easy; well, not for some people. You name it, we’ve tried it: library books, constantly looking for new ways to make reading and writing an adventure, summer reading programs, Dr. Seuss books, rhymes, the Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest, jokes, teachers who never give up, pen pals through the Slate Pals program, poems, big brothers who read stories with lots of inflection and the silliest voices. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been one of the hardest jobs we’ve ever taken on. But, through perseverance, hard work, and just plain being more stubborn than Anna, we think we’re winning the battle for Anna to learn to read.

One of the library books that came from the South Carolina State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped this summer was Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Her big brother had read it to her using marvelously silly voices, describing the looks on the characters faces, showing as much humor as he possibly could. As a result, Anna also enjoyed reading Green Eggs and Ham, to herself and to others. She enjoyed it so much that she asked for her own copy. Fortunately, we were able to buy a copy in the exhibit hall at the NFB National Convention in Philadelphia. She read it again and again and again. She read it because it was FUN. She ENJOYED reading to us! She read on the bed, and in a train, and in the rain. She read it to those who wanted to listen; she read it to those who didn’t want to listen.

Editor’s Note: If you’ve been to an NFB National Convention, then the name Barbara Pierce probably rings a bell. Despite her busy schedule – Mrs. Pierce is editor of the Braille Monitor, president of the NFB of Ohio, and serves as the NFB Public Relations Chairman – she has, year after year, conducted workshops for parents at the convention on the topic of social skills. And every year parents tell us to “Do it again – Mrs. Pierce is great!” After the 2001 workshops – which, again, were packed – Barbara was inspired to put some of her thoughts about social skills on paper. Here is what she has to say about table manners:

My earliest recollections of conversation at the dinner table include a periodic but continual commentary by my mother: “Hold your fork properly.” “Keep your other hand in your lap.” “Take the first piece you touch.” “Sit up straight and bring the fork to your mouth.” “Chew with your mouth closed.”

I suspect that most adults have similar memories. But I am not at all certain that people who were blind as children have the same set of memories. Blind people certainly miss the chance to observe other people’s behavior at the table in order to model our own on what we see.

The result is unfortunate. With real distress a sighted friend told me of having lunch with a young blind professional whose table manners were so disgusting that my friend entirely lost her appetite. I might have disregarded such a story as the reaction of a finicky observer if I had not remembered Eva. When I was in high school, one of my best friends moved away. She and I had eaten lunch together for years, so she called me in some distress shortly after the new school year had begun. She found a blind student in her class, so her instinct was to see if they might become friends. She noticed immediately that Eva sat alone at lunch. She soon discovered why. The girl’s table manners were so appalling that no one wanted to sit across the table from her while she was eating. High school students are not known for the delicacy of their manners, so the mind boggles at trying to conceive of the behavior that would revolt kids that completely.

One wonders how such situations come to pass. I suspect that the answer is that a combination of influences shaped these two people and thousands more like them. Obviously, good parents don’t want their blind children to be socially unacceptable, but they don’t have any good way to teach the child how to do things correctly when “Do it like this” is an insufficient instruction.

Anyone who has ever spoon‑fed a baby knows what a messy business that can be. But we rapidly get used to the process and the mess. As most children get older, the extent of the disaster area gradually shrinks, and eventually civilization dawns. But the parents of a blind child may never quite notice that other kids of the same age are making substantially less of a mess. These parents are so happy to have the child begin to use a spoon that they forget to insist on graduating to a fork. They assume that fingers are the only way for the child to recognize the contents of the plate or bowl or get difficult items to stay on the utensil. If the child huddles over the plate, much less food falls onto the table or floor. And there you are.

Then there is the matter of time. It is easier and faster to cut the child’s meat than to insist upon and struggle through an unwanted lesson on how to do the job for himself.

I don’t know that I have any particular light to shed on the subject of table manners specifically or social skills for blind people in general. I do know that this subject keeps coming up and people ask me to talk about the subject. So I have decided to see what happens if I try to organize the things parents and I have talked about in the hope that it may be of some encouragement to other parents and their children. I have no lock on the right way to do things. I have found some tricks and techniques, but others probably work just as well or better. Look around and observe the blind people you spend time with at NFB functions. Choose someone who handles himself or herself well in social situations or at meals and ask that person questions about how to assist your child. Federationists are usually happy to help.

Before you can effectively help your child to become a poised, confident adult in all sorts of social situations, you must learn to distinguish between arbitrary social conventions, which should not be imposed on people for whom they are meaningless, and behavior that avoids offending or distracting other people. Consider the general rule that one looks at the person speaking or to whom one is speaking. Even totally blind people find it valuable to adhere to this convention because sighted people find it difficult to pay attention to what a person is saying when he or she is looking in some other direction or has lowered his or her head.

On the other hand, the convention of slicing a loaf of bread beginning at the end nearer the slicer’s dominant hand seems to me completely arbitrary. I am right‑handed, but I cut from the left end of the loaf so that I can guide the path of the knife with my left hand. When I cut bread at a restaurant table, people sometimes comment that I am doing it backwards, but I see no reason to develop another technique since nothing about my method is offensive or distracting. Perhaps I do some things that are distasteful to sighted people watching, but no one has mentioned anything like that to me since I was about twelve. And that is the kind of honest feedback blind people count on good friends to give them in private. It is certainly a service you can always provide your blind child, assuming that you balance tact and honesty to fit the circumstances—dinners in public are no time to call reminders down the table to an older blind child.

I am a great believer in teaching a blind child to set the table. If he or she can arrange the flatware, napkin, glasses, butter plate, and cup and saucer correctly, the child is already well on the way to managing a complicated place setting in an elegant restaurant, at Great Aunt Sue’s Christmas dinner, or at your boss’s wedding reception buffet.

When I sit down at a restaurant table, I begin with discreet exploration of my setting. Finding the napkin can be an adventure. I check to see whether the silverware is rolled up in the napkin, laid out in a group on one side, or actually lying with forks to the left and knives and spoons to the right. If I have not found the napkin to the left or wrapped around the silver, I begin an inconspicuous search for it while reorganizing the utensils. While adjusting these, I make sure that the sharp edge of the knife faces the plate. I check the service plate, if there is one, for the missing napkin. If it isn’t there, it might be on the butter plate or fanned out on the table above the service plate. When all else fails, I check the water glass.

All this reconnoitering should be done as inconspicuously as possible. I keep my hands low and adjust the plates, glasses, and implements just a bit even if they do not require repositioning. This is the time to check the size and number of glasses. A child can move wine glasses back so as to avoid picking up an empty glass when hoping to find water or milk. Teach your child always to notice the weight and temperature of any glass to confirm that it holds what the blind person expects to sip.

I gather from what people report to me that far too many parents through the years have allowed their blind children to establish the location of food on a plate by touching it. This is a hard habit to break, so you would do better never to allow your child to begin. The fork makes a fine divining rod. I admit to having little patience with finicky eaters who refuse to eat anything they don’t care for. Blind people are far better off if they are not indulged in preferences not to have two foods touch each other or to insist on eating all of one food before beginning the next. I recognize that insisting on mature behavior in this respect may open you to some battles, but teaching a young child to behave graciously will pay off in the long run.

By and large a blind person can figure out what is on the plate without receiving a clock‑face description. I firmly refuse this rigmarole from well meaning wait staff. After all, I ordered the meal, so I know what should be on the plate. Experience will guide an adult in identifying lemon wedges, orange slices, or other partially inedible garnishes. But I do think it is appropriate and sporting to mention to a blind child that a lemon wedge is at eleven o’clock or parsley is at six. One can then either use the lemon, eat it when it arrives at the lips, or set it aside on the butter plate.

As for identifying which food is where, a quick circuit with the fork will usually identify large things like baked potatoes, small vegetables like peas, and firm things like chops or slices of meat. Mashed potatoes and vegetable purees have a slushy feel that cannot be confused with firmer objects. I survey and begin tasting the things that are clearly easy to pick up on the fork. One taste confirms the accuracy of my conclusions about what I have found. I then note that location: one thing identified. I make my way around the plate, tasting and probing with the fork. At a restaurant, or anywhere I may expect garnishes or other efforts to present food beautifully, I keep in mind that something unexpected may appear on my fork. I am not above asking a sighted companion what I have captured before I raise it to my lips, if the weight and balance of the fork suggest that a nasty shock may be in store for me.

Learning to cut meat is not difficult, but it does take practice, so trying to master the skill should not be undertaken in public. To begin with, a blind person must learn what a bite of appropriate size feels like on a fork or spoon. (I encourage you to insist on your child’s using a spoon only for soups, sauces, ice cream, and the like; too many blind people arrive at adulthood without having mastered the fork. With practice the fork is actually easier to use than a spoon for most things.) With practice your child will learn how a forkful of the correct size feels. Your job is giving impartial feedback: that bite was too big.

All blind people occasionally bring an empty fork to the lips, especially when the weight of the fork is unfamiliar or the food is hard to spear. In my view such mistakes should be ignored. The blind person knows perfectly well what has happened and certainly has no motivation to repeat the error. So the less notice you take of the occurrence the better, unless you can make a constructive suggestion. Such advice should be given in a low voice in public or at home.

The secret to cutting meat is to find an edge or an end and insert the tines of the fork at a bite-size distance from the edge in order to cut the bite. The knife can then be laid along the back of the tines so that the fork provides a directional guide for cutting. When the cut is complete, the knife is laid across the back of the plate and the fork switched to the dominant hand. This is the moment to lift the fork slightly to determine the weight and balance of the piece cut. If it is too large, pick up the knife again, reposition the fork by holding down the piece with the point of the knife to release and reposition the fork if necessary and make a second cut. All this sounds simple, and it becomes second nature, but it takes practice. Tough meat is always a struggle, and chops, steaks with bones, and small poultry are particularly tricky. I don’t know any blind adult who hears with delight the news that cornish game hen is on the menu.

Here are some suggestions that you may find helpful in assisting your child to master this important skill. Begin with meat that she likes and that is fairly easy to cut: ham, turkey, fish filets, pot roast. All these have no bones and should not be tough. Be sure that your child is hungry when you begin. If he is having trouble cutting the meat, leave the potatoes and vegetable off the plate till he can cope with the meat alone. You can try cutting your meat with sleepshades on and provide a running commentary on how well you are doing. Let your other children try to cut their meat without peeking. The object is not to demonstrate that mastering this skill is impossible. It should give family members an appreciation of the challenge and may help you suggest useful techniques.

The rule for everyone is that bread should be broken and buttered bit by bit as it is eaten. At home this usually means taking a roll or slice of bread and putting it on the edge of the dinner plate unless you are using butter plates. If the blind child has set the table, he or she will know whether butter plates are present and whether each person has a butter knife. Usually the family passes a stick of butter or container of spread. The common butter knife is passed with it, or each person is expected to use a personal butter or dinner knife. Help your child anticipate what is being done at the meal. As an adult she will have to learn to draw her own conclusions, but you can help to guide this learning process by asking leading questions or providing information directly.

A tub of spread is easiest to use, but do not do so always, or your child will gain no experience with a stick of cold butter. Restaurants make this process particularly challenging because one never knows whether wrapped pats of butter, unwrapped pats, a large shaped block, or a bowl of soft spread is coming. Here is where I break my own rule of never touching. I take the container in my non‑dominant hand, just touching the butter with the edge of my thumb so as to determine what I am dealing with. Then I use my butter knife with my dominant hand, making sure to include the part I have touched in the portion I take. Obviously, if I contact paper wrapper with my thumb, I just take one pat and pass the rest immediately.

I use the same sort of maneuver to butter the bread. I hold the piece I have broken off and am preparing to eat in my left hand and move it so that the edge of my thumb is just touching the butter on the plate. I can tell pretty precisely how much butter I am putting on my knife without obviously measuring it with my finger. Once the butter is on the knife, it is fairly easy to transfer it to the bread. Spreading it to the edges is a matter of practice and the temperature of the butter. I suggest that you begin with soft spread and progress to pats and sticks of butter. The suggestions for having the family help your child to learn to cut meat work as well for bread- and roll-buttering.

One of the hardest things for your child to learn to do efficiently will be to clean his plate. The temptation to use that non‑dominant hand as a backstop is nearly irresistible. A piece of bread solves this problem very neatly. Even if he does not then eat the bread, it has provided an acceptable wall to gather food with the fork and push against.

I have never conducted a survey, but I would guess that most blind adults with good table manners would report that salads have provided a large number of their most embarrassing moments. Being a lady, I will refrain from saying what I think of people who use very large salad-green leaves, over‑size cherry tomatoes or tomato wedges, and large onion rings to compose their salads. But your child will have to learn to cope with such hazards. If I can do so conveniently, I remove onion rings. I don’t particularly like them, so avoiding them is no disappointment to me. If I liked them or when I cannot remove them to a butter plate before beginning the salad, I handle them as I do large lettuce leaves: I cut across the salad several times before beginning to eat. (This is my solution to eating long pasta as well.) If I manage to spear a cherry tomato, I can usually decide by its weight if it is going to be too big to fit into my mouth. Having it on my fork already makes it easy to cut. Olives, croutons, radishes, and other rolly or skittery salad items are easier to deal with in a bowl than on a flat plate. You might start salad-eating lessons with the easy things and build up your child’s skills to cope with the more difficult.

Salad dressing is like syrup, sauces, or cream. When possible I prefer to serve it with a spoon or use a small packet of the liquid. I think it is fair to say that without a ladle or other way of measuring the liquid, there is no reliable way for a person with no useable sight to serve a liquid like this without touching the stream. That is what I would do if I were faced with the necessity. I drink my coffee black, and I often eat a salad undressed if I cannot control the dressing or have it served in a cup on the side. A weight-watcher trick works well for blind people who don’t want to use all the dressing provided by most restaurants. Ask for the dressing on the side. Dipping the tines of the fork into the dressing before spearing a bite of salad provides a little dressing, but not too much.

What I have already said applies as well to desserts. Using the fork, one can usually locate the point of the pie slice or the shallow end of a piece of layer cake. Perhaps the biggest challenge with an unknown dessert is to decide whether to pick up a fork or spoon before beginning. One must learn to check for dessert fork or spoon across the top of the place setting or on the plate. I will admit frankly that angel food cake and sponges are very hard to cut; they mash flat and lose all their volume before I can get a piece to my mouth. I don’t serve them. Maybe someone else has mastered these cakes, but I avoid them. Your son or daughter will learn to make such judgments if you help him or her understand the importance of managing food gracefully and competently. People who can eat most foods neatly usually prefer to dodge the ones they cannot, and that is how it should be.

I have not bothered to talk about using low vision in eating. I was a low‑vision child, and it got me nothing but trouble until I learned to ignore what I thought I was seeing. As with so much else in mastering the skills of blindness, children are better off learning how to manage dining without vision so that, if the lighting is not good or the color contrast is not great enough to allow for accurate use of vision, the child is not rendered helpless or foolish. Leaning over to inspect the plate looks strange to other people and can result in gravy in the hair or on a tie or necklace. The child who depends on seeing the plate will find it hard to sit up straight or keep his or her head up for conversation between bites.

Dining is essentially a small part of all social interaction. The blind person who puts off other people with poor manners or bizarre contortions in order to see what is on the plate or serving dish will eat alone or only with those too gauche to object. In short, it is never too early to begin teaching your child the techniques of gracious dining, and it is never too late to begin breaking bad habits.

Reprinted from the Winter 2000 Gem State Milestones, the newsletter of the NFB of Idaho.

Editor’s Note: Learning to dress oneself is an important milestone in the independence of a child. Most kids then move to the next stage of independence in dressing – choosing their own outfits – without too much fuss. Blind kids can make this transition smoothly, too, if parents put a little advance thought and planning into a clothes labeling system.

Dana Ard, a rehabilitation counselor with the Idaho Commission for the Blind, shares some helpful tips about labeling clothes in this nifty little article. In her job, Dana works mostly with newly blind adults, however, she has a lot of personal knowledge about independence for blind children. Born with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and mild cerebral palsy (CP), she was the first totally blind child to be educated entirely in the public school system in Boise, Idaho. Although the CP limits the use of her right hand, she is a good, fast left-handed Braille reader, and, as secretary of the NFB of Idaho, regularly takes notes with a slate and stylus. She and her husband have 6 dogs, including her guide dog, Fringe, and a deaf-blind Dachshund they rescued. Dana is an active member of her church and community choirs, a 20-year member of the Toastmasters Club, and she loves to read, cook, and take walks. Here, now, is what Dana has to say about “Labeling Clothing.”

Recently a newly blind client told me about a very embarrassing situation that happened to her. She and her grown daughters were meeting for lunch. When she arrived at the restaurant, they told her that she was wearing two different colored shoes, one black, and the other white. She was humiliated and told me that she was waiting for her daughters to coordinate her clothing before she dared to go out again.

Certainly, both blind and sighted people alike can report such embarrassing moments, but if you’re blind and have no method for identifying the colors in your wardrobe, you risk having such moments more often.

Obviously, the simplest way to keep clothing straight is never to buy two items that are exactly the same except for their color. This approach is not always practical. I have a favorite brand and style of shoes, which I like because they fit my hard-to-fit feet. To keep them from getting mixed up, I place the pairs together in a shoe bag. I attach a stick-on Braille label on the side of each shoe where it will not bother my foot. I use Braille letters such as “nb” for navy blue, “br” for brown, “bl” for black, etc. I also use such stick-on Braille labels to identify my belts that are similar. I have two brown belts; one is designated “lbr” for light brown, and the other “dbr” for dark brown. If you don’t know Braille, you can buy a package of stick-on raised shaped adhesive markers, which you can use in the same way as the dymo-tape labels. You might use a raised rectangle for navy blue and a raised circle for black, for example. Of course, you need to keep track of which shapes represent which colors.

I use different shaped craft beads attached to safety pins to identify colors of clothing items that are similar. I pin these beads to the inside label of the item. A very small bead symbolizes red or pink, a rough-textured bead is used for white, and a bead with little projections around it is used for black. I use a safety pin in the label for blue, and cut the label down the middle if the item is green. You can be as creative as you want to with your labeling system, as long as it meets your needs.

I am aware of three commercially available tactile labeling products: Braille aluminum clothing tags, Do Dots, and Matchmakers. The aluminum tags can be sewn onto the label of the garment. Do dots are Braille identifiers that attach to the item like a tie tack. They have Braille that signifies both the color and whether it is light or dark. This product seemed very bulky to me when I tried it on my pants. Matchmakers are labels with different dot designs on them. They can be pinned in a garment, and like the craft beads, you determine which design of dots will symbolize which color.

Editor’s Note: State or local public or private agencies for the blind will often carry clothing labeling products as a convenience to clients, students, or patrons. However, there are national resources, too – national non-profit organizations, such as the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), and for-profit catalog companies – which specialize in products for the blind and visually impaired. Here are a couple:

3M Braille Label Writer: This is a hand-held device with Braille and print letters on a wheel. It includes a tape cutter, the alphabet, plus 18 additional Braille symbols. To make Braille labels on the tape, align the letters and squeeze the handle. It uses 1/2-inch labeling tape. Label Writer and labeling tape is available from the Materials Center, National Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230. For more information about prices and how to order contact the Materials Center by phone (410) 659-9314; fax (410) 685-5653; online at <www.nfb.org>; or by e-mail at <nfbstore@nfb.org>.

Matchmakers, Aluminum Braille Labels, and other tactile labeling systems are available from LS&S Group, Inc. For more information or to request a catalog contact them by phone (800) 468-4789; fax (847) 498-1482; or e-mail <lssgrp@aol.com>.

Reprinted from In Touch, the newsletter of the New Jersey Parents of Blind Children, February 2000.

Playing pretend games together helps these kids (one of whom is blind) develop social skills. And they thought they were
just having fun!

To develop successful relationships with peers, parents, and teachers, children must develop good social skills. For most children, social skills develop naturally as they mature, and they learn from their daily interactions with others. However for other children, social success is more of a challenge. A child’s own physical abilities, attitudes, and communication skills, as well as the behavior of his/her family members and peers influences this interpersonal, social process. Most importantly, it has been shown that all types of children, given all types of challenges, can learn better social skills.

3 Friendship-Making Skills, e.g., joining in a game, giving a compliment, sharing.

3 Skills for Dealing with Feelings, e.g., expressing your feelings, dealing with anger.

3 Skill Alternatives to Aggression, e.g., using self-control, responding to teasing.

3 Skills for Dealing with Stress, e.g., dealing with being left out, reacting to failure.

For children who show a weakness in one or more of these skill-based areas, there are many ways to help them. Teachers, parents, and other professionals such as social workers can all help to promote skill acquisition in either a group setting or individually. They can do this by modeling the desired behavior; coaching when things go wrong; role playing in a structured, protective situation; and/or by social problem-solving, which uses the child’s cognitive abilities to help self-correct undesirable behavior.

As the development of social skills is dependent on many variables and is such an individual process, each child’s needs in the end are slightly different. For example, blind children are presented with unique physical challenges and their ability to receive visual cues from others is limited. However, there is no reason why they should be any less adept in social situations because of this. Their visual impairment may preclude them from discerning visual cues; however, they can learn to become more attuned to auditory cues from others and can develop superior verbal skills to communicate. It therefore becomes the job of the teacher, parent, or social worker to identify each child’s strengths and to design an intervention that can reinforce strengths while overcoming any disability and/or weakness.

Teaching better social skills and achieving improvement is not only attainable for all kinds of children, it is highly recommended. Studies have shown that children who are continually rejected by others exhibit more sadness and anxiety and tend to withdraw from interacting with others. Conversely, those children who have or develop strong social skills receive the nourishment from others that builds self-esteem and even better academic performance.

To learn more about social skills and how to teach them, the following books may be useful:

Social Skills Intervention Guide by S. Elliott and F. Gresham, Published by American Guidance Service, Inc., Circle Pines, MN 55014-1796 (1991).

Social Skills Activity for Special Children by D. Mannix, Published by the Center for Applied Research in Education, West Nyack, NY 10995.

Skillstreaming the Elementary School Child, by E. McGinnis and A. Goldstein, Published by Research Press Co., 2612 North Mattis Ave., Champaign, IL 61821.

To speak to a social skills trainer, call Ann Hicks, MSW, at the Family Service and Child Guidance Center (New Jersey), (973) 564-5244.

These three preschoolers have a teacher who encourages active peer interaction among all students in the classroom.

Editor’s Note: This little article has been making the rounds. I found it in the MCIE Update, a publication of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, and before that it had been published in Inclusive Education Programs, Volume 5, Issue 12. It is a nice companion piece to the discussion of social skills in two other articles in this issue: “Please Pass the Manners” by Barbara Pierce, and “Developing Skills for Social Success” by Ann Hicks.

The full text of the study, “IEP-Specified Peer Interaction Needs: Accurate but Ignored,” was published in Exceptional Children, Volume 65, No. 1. Lynn M. Glezheiser and Robert M. Pruzek of the State University of New York at Albany, Margaret McLane of the College of Saint Rose, and Joel Myers of Georgia State University conducted the study.

Providing explicit opportunities for social interaction for students with disabilities in your general education classroom can help them improve their communication levels with their peers, according to a recent study. The study evaluated how well instruction in inclusive classrooms fostered the peer interaction skills of students with disabilities.

The study had several purposes. One was to determine if social skill levels of students with disabilities were correctly assessed before their goals for social competence were written into their IEPs. The second goal was to evaluate teaching practices that may enhance peer interactions for the students and how they were used. The study also sought to find which classroom interventions worked best to foster peer interactions, and whether teachers in inclusive setting used teaching activities that worked toward peer intervention IEP goals.

According to this study, some basic factors seems to surround the success and failure of students with disabilities to make peer connections in inclusive settings. Teachers and the rest of the IEP team can consider several measures to ensure better social interaction for students with disabilities:

This does not mean eliminate them entirely, the researchers stressed. Rather, if a student requires a one-to-one aide, it is up to the student’s teachers to find activities that the students can participate in without the aide. Enlist the aide and especially the student’s family members to figure out what school activities the student is most comfortable doing alone. For example, does the student love music, or is he or she capable of participating in group music class independently, or with another student’s assistance? Does the student have many friends to meet with during lunch period? If so, it might be possible to give the student time without the aide, to interact on his or her peers’ level. In many instances, the presence of an aide with a student with disabilities hindered other students for getting to know the student better, the study concluded.

Every student will have different goals for their social growth and peer interactions. Review carefully what types of social interaction goals are spelled out on each IEP. Some students might be outgoing, but require more social settings to interact with their peers. Some students have access to peer group interaction often, but are more introverted or withdrawn, and have to be encouraged to participate. These details should be identified in each student’s IEP, so that reaching social interaction goals is easier.

3. Remember that it is participation in activities, not just a presence in the general classroom, which creates peer interaction.

Many students whose IEPs identified peer interaction needs didn’t necessarily receive greater access to teaching activities that afforded the interaction, the study found. Make it a point to include students, who show a greater need for peer interaction, in your classroom activities which foster group work. Don’t create a “special treatment” for students with disabilities, like special seating arrangements or letting those students do their work privately, when you engage the class in a group work opportunity. If the student is isolated, yet doing the same activity as the other students in the class, it does not mean he or she is receiving the peer benefits your class activity offers.

Mohamad Hashash discovers the Dizzy Disk Jr. from Quantum Toys at the 2001 NFB Convention Family Hospitality night.

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Terri Connolly of the VIPS program in Louisville, and Jill Brody of the Blind Children’s Center in Los Angeles for responding to my request for toy ideas from those who work professionally with our very youngest blind and visually impaired children. The material they sent, which I edited to eliminate duplication and to ensure better flow and readability, is presented below. By the way, I urge all readers to send me toy and game ideas and resources so I can share them with our readers in future issues. Please don’t assume I already know about them. You can send suggestions or articles to me by mail or email:

(Mrs.) Barbara Cheadle, Editor
Future Reflections
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
BCheadle@nfb.org

Terri Connolly, Early Interventionist, Visually Impaired Preschool Services, Louisville, KY:

Every child is unique, so I can’t say that any particular toy is the most wonderful for all children who have a visual impairment. More important than a specific toy are the qualities of a toy and how it is used.

Gaining balance in movement is especially important for our youngest ones as they prepare to explore their environment. Vision certainly can entice a child to move out into the world, but sounds can also be motivating. Toys can help.

Music boxes or wind‑up toys coming toward the child from a distance may help perk-up attention to an approaching object. In the same way, a toy that rolls away should have a sound so the child can remember where it went. There are several balls with electronic sounds that don’t roll very far. A ball with a sound that continues to play is very helpful for seek-and-find.

The following are also fun: textured balls, high back toddler swing (outdoors), electronic Hasbro^® Sit‑n‑Spin with music and lights, large push and bump toys like cars, trucks, and walking push toys. Lots of climbing (under close supervision) and sliding is also great.

Many of the VTech toys available through Toys “R” Us and other specialty toy stores are wonderful for reinforcing visual awareness with music and lights activated by the simple push of a button. There are several with themes such as nursery rhymes, environmental sounds, and animal sounds. The nice thing is that you can choose to activate music or words depending on the interest of the child. Some of my favorites are: Little Smart Learning Center, Nursery Rhyme Land, and voice-activated Crib Kaleidoscope with short or long play.

Slumbertime Soother by Fisher-Price^® is a crib toy that activates lights and sounds by remote control. This can be very helpful for a child whose movements are restricted or weak. With this toy you can reinforce looking for, or at, the toy by activating it yourself. All young children with some vision enjoy mirror play, but watch out for glare. Use in diffused lighting.

Some decorative items for a room are helpful for increasing visual awareness. For example, consider slowly spinning lamp-lights that reflect designs on the wall or ceiling in a dimly lit room.

Other toys I recommend are: Fisher-Price^® Kick ’n Play piano, the Child Guidance^® Lullaby Lambs, Tyco^® Musical Starlights, Snake Light by Black and Decker^®, Select-n-Go RC Car by Little Tykes, the Sparkling Symphony Gym, Toddler Piano, Fischer Price Sparkling Symphony Stacker, the Dancin’ Jitter Bug, and Baby TOMY^® Happy Shapes.

The right toy for any child should be interesting, exciting, and fun. A child will be encouraged by the right toy to explore its many properties – touch it, listen to the sounds it makes, use it to produce other sounds (by banging for example), watch what it does, play with it with another person – and learn many things from interacting with it. The wrong toy can be boring; if it does not match the child’s developmental level it will not provide enough positive feedback to hold the child’s interest. If it is too difficult for him or her to manipulate or to process in a meaningful manner, it can be frustrating as well.

When a child has a sensory loss, it can be challenging to find toys that are both appealing and functional. Many manufactured toys rely on visual properties, such as color, design, or lights to provide interest for children. These kinds of toys are often quite appealing to adults as well. However, for children with significant visual impairments, a toy with an appeal which is primarily visual, is not going to be motivating for extended play, although it may be manipulated briefly.

When choosing toys for children with visual impairments it can be helpful to ask the following questions:

3 Does the child have any functional vision, and if so, does a particular toy have lights or color contrasts that would be meaningful to him?

3 Can the play value of the toy include more than one person (rolling or throwing a ball back and forth, taking turns activating a sound, or putting different parts together)?

3 Is The Toy appropriate for the child’s developmental (not chronological) age?

After determining the appropriate developmental level and value of a specific toy, one might assess the purpose of introducing this toy to a child:

There are many great toys (and some playthings which are not really toys) available to parents and professionals. A few which have been particularly motivating and valuable to use in a therapeutic setting are listed below. They have been categorized according to approximate introductory developmental age levels, although each child’s readiness must be individually determined. There are, of course, many more which are not listed. Several of the following toys and activities can be utilized through several developmental levels.

Lightweight rattles which make noise easily when activated by the child. Crib mobile with movement, light, and sound. Clutch balls and balls with bells inside (safely sealed). Plastic “slinky” toys. Baby “gyms” from which toys can be hung for exploration. Wrist and ankle “bracelets” for babies.

Wind‑up musical toys. Soft blocks. Easily- activated cause‑and‑effect sound/light toys. Fisher-Price^® Sparkling Symphony stacking stars. A variety of different-sized and -shaped blocks to grasp and bang together.

Vibrating toys: soft ones such as Tickle Me Elmo^TM and plastic vibrating animals. Plastic containers for in‑and‑out play with small toys. Blocks. Pop‑up toys. Toy pianos and xylophones. Push and pull toys.

Riding toys (not tricycles). Toy “shopping carts” or wagons to push or pull. Dolls and stuffed animals. Medium-sized cars that make noise when wheeled on the floor. Nobbie^® and Koosh^® balls, which are easy to grasp and throw. Books with textures, sounds, or Braille text. Talking books for young children. See-’n-Say toys with animal sounds or words.

Dramatic play toys such as play dishes and silverware, pots and pans, brooms, telephones. Sponges, cups, and funnels for water and sand play. Beads and string. Beginning puzzles with easily defined shapes and knobs for grasping. Put‑together construction toys, such as Duplos, Lincoln Logs, and blocks. Rapper Snappers – bendable, stretchable tubes that link together and provide proprioceptive input as well as bilateral coordination practice. Riding toys, tricycles, “Big Wheels,” and other child-sized play-cars with pedals. Play dough (commercial and homemade). Tactile materials in large containers such as dry rice, cornmeal, dry oatmeal, Cheerios, etc. Peg boards and pegs. Shape sorters. Art materials such as paints, finger paint, crayons, chalk, markers, etc.

Many of the above toys, in addition to the following: Music Blocks, which provide both auditory and visual stimulation as well as opportunities for tactile discrimination of basic shapes. Form board and interlocking puzzles. Domino games with raised dots. Tactile Lotto games, either purchased or homemade. Musical instruments. Tape recorders and CD players which children can operate. Interactive games such as “Candyland” and “Chutes & Ladders” adapted for children with visual impairments. Magnetic shapes and letters. Mini-trampolines.

When choosing toys for any child, remember that playing should first be fun. If a particular toy promotes learning new skills or making new associations, then that’s a terrific bonus!

oe Cutter, left, gives a cane lesson to a parent and toddler team at a National Federation of the Blind Convention.

Editor’s Note: Joe Cutter is an orientation and mobility specialist with a unique approach to independent movement and travel for children. Mr. Cutter approaches O&M from a child-centered, or pediatric, perspective promoting independent movement and travel at an early age. An advocate for parental involvement, he encourages parents to believe in themselves as their child’s first teacher.

Mr. Cutter has presented many professional workshops around the country and in Canada. He developed the Early Childhood Orientation and Mobility Program for the New Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and was involved in the development of statewide early intervention programming in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. His credentials include over 25 years of experience as an O&M instructor, certification as a teacher of the blind and visually impaired, and a M.A. in Teaching the Developmentally Handicapped. Here are his thoughts on the topic of pre-canes:

Professionals who each have the same creativity, dedication, energy, and interest of their blind students at heart can come to different conclusions about what tool to give their students for travel. The alternatives, however, are not like choosing a Cadillac versus a Volkswagen, but rather choosing a car versus a wheelbarrow.

“Pre-canes,” the term used by some schools for Alternative Mobility Devices (AMDs), implies that the structure and function of the device fits into some continuum of progression for using travel tools, and that once the child has mastered this device, the cane would be the “next step.”

After more than two decades of experience as an O&M instructor (also as a certified Teacher of the Blind and Visually impaired with a M.A. in Teaching the Developmentally Handicapped), I believe that this notion of a “pre-cane” is more fancy than fact. We know far less about children in general than we realize. Blind children are particularly vulnerable to assessments that do not develop from observations of children, but rather are imposed upon them by an adult-centered model. My personal experience does not support the notion that some tool must be used prior to a cane or as an alternative to it, and I am aware of no research that validates or substantiates that claim.

I have personally used a variety of tools to experiment with the facilitation of movement in blind children, including the hula hoop, Connecticut Pre-Cane, and the T-shaped cane with roller tip. The components of movement needed to use many of these devices are actually more complex and may demand more sophisticated motor schemes and planning than does the simple design and function of the cane. Certainly, a blind child’s gait is negatively affected by an inappropriate travel tool.

Over the years I have also introduced the cane without an AMD to many children as early as 20 months of age. As they matured, these children engaged in higher levels of prehension and technical skill, and in time learned appropriate “adult” techniques. My experience tells me that introducing a cane much later in a child’s life presents a barrier to independent movement and the grace and poise that is within them.

All too often the cane is the “tool of last resort.” Many professionals choose other tools and skills to address the assumed readiness skills. I did this for a while, and I know the price blind kids pay for a late start with the primary tool that will be their buddy through adulthood. How the child learns is really the central question; how we teach is secondary. We follow their lead.

If we follow the child’s lead, the simple design of the cane will afford opportunities for movement that, in my experience, AMDs do not. Characteristics such as light-weight, ease of movement and use, and auditory feedback (resonance) are built into the cane more than any other travel tool. Auditory feedback from the cane is used by blind cane users of all ages.

An essential question is: “Does the cane facilitate movement when the child is exploring the object world and safely moving about in it?” The best way to know is to follow the child’s lead. The child who takes to a travel tool “like a duck to water,” as many blind children take to the cane, is telling the adult what is best. When a child’s travel tool promotes the sense of security and autonomy in free movement, then much more brain-power is available for orientation and enjoying the feeling of the movement itself.

All too often when we give the child an AMD, we send a message to the parent: “Your child is not ready for the cane.” Are our assumptions so solid and based upon fact that we should be sending this message? The cane, however, presents a positive, can-do approach. This approach is lacking in our remediation activities, forever targeted at the perceived “limitations” of blind children.

Some professionals advocate the use of AMDs because they feel that the child who hasn’t mastered appropriate “adult” techniques will be unsafe while moving and exploring with the cane. Of course the young child (two years of age and up) who is being introduced to the cane will be under adult supervision when moving about the world – what child that age isn’t? All children are supervised in their early movement. The type and amount of supervision will vary with child, family, or school care-taking practices, and the environment. Sighted toddlers often do not initially scan visually or link cognitive and motor plans efficiently, so they will fall and bump into objects. Blind children will do this too with the cane. That’s why both sighted and blind children need developmental guidance and exposure to the process of developing appropriate usage of skills and tools. By giving the AMD to a child, are we sending a message that it is safer and more reliable and that therefore less supervision would be needed? That’s not the kind of message I would choose to send to parents and school teachers.

In my years of teaching O&M, my thinking has changed about the “readiness” of blind children to travel with a cane. What changed over time was not the blind child, but my perception of the child’s abilities and readiness. It is this area of “what we think we know” that shifts over time. Twenty-five years ago, if I had followed and observed my students more carefully, many more blind children would have had the opportunity to develop independent travel concepts and skills much earlier in life. I now know that the cane, more than any other tool, facilitates the movement of the walking blind child.

Editor’s Note: The following article was passed on to me by Sheila Amato, Michael Conlon’s teacher of the visually impaired. The original title was “Teen Feels the Rhythm.”

Michael Conlon (center, with glasses)
and teacher, Sheila Amato (right), in band uniforms and ready to march.

When the music swells during the East Islip High School band’s holiday concert next month, Michael Conlon will crash the cymbals together and prove that a student who is blind and hearing-impaired can join in collective harmony. He’s made this point numerous times already, playing the conga drums and marching in step with the band at pep rallies and football games. The dark sunglasses and hearing aids he wears are the only clues to the limits he’s overcome.

“The thing I’m most proud of is that I played well in the marching band,” the 17-year-old said. “And I knew I played well because I could hear everybody clapping.” Michael, who was born blind and can hear only sounds made immediately next to him, signed up for the band this year as much out of an interest in music as for more practical considerations: He needs an arts credit to get his high school diploma.

The sophomore attends the Cleary School for the Deaf, which leases space from East Islip High and integrates its students into regular classes there when appropriate. Michael is one of 13 Cleary students who take regular high school classes, and his course load this year includes algebra, global studies, and English.

There are about 1,200 students who are deaf-blind in the state, and only around 40 take mainstream classes for part or all of the day, said Madeline Appell, director of the New York State Technical Assistance Project. Michael is accompanied through the school day by Sheila Amato, a teacher of the visually impaired, who translates materials into Braille and keeps him aware of what’s going on around him in class.

It was Amato who first suggested that Michael join the band. And Michael, who already took private piano lessons, agreed. “I thought it was a great idea to try something new and play other instruments,” he said.

Ronald Fox, one of the school’s band directors, said he initially wasn’t sure where Michael would fit in with the band. “My first reaction was, ‘How can it be possible for him to be in a marching band?’“ Fox said. “Our initial thought was that he would stand on the sidelines and play while the band was on the field.” But it didn’t seem right to isolate Michael and have him singled out on the sidelines, Fox said.

Joseph Vassallo, the other band director, thought that if the drums could be pushed around the field in front of Michael, he could march along with the rest of the band.

So Vassallo and Amato went shopping for plywood and wheels and put together some prototypes that proved useless, getting stuck in the mud during practice.

Vassallo finally rigged a contraption made from a cart for carrying music stands, attaching the conga drums that Michael would play in Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5.” Amato pushed the cart around the field during halftime shows and had to don a high school marching band uniform to blend in.

When asked, Michael says he can hear all the other instruments in the band, but Amato guesses he can really only hear those instruments closest to him and is unaware of the others. Yet he can hear enough to stay with the beat.

“When I hear everybody playing a song, I listen to the rhythm they’re playing and follow the rhythm,” Michael said. “I have a good memory, so I memorize the music.” Watching Michael navigate through a school day is a lesson in the things that can be taken for granted with sight and hearing.

He uses a cane to walk down the hallways, sweeping it in front of him as he goes. Toting a red backpack and wearing jeans, T-shirt and sneakers, he almost blends in.

With all the noise in the hallways between classes, he doesn’t hear passing friends when they call out, “Hi, Mike.” While Amato can translate Michael’s tests and assignments into Braille, materials such as maps and photographs can be tougher to handle.

Technology also plays a large part in Michael’s education. His teachers use a special system, about the size of a beeper with a clip-on microphone, that sends their voices directly into his hearing aids. During class discussions, students pass the microphone around the room. He takes notes and completes homework assignments in Braille with a machine that looks like a typewriter with nine keys. Before submitting his work to be graded, Amato pens Michael’s answers over the Braille he typed at home. A computer program translates text into Braille to print out tests and worksheets. Another program reads aloud the contents of Web pages and prints them out in Braille. One of Michael’s favorite jokes involves his talking calculator. After showing how the digital voice reads out numbers and tells the date and the time, he says, “And it also tells the weather.” Then he pushes the “Clear” button.

Now that football season is over and the band has moved on to preparing for its holiday concert, Amato is helping Michael learn his parts in the “Nutcracker Suite” and several other pieces.

Michael says he doesn’t lament his vision and hearing impairment and doesn’t wish he could see.

“It’s not that hard to be blind,” Michael said. “Since I can’t see with my eyes, I touch things with my hands. So it’s really not that hard.”

Editor’s Note: I am delighted to introduce not one, but two, teacher recognition letters in this issue. The first letter is from Mary Beth and Robert Phillips of California, and the second is from Sharon Gordon of North Carolina. The primary purpose for publishing these letters is to spotlight hard-working professionals who deserve public recognition. But the letters are more than that: they are blueprints for parents, teachers, and administrators who are often unsure about the role of the specialized professionals who work with our blind kids.

If you know a teacher, O&M instructor, Braille transcriber, teacher’s aide, etc. who deserves a public “thank you,” please send your Teacher Recognition Nomination Letter (with, if available, a photo of the teacher and/or the student) to: Future Reflections

You may also send it by email to: <Bcheadle@nfb.org>. Be sure to include: the name and address of the sender, the teacher’s name, the student’s name, the name of the school district, and specific details about why this professional deserves national recognition. The letters should be no less than one typed page, and may be up to three pages. If your letter is published, we will send you extra copies of the issue free of charge at your request.

We are writing this letter to publicly thank and recognize Ms. Stephanie Leigh for the difference she has made in our daughter’s life.

Ms. Leigh has been Elizabeth’s teacher of the visually impaired for the last four years and has provided Elizabeth with a firm foundation from which she can spring forward into college and a career.

When Elizabeth first started as a freshman and as Stephanie’s student, we were quite discouraged. We had been told by previous teachers that Liz was “difficult,” that she should not continue in mathematics because she would be a writer anyway, and – most destructive of all – that she was an over‑achiever who should stop putting so much pressure on herself to do well academically.

Elizabeth had many requests and many questions for her teachers. Elizabeth expected much of herself and she wondered why others she looked to for education and support didn’t expect much from her, too. The dynamics were not helped by a system that proposed (seriously!) to fax Elizabeth’s Braille to her.

I can still remember Stephanie’s calm statement to Elizabeth when they first met: “Elizabeth, I will take you as far as you want to go. But you will have to work with me, not against me.” Stephanie and Elizabeth became a team. Elizabeth was given Braille, computer, and note‑taking skills that kept pace with her academic pace. For the first time, she was given all of her Braille and books‑on‑tape at the beginning of the year along with the rest of her peers. For the first time, Elizabeth was given basic access to information (graphs, charts, test‑taking strategies) that allowed her to participate fully in her academic program. Liz was gifted with a professional, personally-invested teacher who believed that all children deserved to go as far as they could go.

There were academic and organizational hurdles to work through at Elizabeth’s new school because the school had never had a blind student before. Stephanie handled these issues and, over time, taught Liz to handle these issues as they came up. But there were other challenges that Elizabeth faced related to, but not caused by, her blindness. Socially, Elizabeth needed some help to adjust to her new school and to learn how to manage groups of peers. Much of her life had been in the classroom, with after school tutors, and in special pullouts from class. According to Elizabeth, she was “Adultized.” Ms. Leigh and another teacher developed a Social Skills class at Liz’s school where a small group of students, including Elizabeth, learned how to better relate to one another in a semi‑structured setting. Stephanie was called upon to educate staff and students about what equal access means. For example, for the freshman retreat, Stephanie worked with the organizers to find out what activities were being developed and was able to provide Brailled note cards for a communications game so that Elizabeth could fully participate. She consulted with teachers about the best way to adapt materials, including charts and graphs and methodologies, many of which benefited all students. Teachers learned to consult with her and, later, felt comfortable going directly to Elizabeth to solve adaptation issues. Stephanie actively pursued new technology so that when Elizabeth’s curriculum included material such as how to conduct research on the Internet, Stephanie knew what technology was available and how it worked and could teach Elizabeth so that she was able to do her own research with the class. Perhaps this doesn’t sound so remarkable to you, but I can tell you, it has been our experience that it is quite exceptional for a professional to be so dedicated that he or she is willing to learn countless new things in order to meet a student’s academic needs. If we expect our children to keep pace as adults in the world, then it follows they will need to keep pace with their peers. Teachers like Stephanie do a great service to our children when they teach to the educational moment and experience rather than behind the moment. Giving Liz the Braille symbol or adaptive computer skill she needed to fully participate in the educational program at her school put her on par with the other students so that Liz could do her best.

Elizabeth absolutely detested mobility training when she first entered the high school. Mobility meant failure, stupidity, and inability to her. Stephanie was not Elizabeth’s actual mobility teacher, but the aspects of mobility that meant the most to Elizabeth, those “teachable moments” in a day that motivate and provide context for mobility skills, were not going to happen during mobility instruction time. Stephanie provided the mobility training necessary to meet Elizabeth in the moment. Elizabeth sang in the chorus and needed to learn all about risers, facing the audience, bowing with a group. Elizabeth wanted to participate in chemistry labs so Stephanie provided access to equipment and materials outside class so that Liz knew what she was getting into and how to get into it. Liz wanted to take the river‑rafting interterm trip, so Stephanie helped her talk through the adaptations she could make on a totally rustic river setting where the group would stop and set up camp along the river as they made their way down the white‑water for five days. No fuss, no trauma. No thoughts of “pushing the river” of “over‑achieving.” No remarks about any limitations at all. The key word is facilitation. And the response from all that have taught and learned with Liz, and from Liz herself, has been cooperation.

I have to credit Stephanie with supporting the biggest mobility stretch for Liz, as she became more confident and wanted more and more independence. Stephanie encouraged Elizabeth to get a guide dog. First, however, she took a grueling training class to see if it would be appropriate and to learn more about the experience. Elizabeth received her dog, Bonds, last summer and her sense of independence has increased greatly. There continues to be adjustment to the partnership between Liz and Bonds, and Stephanie is more than willing to provide additional time during the school day to help the two learn how to work better together in the school setting.

With Elizabeth, the challenge is to help her balance her enthusiasm and curiosity with the reality of living. This year, Liz would have been content to take an extra class, to write a book, to continue to focus on the academics. Liz got so good at getting around the Internet that she found an on‑line Physics class and is doing it “for fun.” But Stephanie has been able to focus Liz on the future in another way and has structured, with Liz’s input, time to learn some basics to prepare her for dormitory life. These lessons have included supporting Liz as she set herself up with the Department of Rehabilitation, teaching Liz how to order textbooks and pleasure books for herself, encouraging Liz to order Braille labels to be placed on her yearbook page, making a visit to a university cafeteria, and so forth. These are pragmatic life lessons that will allow Liz to hit the ground running when she starts college next fall at Stanford University.

Bob and I have always believed that Liz should reach for the sky but we seemed to have to fight each and every year for basic services, respect, and dignity for our child. When we finally situated Liz in the Oakland Unified School District at the College Preparatory School with Stephanie, we found a partner, a true professional, who valued our daughter and what she was capable of, who allowed Liz to push and pull herself to where she wanted to go. We realize how fortunate Liz is, how fortunate Liz’s high school has been to have Stephanie on site. We believe that by acknowledging Stephanie’s commitment to students who are visually impaired, by acknowledging her commitment to the profession, through her emphasis on Braille literacy, on accessible technology, on mobility, and on independence skills, we underscore what we can expect for our children. We challenge teachers to refrain from status quo thinking, from minimizing potential and curiosity to keep education comfortable. We believe that by honoring Stephanie, we will encourage other teachers to be like her: a teacher who partners with her students as they reach for the stars.

Hi. My name is Sharon Gordon. I have a 17‑year‑old daughter who is blind. Her name is Erica. When she was born, we lived in Marion, North Carolina. This was where she started school in a Head Start Program when she was three years old.

When she was four years old, we moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina where she attended the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind. She attended there until she was ten years old. At that time, we found out that she could only get a certificate of graduation. Erica would have to be mainstreamed to get a high school diploma. She attended public school in Spartanburg the next school year. That was when we decided to move back to Marion. She had learned all of her Braille skills while at the school for the blind, so she didn’t need a Braille teacher; just the Braille materials. I contacted Pleasant Gardens School in Marion and let them know Erica would be starting 5th grade the following year. They had a Special Educational Needs office that we also contacted. These people would be in charge of getting all her Braille books that needed to be ordered. They also supplied her with the computer and any other devices she needed.

This is where she met Jackie Rief, a lady who would be going through to 12th grade with Erica. They asked Mrs. Rief if she would be interested in working with Erica for just a few hours in a day (this turned into all day). When asked if she would be interested in staying with Erica until she graduated, Jackie said “Yes.” Jackie did not know Braille before she met Erica, so she taught herself Braille. Now she Brailles novels or anything else Erica cannot order in Braille. Most of Jackie’s job consists of Brailling materials for Erica’s classes. Jackie makes sure Erica has all her worksheets, or anything else the class is working on, in Braille. Jackie spends hours making maps for history class. She uses different kinds of tactile material that Erica can feel.

Erica is in the 11th grade now. She has been on the A‑B honor roll all through school. Jackie is still with her. She has been a very big influence in my daughter’s life. If this article is published we would like to say, “Thank you Jackie for all that you have done. You have been a blessing to our whole family, and we feel like you have become part of our family.”

Reprinted from the Braille Monitor, the monthly publication of the National Federation of the Blind.

Barbara Pierce: For years Jennifer Dunnam has collected ideas for a book teaching effective use of the slate and stylus to write Braille. She has two excellent credentials for taking on such a project: she is herself an experienced Braille reader and writer, and she is a gifted Braille teacher. She says that much of the book was first jotted down using a slate as she thought up ideas for exercises or collected information on different slates and helpful techniques. Many people contributed to the book, and Jennifer’s own students helped her spot mistakes.

Doris Willoughby is herself a widely respected writer and educator of blind children. Here is her enthusiastic review of The Slate Book:

The slate is the basic, universal Braille writing tool and is equivalent to the pen or pencil for writing print.

This is the first sentence in the excellent new book by Jennifer Dunnam. Topics include loading the slate, holding the stylus, keeping the place, increasing speed, hints on taking notes, specific techniques, and practice exercises.

Detailed, sequential practice exercises are provided. Practice sentences are interesting and varied but avoid exotic and unusual words. Extensive suggestions address various barriers – real and perceived – that often deter people from using the slate. The heading “101 Topics” lists suggestions for short compositions. (Example: Describe your worst shopping nightmare.)

Jennifer Dunnam is a skilled slate user and a Braille teacher with extensive experience. She has made this book appropriate for adult students, teachers, parents, and children. Several helpful photographs appear; however, everything is also clearly described verbally.

In all, there are sixty-one pages of helpful information and suggestions. Many things, such as the composition topics, are useful for areas of study other than the slate itself. The book’s focus, however, is clearly on the slate: “It is assumed that the student either already knows how to read Braille or is currently learning with the help of instructional material and/or a teacher.”

Reading this book is like having a nice, long visit with a very good teacher, with opportunities to observe actual classes. The Slate Book is available for $14 from the National Federation of the Blind (see order form below). At this time it is available only in inkprint; however, Braille and recorded editions are planned. Note that the Grade II signs are introduced in the same order as in The McDuffy Reader: Braille Primer for Adults which is an excellent instruction book for learning to read Braille and is also available from the National Federation of the Blind. The McDuffy Reader is $15 for the student book (print or Braille, same price for either) and $10 for the Teacher’s Guide (available in print, Braille, or tape).

The Slate Book is a labor of love, and it fills a real need in Braille instruction. We now have no excuses for failing to teach or learn the use of the Braille slate.

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The chart below offers an overview of the special education process. It is not designed to show all steps or the specific details. It shows what happens from the time a child is referred for evaluation and is identified as having a disability, through the development of an Individualized Education Program (IEP).

The process begins when someone (school staff, parents, etc.) makes a referral for an initial evaluation. An explanation of each numbered area follows the chart.