Caitlyns Story

One of the hardest thing as a parent of a VI Child is understanding a providing enough stimulus for your child to ensure they enjoy life and learn to interact with the rest of the world. I have been asked on several occasions now "what can she see". Yes i know this sounds like a stupid question to be asked but people still do ask it.

It brings me to the point i need to make. VI Children are still able to see but not in the visual sense. They build a mental image of their surroundings by combining sounds, touch and taste together to form their own image of an item. It is hard to understand as a sighted person how this occurs.

To give youself a small insight into how this occurs, try the following experiment.

Get someone in the house to collect 6 or 8 items and they are not to show you what they have. Get some of them to be similar in size/shape/texture so as to make it harder to recognize the items. Blindfold yourself and ensure that it is very very dark and you have no chance of seeing any glimpse of the items. Then one by one ask your assistant to pass you the items. By using your touch/smell/taste (be carefull of this last one) build yourself a mental image of the item and then compare that to your visually obtained image of the item. You may be very suprised.

Supporting your child while they are learning these experiences is not an easy thing at first.