Caitlyns Story

To begin this section you have to attempt a few little tasks so as to understand how a blind child will learn.

1. Purchase a couple of simple kids wooden puzzles. Get someone else to blindfold you and then choose one of the puzzles. THey are not to tell you which puzzle it is. They then put the pieces into a group(not piled up) on the table in front of you. The base for the puzzle needs to be put in front of you also but ask them to choose a random way for hte board to be aligned (i.e. turned 90 degrees or 180 degrees etc.). Without removing the blindfold attempt to put the puzzle pieces into the baseboard.

2. Get someone to gather about 5 or 6 things from around the house. You need to be blindfolded. The friend needs to put the items in front of you and you then identify each of them simply by touch, smell and sound only.

3. Using playdough or something similar try to form shapes while blindfolded. They are to be simple shapes (cubes, pyramids, sphere etc). See how you are able to go with this. If you do well, get someone to choose a "more complex" shaped object from around the house and then try to copy that shape. Try to limit your time on this one.

As you will soon discover, being an sighted person you will rely on your sight to do most of these tasks. Your sight gives you the ability to perceive depth, size and shape. When you don't have that ability you need to rely on your other senses to enhance your ability to "see" an item. A sighted person is able to make an assessment of an items shape, color, size, perceived weight etc simply by looking at it.

To give you an understanding of this, go back to simple shapes again. If i was to put in front of you a cricket ball and a cannon ball - you would obviously know that the canon ball will be much much heavier than the cricket ball. They might be the same size and shape but they are completely different in weight. This again is where the other senses come in to play.

If you have picked up a canon ball in the past you will know that they are rather heavy. Get a blind person to do the same. To them this object might be a cold hard sphere. Give them the cricket ball and see how they perceive that.

From personal experience with my own Daughter, we have had to learn ourselves how she will need to explore the world. For her anything that she touches you can see that she firstly tries to feel what it is with her fingertips. Secondly just about everything go straight into her mouth to taste. Sometimes she might shake things if she immediately recognises that it makes noise. This shows straight away the use of her other senses straight away. She is able to make an assessment on what something is within a few seconds of picking it up.

We where lucky enough to be given access to a "little room" and a "resonance board". These are 110% needed for a vision impaired child. They provide a way for them to learn that items can be in "space" around them. They also learn that if they drop something that it "should" be direct down from where they dropped it. The resonance board echoes when the item is dropped to ensure that they hear when it hits.

The biggest requirement for a Vision Impaired child is allowing them to explore their world. If you wrap them in cotton wool then they will never learn by experience. They need to learn the hard way that some things feel nice, some can hurt. Some things might taste nice but others will taste really bad. Kids learn by experimenting. As a parent you just need to guide them and help them when they hurt themselves, Be there for them when things taste bad with a nice drink and generally just be the support network they need when they fall.

I have found that the hardest thing of all to explain to people if that they need to let the vision impaired child explore their surroundings at all times. Some people find it offensive when my daughter tries to feel their face and neck etc. They tend to pull back and often they will hand her back to us. This is just her way of "looking" at people. We often will try to explain this to them but they still refuse to allow it to happen. This is something that people are normally taught as a child themselves to protect their own personal space.

In summary, a Vision Impaired child will need to "search" their environment by using the available senses they have. A Vision Impaired child will "see" by combining what they are able to touch, taste and hear to form a mental picture of the world around them. You as a sighted person needs to understand that they see things differently to us. "seeing with my fingers" is something i keep saying to people and i think it should be the way all people think who are involved with a VI person.