Blind children, if given a chance, can play and learn right alongside their sighted peers. An open mind, a positive attitude, and a little creativity are usually all it takes to integrate blind students into regular preschool programs. The blind child can learn the same concepts that are taught the other children. The only difference is the method of learning. The blind child must make more use of the other senses. They also need parents and teachers who will allow lots of hands-on experiences. Blind children can learn the same concepts as other children. They may just need to learn it in a different method such as hands-on. Concepts such as big and little, same and different, prepositions (over, under, in, out, behind), shapes, number concepts, and others are easily taught with concrete objects as an alternative to pictures on paper.
Parents of blind children are used to helping their children get accustomed to new places and will guide you in doing so. Usually, one or two visits to the classroom when the other children are not present will be enough to orient the child. Children will use many things to find their way around. The sound of the wall clock or heater may be a way for them to locate themselves. They quickly learn that the story time area is carpeted and that the dress-up area is next to the windows where they can feel the sun or hear the rain.
Blindness does not mean that the child is totally without usable vision. Most of blind children have varying amounts of vision, which can be quite helpful. “Legal blindness” is a term you may hear. It means that a child has 10% or less of normal vision. Teachers need to know that many factors affect what, and how much, a child may see at any particular time. Type of eye condition, fatigue, lighting, excitement, etc. all affect a partially sighted child’s vision.
There is little need to worry about the comfort the blind child will have with its peers in the classroom.
Some might refer to "seeing" as simply to watch with a naked eye, while some would refer to it as being able to witness an event and recall upon it later. In fact, some would even go as far as that if someone hasn't witnessed something visually, he basically hasn't "seen" it. However, in his essay "The Mind's eye," Oliver Sacks seemingly breaks the norm. In his essay, the blind's adaptation to their disadvantaged is talked about. Yet, it seems like those who were victims of the neurological disorder seem better off blind. Furthermore, another question hanging in the balance is whether the blind people are actually "adapting" to their new lives or rather "reforming" how they will live? Through various stories of blind people, he is able to
Understanding of Children with Congenital Profound Visual Impairment." British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22.1 (2004): 1-17.
Vision is something many people take for granted every day. Society only deals with the matter of being blind if they are the less fortunate ones. According to the Braille Institute, "every seven minutes a person in the United States loses their sight, often as part of the aging process" (1). Only two percent of legally blind people use a guide dog and thirty-five percent use a white cane. Blindness can be caused from various different types of things including (in order) age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age-related cataracts. (Braille 1). However being blind does not mean a person is in total darkness. Some people can see lights and the shapes of objects, but the most import thing is for family and friends to provide hope and encouragement. The last thing a person who has lost their sight wants is to lose their family and support, which will led to loneliness. Likewise, in the short story "Cathedral," by Raymond Carver's, blindness is the key element in the story and shows in detail how the characters manage it. The theme Carver conveys in the short story is being able to see without sight and is revealed through the characters, tone and plot of the story.
When most people think of blind people, they tend to picture a person with dark sunglasses, a seeing eye dog, and a walking stick. These are stereotypes and obviously do not remain true in the case of all blind people. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral," the main character is jealous and judgmental of his wife’s friend who happens to be a blind man. It is the combination of these attitudes that leads to his own unique “blindness." It is through this initial blindness, that the character gains his greatest vision.
English is an interesting language. English is comprised of many different words from different languages all mashed up and mixed together. English is a very hard language to learn, especially if you can’t hear it. How easy would it be to confuse a “B” with a “P”, they sound similar and when trying to lip read how can you tell the difference? I feel that young Deaf /hard of hearing students being taught by a Deaf teacher or a child of a Deaf adult (C.O.D.A) teacher is very important because ASL is the first step to learning English and becoming bilingual. According to the article Why Schools for Deaf Children Should Hire Deaf Teachers: A Preschool Issue By Courtney Shantie and Robert Hoffmeister, the authors state “This paper will focus on
During the 1920's, separate schools were established for the blind, deaf, and more severely retarded (Reddy, p5). However, students that were considered mildly disabled were educated in regular schools, just thought to be 'slow learners'. Soon educators started to develop separate classes for disabled students. The reasoning for taking them out of the normal classroom (exclusion) has not changed in the last eighty years. People today, who are still in favor of exclusion, have the same justification for their belief. It was thought that students...
The documentary of “Through Deaf Eyes” has open my eyes to the deaf culture. The movie has made it “click” that deaf people are just that people and individuals like me. Deaf community has its struggles just like everyone else. They struggle with growing into who they are as a person, harmful situations, and feeling a sense of belonging. They just speak a different language like Italians and Hispanics. Communicating with a different language does not make them lesser than a hearing person. When able to learn to communicate, the deaf are able to learn and gain knowledge just like a hearing person. The only difference is they have to learn more and work harder to achieve their goals and gain knowledge, which a hearing person learns just by hearing their surroundings.
In the following chapters, there is an extensive amount of knowledge to learn about how Deaf culture is involved in our modern world. The pages assigned give us an outlook of how Deaf people are treated in our daily life, and how we should learn from it. Its gives a clear line between what are myths and what are facts, to those who are curious about the Deaf community or have specific questions. This book has definitely taught me new things that I could put to good use in the near future. In specific chapters, my mind really opened up to new ideas and made me think hard about questions, like “why don’t some Deaf people trust hearing people,” or “do we need another ‘Deaf president now’ revolution?” I realized many new things in the course of reading this book, and have recommended this to my family.
Disability can affect development in a variety of ways. It is important that every pupil feels valued and included. Diversity should be welcomed. Children should not be stereotyped because of
I have attended a local deaf church for a deaf event. The church that I attended was named Orange County First Assembly. It's located in Santa Ana and the date I went was November 26. It was the same week of thanksgiving so, I was invited by a friend of mine. Throughout this event I made a few observations that I notice and I was really intrigued by some that I’ve seen. So, I’ll explain some of my observations that I encountered.
The picture is describing sensory inaccessibility because there is no braille sign to indicate the classroom number. There are many classrooms for different classes, so classroom numbers are assigned for students and professor to know what classroom they are supposed to be in. Braille is used for people with low vision or is blind to distinguish what is written. So, without a braille sign to indicate what classroom number it is, students and professors with vision disabilities will not know the right classroom they are supposed to be in to teach or to learn; they may even end up in the wrong classroom as a result. Therefore, the absences of braille signs cause sensory inaccessibility, which is necessary for people with vision disabilities to
Blindness can be so much more than the state of being unable to see (Dictionary.com). Both the 2008 movie Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles and based on a novel by José Saramago, and the short story The Country of the Blind written by H. G. Wells in 1904, put blindness at the center of the plot. What can blindness mean in our society? And what can blindness mean regarding my future profession in design? In the movie Blindness, to be blind leads to losing all that’s civilized; in H. G. Wells’ The Country of the Blind, blindness can be interpreted as a symbol for ignorance; finally, in graphic design, blindness could be to only focus on the aesthetic part of designing and forgetting the practical aspect of the design.
I realize that blind people are important for us to not make fun of them or hurting their feeling that being blind is hardest for them. For me, if i have a blind person in my family or friend I got to cheer them up that being blind is not bad as being normal because some blind person can be talented and successful in their life. I tell them that I study psychology in school and there was one day that the teacher makes me being blind and I realize that being blind is not bad as they think but makes me experience how I do the normal activity is harder than when you have an eyes. It makes me understand the feeling of having no vision on everything is not the worst thing on your life.
The students with disabilities can even do projects with project based learning. While researching I came across a girl that would not talk in class. When her teacher partnered her up with other students, she became very talkative. She would not communicate with other students and refused to work in groups. She would always choose to work alone. With PBL she learned to work with other people and she opened up and communicated with other students. With PBL all students can participate. Students will be much more comfortable because they are not getting taught by teachers and they get to answer questions from their everyday life. The students get to be creative and outgoing with their projects. Projects students create can be anything and everything. They can create a community garden, a habitat for animals, and they can plan a dinner for classmates or their teachers. “PBL is not just a way of learning; it 's a way of working together. If students learn to take responsibility for their own learning, they will form the basis for the way they will work with others in their adult lives” (Why is project based learning important?, 2007). Students are not learning they are preparing for the world around them. They are learning to consider more than just themselves in school. They are thinking about how to make their world
In fact, the student could be very bright in the other subjects that they do not struggle with, it all depends on the student. While I feel that there are many things that I can do to work well with these students, such as breaking projects into smaller tasks, presenting what I want the student to do in multiple ways, and teaching the student how to be more organized and efficient, there are also many challenges that I could have with these students. Children with this disability tend to stand too close to people while in conversation and also has struggles with misunderstanding jokes, puns, sarcasm, etc. While the misunderstandings and jokes are a bit more easily solved, personal space can be an issue with me at times. However, in my experience, this is only with adults or people my age, so the children being a bit too close should not be as much of a