The White Cane
No piece of equipment is more vital to the success of most blind children and adults than a white cane. Look around this site and ask the parents of successful blind and visually impaired children you may know about canes. (Check with blind adults as well.) Canes help to compensate for the loss of vision, it is that simple. We started our child with a cane at 18 months and we probably should have started a bit earlier than that. That's her (above) at about three years old. There are also so-called pre-cane devices. They may be appropriate for some situations but I have strong reservations about them as they tend to delay progress in many applications.
Please don't feel you've done something terrible if you haven't gotten your child cane yet– you make the best decisions you can as you go, but the sooner the better in most cases. If someone is telling you not to get a cane for your child, find out what their objection is and then decide for yourself. This isn't a decision for your child's school or even their O&M teacher. This is a parental decision.
For my child, if I were told she should not have a cane, I'd quickly ask who decides if a wheelchair is right for a child at the same school, etc. If I have the last word on medical decisions (like opting for or against major surgery) for my own child then surely I have some right to input where mobility decisions like using a cane are concerned!
There's a good bit more information on the site about canes for children (and remember that the GOPBC will help you get a cane if your child needs one!) so make an informed choice about canes for your child– don't let others choose for your child!
Please don't feel you've done something terrible if you haven't gotten your child cane yet– you make the best decisions you can as you go, but the sooner the better in most cases. If someone is telling you not to get a cane for your child, find out what their objection is and then decide for yourself. This isn't a decision for your child's school or even their O&M teacher. This is a parental decision.
For my child, if I were told she should not have a cane, I'd quickly ask who decides if a wheelchair is right for a child at the same school, etc. If I have the last word on medical decisions (like opting for or against major surgery) for my own child then surely I have some right to input where mobility decisions like using a cane are concerned!
There's a good bit more information on the site about canes for children (and remember that the GOPBC will help you get a cane if your child needs one!) so make an informed choice about canes for your child– don't let others choose for your child!
Braille
It would seem to go almost without saying, but I'll say it anyhow– braille is critical for the success of most blind or visually impaired children. At the age of 6, my daughter is already in her fourth year of braille instruction at school and keeping pace with sighted peers very well (ahead of many print readers). If at all possible, you don't want to have to play "catch-up" with braille so start as early as possible! There are many more things for a braille reader to learn as opposed to typical print readers, especially once contracted braille comes into play (also known as Grade 2 braille). This is an area that goes beyond the scope of this article, but much like the cane decisions mentioned above, the parent needs to be involved in the decision process. Also, be aware that many children who have some ability to read print with lots of effort can benefit from learning braille as well as conventional print reading.
Light Box
If there is one piece of technology which has most effected our lives so for– as a family, it would probably be the light box. For the first year-and-a-half of Kendra's life, we were in a continual "sleep disaster" with our child. Kendra has no light perception and ended up on a schedule where her day tended to last about 25 hours. (Sun light helps most of us regulate our schedules.) That meant that every day she'd shift her schedule about an hour so that every three weeks or so, she'd have had one less day in her schedule than we would and of course in the middle of one of these cycles, her night and that of her parents would be totally opposed; quite a mess!
I could tell a lot more about Kendra's sleep situation but from a technology standpoint, we went to a sleep disorder clinic for children at Scottish Rite hospital and after a tracking period to see when Kendra was or was not sleeping, they then suggested a light box. To be candid, I thought this was among the stupidest things I had ever heard for a totally blind child but I said nothing, assuming it could do no harm... 30 minutes each morning in front of a light box and we'd see what happened. The result? The first day, her schedule dramatically improved and it stayed better from then on. Four years later we're still using it and her schedule remains "typical"– no sleep issues whatsoever. (I wish I could say the same for our sighted two-year-old!)
I could tell a lot more about Kendra's sleep situation but from a technology standpoint, we went to a sleep disorder clinic for children at Scottish Rite hospital and after a tracking period to see when Kendra was or was not sleeping, they then suggested a light box. To be candid, I thought this was among the stupidest things I had ever heard for a totally blind child but I said nothing, assuming it could do no harm... 30 minutes each morning in front of a light box and we'd see what happened. The result? The first day, her schedule dramatically improved and it stayed better from then on. Four years later we're still using it and her schedule remains "typical"– no sleep issues whatsoever. (I wish I could say the same for our sighted two-year-old!)
Slate & Stylus
More "low-tech" technology but is should not be overlooked. A slow system to emboss braille but it can work anywhere at any time and it can fit on your pocket. The key downside (apart from speed) is that you have to braille "backwards" with these (you press dots up from the back of the page) and some find this rather confusing.
Perkins Brailler
They look old fashioned and clunky, but they work very well and no matter how much people come to rely on modern electronic substitutions these are great to fall back on. Much like the Slate & Stylus they work manually but are far faster than the slow approach of the slate & stylus and they also work with some sorts of media (for applications like braille labeling for example) where other devices may not work as well.
