Aside from Charlotte and Brianna, all of our blind children have profound cognitive delays. Most of them are also on the autism spectrum. When Charlotte came to us, we knew that she had lived the first 19 months of her life in an orphanage where she was deprived of affection and stimulation, and we know very well what effect that can have on a child's brain. We had no idea whether Charlotte would talk, one day go to school, or be able to do things like read and do puzzles. We still do not know these answers, but the longer that Charlotte is with us the more we believe that as she gets older, she will be a typically developing blind child. Already she has surpassed Jasmine, Cedar, Chloe, and Promise in terms of her receptive language. This is new for us, and has led me to spend a lot of time researching educating blind children. Although Charlotte is only a year old (almost 2), I want to give her the tools she needs to help her mind grow, and to prepare her to navigate life as a blind child and adult. This article, Beginning Braille Skills, was really eye opening to me. The Hadley School For The Blind also offers a lot of online courses for professionals and family members of blind children/adults, including a free intro to Braille course. Their Braille and Your Baby or Toddler course is $99, but looks amazing. Tori and I signed up and start soon.
I learned that just as a sighted baby and toddler sees print everywhere, a blind baby and toddler needs to "see" (with their fingers) Braille. Sighted children understand what letters are long before they learn to read. They see letters in books, on cereal boxes, on signs. Charlotte is only a baby and nowhere near ready to learn to read, but we need to expose her to Braille in the same way that sighted babies are exposed to letters. Because she is blind though, this needs to be more intentional. With our other blind children, we have never used Braille because right now they are not at the stage where that seems like something appropriate to be working on. Maybe one day this will be something we do with them, but for now we are working on other goals, and so Braille is completely new to our house!
I purchased a Braille labeler online through the Braille Bookstore for $24.95. You do not need to know Braille to use it. You simply type a word letter by letter in, and it prints it in Braille onto labeling tape which can then be used to label anything in your home. The woman who recommended this product to me suggested buying extra clear labeling tape, so I did that as well.
I found, when I asked online on the 2 support groups I am a part of for parents of blind children, that there is a lot of different thoughts for how to label and how to expose your child to Braille. Some people said to label everything in the house. Others said just do those things that are labeled in print (like, for example, buttons on a microwave, dishwasher, etc), others said just to start with the first letter rather than doing the whole word. I ended up labeling some of her favourite things and some things that she touches frequently throughout the day. As she is near it or as we use the object, I run her fingers over the Braille and say the word. We labeled things like; water (her bottle), all the rooms in our house at the door frames, her toy box, and the beds and table.
I also ordered our first Braille books! I am a huge Robert Munsch fan, so I ordered Murmel Murmel Murmel off the Braille bookstore. Off Seedlings Braille Books For Children I ordered Love Bug, Clifford's Bedtime, Good Night I Love You, and That's Not My Duck. The book from the Braille Bookstore was just the papers with the text and Braille binded together. The Seedlings company takes the actual books (with pictures, as you get in a bookstore) and pasted the Braille to each page, so I liked those best as my other kids can read them and they are board books so the pages are thicker for Charlotte to turn. I was pleased to see all of our favourite books and authors available in Braille! There is contracted Braille which uses contractions/abbreviations, and uncontracted Braille, which is the standard Braille alphabet letter by letter. I purchased all uncontracted Braille books (grade 1) as that is usually how kids learn. In addition, an awesome mom named Ann, who has a daughter with anophthalmia (same as Charlotte, Brianna, Cedar, and Chloe) made us an ABC Braille book to introduce Charlotte to the alphabet and to read through as we sing the ABC song! The first day I introduced the Braille books to Charlotte, she was super grumpy and I was sure it wouldn't go well. I did a few other activities that she cried and fought me through. Then I pulled out the Clifford Braille book and ran her finger over the Braille as I read. All the sudden the crying stopped and she sat, still with her head turned slightly to the side in concentration, until we finished the full book. She was so interested in feeling the Braille!
Aside from just exposing her to Braille, I learned a lot about pre-Braille activities that I can do with Charlotte (and will also do with my other blind children). Pre-Braille skills are the skills that will allow young children to one day learn to read in Braille, so things like discriminating textures, building hand strength, and fine motor skills to explore with their hands. An example is when we read, I have her practice turning the page and move her hands so she learns that we read from left to right. We also do an activity where we hide different objects inside Playdough so she can practice exploring with her hands and discriminating different textures. Recently I put beads inside Playdough and helped her squish the Playdough and find the beads inside, while talking about the different textures to teach her words like "squishy".
Another activity we have tries is puffy paint colouring: This is where you take a colouring page from a colouring book and cover all the lines of the image with puffy paint, so that it sticks up from the page and a blind child can feel it. Then, they can colour the object with crayons being able to feel where to colour. Rather than just scribbling on a paper and not being able to see it, this is more interesting and teaches the child to use their hands to feel where to colour, and also to discriminate the 2 textures (smooth paper and raised paint). Tori tried it with Brianna and Chloe. Chloe tolerated it well for a bit. Brianna wasn't ready for this yet, but we are going to try to keep pushing her and try to expose her to new things using her hands. She screamed and fought it, as she does everything right now that involves using her hands to explore. Brianna is so new and we are still getting to know her. We are trying to expose her to the same activities that we do with Charlotte, and as she gets more comfortable and we get to know her better, we will be able to better understand where she is at and what goals are appropriate. I was surprised that Charlotte loved the activity. . She sat calmly and seemed to be soothed by the back and forth colouring motion. Because of the paint, our crayon would hit the edge and we would know to start going in the other direction. I was pleased!
I found this awesome website, Ellie's Eyes, written by the parents of a little girl named Ellie who is blind. They shared the video "Ellie with her new touch and noisy book 15 months" and I loved it so much that I searched for that book and found it on Amazon India! It is called This Is My Monster. As you can see in the video, Ellie is able to listen to her Mom reading and knows when to press the button so she is involved in the story telling. She also feels the textures and turns the pages. Those are great pre-Braille skills and things that we are working on with Charlotte! Many years later the same family shared the video "Ellie using Pre Braille skills books". With this book, the child has to trace their finger from one object over several different paths to find something. For example, help the butterfly find his flower. I did some searching online and found that these are made through Tactile Graphics, a company out of South Africa. These are a bit advanced for Charlotte, but I bought one anyways and we will start exposing her to it. They are a bit pricy but are beautiful and handmade and the website has a lot of selection. I ordered the same book that Ellie is using in the video, Paths, but the website offers lots of other books that are great for developing pre Braille skills. It just arrived in the mail and I love it so much. It is beautiful! I am going to try it with Charlotte tomorrow.
So that is a little bit about our new journey in learning Braille! We are pretty excited to start learning more about it and introducing it to Charlotte and Brianna. We will keep you updated!
I learned that just as a sighted baby and toddler sees print everywhere, a blind baby and toddler needs to "see" (with their fingers) Braille. Sighted children understand what letters are long before they learn to read. They see letters in books, on cereal boxes, on signs. Charlotte is only a baby and nowhere near ready to learn to read, but we need to expose her to Braille in the same way that sighted babies are exposed to letters. Because she is blind though, this needs to be more intentional. With our other blind children, we have never used Braille because right now they are not at the stage where that seems like something appropriate to be working on. Maybe one day this will be something we do with them, but for now we are working on other goals, and so Braille is completely new to our house!
I purchased a Braille labeler online through the Braille Bookstore for $24.95. You do not need to know Braille to use it. You simply type a word letter by letter in, and it prints it in Braille onto labeling tape which can then be used to label anything in your home. The woman who recommended this product to me suggested buying extra clear labeling tape, so I did that as well.
I found, when I asked online on the 2 support groups I am a part of for parents of blind children, that there is a lot of different thoughts for how to label and how to expose your child to Braille. Some people said to label everything in the house. Others said just do those things that are labeled in print (like, for example, buttons on a microwave, dishwasher, etc), others said just to start with the first letter rather than doing the whole word. I ended up labeling some of her favourite things and some things that she touches frequently throughout the day. As she is near it or as we use the object, I run her fingers over the Braille and say the word. We labeled things like; water (her bottle), all the rooms in our house at the door frames, her toy box, and the beds and table.
I also ordered our first Braille books! I am a huge Robert Munsch fan, so I ordered Murmel Murmel Murmel off the Braille bookstore. Off Seedlings Braille Books For Children I ordered Love Bug, Clifford's Bedtime, Good Night I Love You, and That's Not My Duck. The book from the Braille Bookstore was just the papers with the text and Braille binded together. The Seedlings company takes the actual books (with pictures, as you get in a bookstore) and pasted the Braille to each page, so I liked those best as my other kids can read them and they are board books so the pages are thicker for Charlotte to turn. I was pleased to see all of our favourite books and authors available in Braille! There is contracted Braille which uses contractions/abbreviations, and uncontracted Braille, which is the standard Braille alphabet letter by letter. I purchased all uncontracted Braille books (grade 1) as that is usually how kids learn. In addition, an awesome mom named Ann, who has a daughter with anophthalmia (same as Charlotte, Brianna, Cedar, and Chloe) made us an ABC Braille book to introduce Charlotte to the alphabet and to read through as we sing the ABC song! The first day I introduced the Braille books to Charlotte, she was super grumpy and I was sure it wouldn't go well. I did a few other activities that she cried and fought me through. Then I pulled out the Clifford Braille book and ran her finger over the Braille as I read. All the sudden the crying stopped and she sat, still with her head turned slightly to the side in concentration, until we finished the full book. She was so interested in feeling the Braille!
Another activity we have tries is puffy paint colouring: This is where you take a colouring page from a colouring book and cover all the lines of the image with puffy paint, so that it sticks up from the page and a blind child can feel it. Then, they can colour the object with crayons being able to feel where to colour. Rather than just scribbling on a paper and not being able to see it, this is more interesting and teaches the child to use their hands to feel where to colour, and also to discriminate the 2 textures (smooth paper and raised paint). Tori tried it with Brianna and Chloe. Chloe tolerated it well for a bit. Brianna wasn't ready for this yet, but we are going to try to keep pushing her and try to expose her to new things using her hands. She screamed and fought it, as she does everything right now that involves using her hands to explore. Brianna is so new and we are still getting to know her. We are trying to expose her to the same activities that we do with Charlotte, and as she gets more comfortable and we get to know her better, we will be able to better understand where she is at and what goals are appropriate. I was surprised that Charlotte loved the activity. . She sat calmly and seemed to be soothed by the back and forth colouring motion. Because of the paint, our crayon would hit the edge and we would know to start going in the other direction. I was pleased!
So that is a little bit about our new journey in learning Braille! We are pretty excited to start learning more about it and introducing it to Charlotte and Brianna. We will keep you updated!
No comments:
Post a Comment