Deaf Blindness Awareness Week

By Nurse Diane

The Silence is deafening.... This is a saying that I have used, usually when it is so quiet.  Last year we had a tornado rip through my neighborhood in the middle of the night.  The storm knocked out the power and there were no lights, no sounds of air-conditioning units humming, no traffic, not even a chirp of a cricket.   There were no streetlights, no moon or stars shining in the sky.  All that was left was a feeling of aloneness and fear.   This sensation was brief.  Soon people began starting generators, driving vehicles and dots of light began to appear, and life returned to normal.

Those who suffer from hearing loss and loss of sight do not have the luxury of experiencing a brief occurrence then returning back to sound and sight.  These amazing people have learned to adapt, to change and use other senses to survive and excel in the world.  Probably one of the most famous of the deaf/blind community is Helen Keller.

Helen was not born deaf or blind, she contracted an illness when she was 19 months old, probably meningitis, which took her hearing and sight.  This also affected her ability to speak as well.  Fortunately, her family was able to provide a personal teacher, Anne Sullivan, who was able to live with Helen and work with her, teaching her what is now widely known as sign language.  Helen's life is depicted in the movie The Miracle Worker.  In this movie, the pivotal moment is where Helen realizes that the movement her teacher has been pounding into her hand is actually the word for water. The realization that she has learned something can be seen all over her face as she races around trying to learn as much as she can as fast as possible.

Helen went on to become a world famous speaker and author.  She helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), worked for women's rights, the suffragette movement, worker's rights, and was an advocate for people with disabilities.  She met with several presidents, and other famous people such as Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell and Charlie Chaplin.  Helen Keller showed the world that being blind and deaf did not prevent her from being a valuable contributor to society.  Today, people who are blind or deaf do not label themselves as handicapped, but impaired.  Loss of one sense does not alter a person's usefulness in today's society.  In fact their contributions have proved to enhance it.   Ludwig van Beethoven, one of he most famous composers of all time, continued to write and perform long after he lost his hearing at a young age.  Claude Monet, one of the world's most famous artists, continued painting after his eyesight began to fail.

The purpose of this week is to make everyone aware that the loss of one's sight or hearing does not define a person as handicapped or helpless, and just as these people have learned to adapt and use the abilities they have, so must the rest of us learn to adapt and learn how to communicate and assist those affected so that everyone will be able to function at the best of their ability.

Things you can do to help:

Take a sign language class

Read to the blind

Work with training assist dogs

Donate time and money

Shop for a friend or neighbor

For more information see:

http://www.nad.org/

http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Members.asp?SnID=1893595376

(Photos from Google) 

Celebrating National Braille Literacy Month

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By Diane Forrest

Yesterday I wrote about the seeing eye dogs.  Today, I want to let you know about another tool used by the vision impaired to assist them with their daily lives.  In 1809 Louis Braille was born.  43 years and 2 days later, he died, but not before he created a reading system so that blind people would be able to place their fingers over raised dots and read. When Louis was 3 years old, an accident in his father's shop cause  an object to be tossed into his eye.  His wound became infected, and the infection spread to his other eye.  By the time he was 5 years old, he was blind.  His parents took great pains to raise him as a sighted child, teaching him how to navigate around the town alone.  He was "at peace" with his disability.  His bright and creative mind impressed the local teachers and priests, and he was encouraged to seek higher education.

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When he was of age, he went to school and learned to read by tracing letters on heavily embossed pages.  These books were very heavy and hard to handle.  According to Wikipedia.com, Braille was determined to fashion a system of reading and writing that could bridge the critical gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. In his own words: "Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals – and communication is the way this can be brought about."

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In 1821 he learned of a type of communication used by the French army called night writing.  It was made of dots and dashes that could be read by soldiers tracing their fingers over the pages.  This method was too complicated to learn and understand, so Louis devised his own method.  When he was just 15 years old he began working on his own system by using the same tool that cause his blindness.  His work was published in 1839, and the rest...is history.  He contracted tuberculosis and died, 2 days after his 43rd birthday at home with his family.

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This is National Braille Literacy Month.  ehow.com has some suggestions on how to participate in this great achievement.  They include:

1.    Celebrate the birthday of Louis Braille- see if you can learn to spell his name in Braille on the birthday cake.

2.    Talk to your children about blindness.

3.    Blindfold yourself and see how well you can manage to move through your own home with someone guiding you. Keep it up and see how much you improve.

4.    Check out a book in Braille in the library and study it. Show it to your kids.

5.    Learn to write your own name in the Braille alphabet.

Helen Keller Deaf Blindness Awareness Week - 2012

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By Diane Forrest

There is a movie called The Miracle Worker.  It is the story of a woman who became the tutor of a young girl.  No one believes this child could learn anything.  You see she was both deaf and blind as a result of a childhood illness, probably scarlet fever or meningitis.  Had she been born to another family, we might never have come so far so fast in the field of teaching the deaf and blind how to communicate.  Her father was the editor for an Alabama newspaper, and her family line included Robert E. Lee, and Charles Adams, a general for the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

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They would not allow their daughter to be put in some institution to live the remainder of her life, instead they hired Anne Sullivan to move in with them and tutor their daughter.  Her name - Helen Keller.  Through time, patience and meticulous instructions, Helen was able to learn to communicate with those around her.  Ms. Sullivan remained with Helen until her death.

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Helen went on to become an advocate for people with disabilities, she was a suffragette, and went on to become a writer who supported the working class.  She met every president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain.

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Medical Science has made great strides since the days of Helen Keller.  There are many medical solutions as well as scientific solutions for helping those who are deaf and blind.

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The Perkins Institute, where Helen was a student and the first deaf/blind person to receive a Bachelor's degree, is still in existence and is still teaching those who are deaf and blind.  The Helen Keller institute not only helps those who are deaf and blind, but also does research for these conditions as well.  This week is Helen Keller Deaf Blindness Awareness Week.  Please visit these sites and find out ways you can support this important research.

http://www.hknc.org/

http://www.helenkeller.org/

http://www.perkins.org/news-events/news/deafblind-awareness.html

Celebrate National Braille Literacy Month

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By Akindman,

January was chosen for this celebration because it is the birth month of Louis Braille, the inventor of the system of raised dots that made it possible for people who are blind to read and write for themselves with independence and freedom.

Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809. He became blind in an accident when he was three years old according to a biography at the American Foundation for the Blind. At that time, there were books with raised letters but these were difficult to produce and cumbersome to use. In 1821, Braille was introduced to ‘night writing,’ a code of twelve dots that a former soldier, Charles Barbier, had invented for soldiers to use to share information on the battlefield. Braille created a system that used only six dots and published the first book in Braille in 1829.

15 FACTS TO SHARE DURING BRAILLE LITERACY MONTH (from http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/01/17/15-facts-share-braille-literacy-month/):

1. Braille is not a language;
2. Lessons in Braille begin with tactile exercises;
3. Louis Braille developed his eponymous system at age 15;
4. At 20, he published the first complete book about the Braille system;
5. The Missouri School for the Blind was the first American educational institution to accept Braille;
6. Six-dot Braille cells have 63 possible combinations;
7. There are three different “grades” of Braille;
8. “Braille for feet” exists;
9. Most legally blind children in the United States do not use Braille resources;
10. At least 27 states hold legislation requiring that legally blind children have access to Braille resources;
11. Visually impaired readers who learned on Braille have a lower unemployment rate than their print counterparts;
12. The vast majority of legally blind students attend schools where the teachers do not know Braille;
13. Braille users write with a slate and stylus;
14. Braille and sign language are not interchangeable; and
15. Most legally blind people can read print.

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(From Lighthouse for the visually impaired and blind) There is a literacy crisis among the blind in America. Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. For many persons with total or profound vision loss, the only way they can effectively read and write is by using Braille, a system of raised dots invented by a blind Louis Braille.

Being literate is essential to succeed in life. While the rate of unemployment for persons who are blind is extremely high (70%), it is interesting to note that 90% of blind individuals who are employed are Braille readers. The NFB, the oldest and largest organization of blind persons in the U.S., has been the champion of Braille literacy for decades. They have initiated a campaign to double the number of Braille readers by 2015.

The Annual Braille Challenge, also, promotes Braille literacy and competency. It is a national academic competition open to all blind students up to grade 12.  The Challenge stresses reading comprehension, spelling, Braille speed and accuracy, proofreading and the reading of tactile charts and graphs.

For more information, please check out these links:

• American Foundation for the Blind (www.afb.org)
• National Foundation for the Blind (www.nfb.org)
• Shespeaks (http://www.shespeaks.com/Celebrating-National-Braille-Literacy-Month)
• Online Colleges (www.onlinecolleges.net)
• Lighthouse for the visually impaired and blind (www.lvib.org)