Braille Opens World

Braille Opens World

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Braille Opens World for Mentally Impaired
Child
by Denise Mehlenbacher
Editor's Note: Ms. Mehlenbacher
is an enthusiastic, some might even say die-hard, Braille teacher. This is the
second article she has submitted to Future Reflections. The first, 'Can
Braille Change the Future' under the name Denise Staulter, was published in
Volume 16, Number 4.

A student was placed in my caseload last Fall,
1996. She was nine years old at the time, did not speak much, and was labeled
severely mentally impaired. No Braille instruction had been attempted until
the 1995-1996 school year, and even that was with little success. My colleagues
know that I love Braille and teach it with great enthusiasm, so I was given
the chance to teach this child.
The first few months were very challenging,
as this child has no sight and knew nothing of the written language and spoke
little. The printed world held little meaning for her. I do not believe she
really knew what I was trying to do, as I taught her the fingering on her Brailler
and then placed her fingers on those all too elusive bumps that were supposed
to hold meaning.
Every time she learned a letter I would rhyme
it with an object I knew she could relate to, such as A for apple, B for bunny
and so on, hoping that she would make a connection between Braille letters and
the fact that they go together to make words. I practiced a lot on the letters
that spelled her name, Ya Wana Fields, as I knew that would hold great importance
for her if she could place them all together and that word would mean her name.
By springtime she knew all the letters of her name and we started placing them
together. I would tell her over and over that this was her name. Less than a
week went by and the light bulb went on and she spelled it all by herself, over
and over. Her classroom teachers couldn't believe it. A child who knew nothing
about letters and words, was nine years old, and rarely spoke (which had changed
dramatically by this point; she wanted to talk all the time now), could spell
her name! The administrators and other teachers came around to see this miracle
also. The excitement was so incredible that I still feel the chills of that
moment.
Ya Wana is unstoppable now. At this point, February
1998, she has learned her whole alphabet, many new words, and wants to Braille
as much as she can during our lessons. She has learned how to sound out words
and spell them on her own. She has progressed so quickly for her abilities that
I have placed her on an IntelliKeys board (a keyboard that has letters placed
in alphabetical order, and adapted with Braille letters on top) with talking
software. She is now working on spelling words and when the other students come
up to find out what she is doing, she exclaims, Shh, go away, we're working.
These are the moments teachers live for. To
see a child advance from a true world of darkness, having no literacy skills
at all, to reading and writing and wanting more. Braille has made this child's
world come alive with all the possibilities of learning new words and being
able to read them back for herself. She is always ready to learn what I have
planned for the day and rarely wants to quit when her time is up. Her other
teachers practice these skills in her classroom, but she knows when she is with
me there will be something new to learn. It will be wonderful to see where she
will test out cognitively now that she is speaking, reading, and writing. Such
potential that was hidden away now has been tapped into and is overflowing with
possibilities.
This is what educators should do: unlock the
potential with every tool that needs to be taught, reaching the child that was
given up for lost, teaching them the possibilities of life.
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