Looking Ahead

Looking Ahead

Future Reflections Spring 1996, Vol. 15 No. 2
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LOOKING AHEAD
by Lois Luecke
[PICTURE] Caleb Elliott
1ST READER
Editor's Note: The Times Record News is publishing a story
each day written especially for younger readers.
Caleb Elliott is blind. That means he cannot see. But
Caleb is a busy boy. He enjoys gymnastics and playing T-ball.
He also loves music. He plays the piano and the guitar. Being
blind has not kept Caleb from having fun and learning
Editor's Note: The story above and the following article are
reprinted from the Times Record News, January 20, 1995, of
Wichita Falls, Texas.
I'm not sure what the author of the article wished to
convey by the title "Looking Ahead" but, in respect to
blindness, that's what Dale and Ann Elliott did. They took a
"look ahead" into the potential future for Caleb by getting to
know blind adults through the NFB. They discovered that if
Caleb was to grow up to be a confident, competent adult, he
had to have a solid foundation in blindness skills. They also
learned how important it was to hold high expectations for
Caleb in all areas of life-academic, social, family,
recreational, and community.
So, what impact has their foresight had on Caleb so far?
The following news story tells much, but Ann Elliott (who
sent me the clipping along with some photographs) had more to
add.
"Caleb," she wrote, "is quite busy. In addition to gymnastics
and T-ball he rides a bicycle, roller skates, swims, and loves
bowling. I do not have any good pictures of all this because
Dale and I are usually running along behind (ha!). Caleb is a
good cane traveler, but he could do better. He is the only
blind student in his school and the kids all love doing
sighted guide. He is a very good Braille reader, and also the
best speller in the class. He is always called on to help the
other students (he loves that)."
That's what mom had to add to the following article:
Six-year-old Caleb Elliott was eager to show what he had
learned in gymnastics at the Family YMCA. With seeming ease
and a bit of coaching by teacher Claire Bishop, he went
through his routine, doing cartwheels and forward rolls,
working the rings and parallel bars and jumping on the
trampoline. What's unusual about Caleb's performance is that
the boy is blind.
Ann Elliott, Caleb's mother, said she had checked into
several other places to try to start him in gymnastics and no
one would take him. The YMCA just signed him up and didn't
even question his blindness.
"It has been just wonderful. He has benefited so much,"
she said. "We put him in the gymnastics program more than a
year ago for the physical activity, and he loves it."
"But then Caleb", she said, "is pretty enthusiastic about
anything he gets into, whether it's gymnastics, playing
T-ball, playing the piano, or the guitar."
"When he was playing T-ball, he could hardly wait for
practice. He will play T-ball, another `Y' program, this year,
too," his mother said. With a runner who ran all the bases
with him, he played all of last year with the Cunningham Blue
Jays.
Now a kindergarten student at Ben Milam Elementary
School, Caleb won awards in piano in recent Wichita Falls
Independent School District cultural arts competition.
Submitting tapes of his original compositions, he placed first
in the primary division and won overall honors in the school
in the music category. He has taken piano lessons for the last
five or six months, his mother said, and has had almost a year
of instruction on the guitar.
Young Caleb has been blind since birth. Ann and her
husband Dale Elliott adopted him when he was one day old. They
didn't know that Caleb was blind until he was about five
months old. Physicians found a fatty build-up and a "pseudo
cherry spot" on his retina. "No name was given to his
condition at that time and no one knows why," Mrs. Elliott
said. The youngster does have light perception and that helps
him with balance and mobility.
Caleb's mother and father are older parents in their 40s.
They have become active in the National Federation of the
Blind and are involved with the Parents of Blind Children
Support Group. They have studied Braille and have encouraged
Caleb to learn Braille since he was about three years old. At
Ben Milam, where he is in a full-day developmental
kindergarten, he is learning how to read and write in Braille.
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