Some Philosophizing on Alternative Techniques

Some Philosophizing on Alternative Techniques

Future Reflections Winter/Spring 1990, Vol. 9 No. 1
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SOME PHILOSOPHIZING ON
ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES
by Jana Moynihan
Editor's Note: This article is reprinted from the
August, 1989, Braille Monitor. It was originally
published in the the January, 1988, Blind Missourian,
the publication of the National Federation
of the Blind of Missouri. Jana Moynihan is a
long-time, active Federationist from Missouri.
Here is what she has to say.
When we talk about alternative techniques which
enable blind persons to function effectively and
efficiently, we usually speak in concrete terms.
We speak about methods, skills, devices, or the
latest technology. We discuss Braille, Optacons,
taped or recorded material, talking calculators,
computers that communicate through Braille or
voice, white canes or guide dogs, Visualteks, etc.
I believe that before we get to the concrete discussion
of alternative techniques, every blind
person and every parent of a blind child should
give some thought to the philosophy applying to
our selection of alternative techniques--when
and how they should be used, and which ones will
be best for which blind person. We should also
consider how they are presented to blind children
or newly blinded adults, and how their use is
encouraged and taught.
Basically alternative techniques mean, to me, any
method, skill, device, or technology which allows
me as a blind person to perform a given activity
or task effectively and efficiently in the
predominantly sighted world. But there are
some alternative techniques which a blind person
must develop which are really not skills or
knowledge or methods or devices. Actually it
might be better to call these things associated
techniques because they are more mental than
physical. Besides knowing all the necessary skills,
a blind child or adult needs, I believe, to
develop creativity, flexibility, and a certain
degree of assertiveness to make the skills, methods, and tools he or she
acquires really work as alternative techniques.
Why flexibility? The blind person should be
familiar with a wide range of methods, skills, and
equipment so that he or she can be in a position
to know which ones will be best in a given situation.
One reason is that all the options are not
always readily affordable and available to the
blind person, the school, the employer, or even
the rehabilitation agency. For example, I would
like a small portable computer with a voice output,
which I could use as a word processor to write
up interviews with witnesses in my job as an
investigator for a federal civil rights agency. This
device would cost about $25,000.00. Much as my
supervisors would like to purchase this equipment
for me, due to budget cutbacks it isn't practical
right now. Since I have a reader who goes
into the field with me and can write up the interviews
to be signed on the spot by the witnesses,
the equipment I want isn't crucial to my doing my
job. It would make me more independent and
would mean that my reader and I wouldn't have
to push so hard when we are in the field, but my
ability for detailed recall and experience in working
with a live reader allow me to do what is
required.
I once had a friend who was applying for a job in
telephone sales or collection. He had been legally
blind since childhood -- that is, he had what the
experts call "some usable vision." He lost most of
this vision rapidly about the same time he lost his
job. He did get some Braille training and review
and was probably competent enough for his own
purposes when he began his job search. How
Page 6
ever, he had been bitten by the technology bug. He heard of the "VersaBraille," a device which
converts Braille into print in combination with a
regular printer. It costs several thousand dollars.
He decided he just had to have this great piece of
equipment in order to do the kind of work he had
in mind. So according to what he told a number
of us, he always specified in job interviews when
employers wanted to know what special equipment
or assistance he might need...he said that
he needed a "VersaBraille." Naturally he never
seemed to be the candidate chosen for the job. It
never seemed to occur to him that he could have
done those jobs adequately by Brailling information
from his phone contacts on a Braille writer
and typing it up for the information of any sighted
persons who needed it. While it is true that Section
504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act does
require an employer to provide reasonable accommodations
to otherwise qualified handicapped
persons, it was not reasonable for this
blind person to expect the type of small business
operations to which he was applying to provide
an expensive piece of equipment when he could
do the work using much less expensive equipment,
standard office equipment, and basic
Braille and typing skills. By not being flexible, he
lost chances for several jobs.
Why creativity? The blind person needs to be
able to analyze a problem and determine which
alternative techniques will best solve it. Sometimes
this means developing new methods or
combining known skills or negotiating acceptance
of doing things in a different manner. In
college I had to take art history. It was required.
At first I wondered how I was going to pass since
we were being shown a lot of pictures and slides
of various works of art and were supposed to note
the techniques or advances for which each artist
or painting was important. I decided that since
the lecturers and required texts didn't adequately
describe things so that I could clearly answer
questions about the artists and their works in the
detail our instructor wanted, I would just have to
have read to me everything available on the individual
artists which time permitted. I went to
the book store and library and lined up my
readers. At the end of the course, I had the
highest marks not only for that particular class
but for all students in art history for that term.
Now for assertiveness! I can imagine some
people reading this who are inwardly cringing at
the word. To a lot of people it means arrogance,
rudeness, and argumentiveness. That isn't what
I mean. I believe that every blind child should be
worked with to develop what my mother called
"backbone," the strength (as politely and firmly
as possible) to stand up for one's rights --the
strength to believe in one's ability and not give
up. I believe that the need to sometimes be
assertive should also be stressed to every blind
adult. I know too many blind people, including
myself at times, who have backed away from
something we really wanted to do because people
said it wasn't possible for a blind person to do
that. Showing self-confidence and being able to
indicate that one has a plan in mind for handling
the situation or doing the job doesn't always
eliminate the prejudice or open the doors, but it
goes a lot further than saying, "What's the use in
trying...they are probably right...I am blind so I
probably can't do that."
Who should use the alternative techniques available
to the blind --such as Braille, cane travel,
etc.? I feel very strongly from personal experience
that all blind persons with vision of 20
over 200 or less or with a substantially limited
field of vision should receive at least sufficient
training in these skills so they can use them adequately
for their own purposes. I know that it is
common practice nowadays among teachers of
blind children with what the professionals call
"some usable" vision to stress reading print with
aids, such as the Visualtek, and supplemented by
recorded materials. However, the fact is that for
most legally blind persons using sighted techniques
(however they may be enhanced and enlarged)
is not as efficient as reading in Braille.
Working with tapes and live readers is also fine,
but some things just can't be done easily or independently
that way.
I feel very fortunate that my parents insisted and
even fought for my local school system to have
me receive Braille instruction in school and also
insisted and persisted until I agreed to receive
instruction in the use of the white cane before
going to college. Although several surgeries
prior to my third birthday had given me some of
that usable vision during my school years and I
could read large print and some regular print
materials with the help of very thick reading
glasses, I could never really read efficiently or
without strain.
Then, just after getting my first job, I began losing
the sight I had through glaucoma resulting from
scar tissue left from my surgeries. Within a short
period I had no useful reading vision left. If I
hadn't learned Braille I would probably have had
to quit that job as behavioral therapist and
teacher for developmentally handicapped
children. My job required that I keep detailed
progress notes and graphs on each child. I had to
present both a written and an oral summary of
the progress of each child in each of several
specific areas at periodic staffings. When I first
started working I kept all records in print form.
After about six months, with the glaucoma, I
could no longer do this. Because of the Braille
training my parents had insisted the school provide,
I was able to switch without any problem or
break in employment.
My husband and I know many blind people who
had (or still have) some vision. On the whole,
those who had even some Braille training as
children are doing much better than those who
didn't get it. Those who didn't learn Braille often
later have lost what vision they had or have found
that they simply could not rely on reading print
and keeping up with the demands of college or
their jobs, or effectively keep personal records.
The ones who hadn't been given the chance to
learn Braille as children also often had some
trouble learning it and using it later because
many of them seemed to have acquired the feeling
that it was inferior to reading print and that
they were inferior because they had to use it.
This brings me to my final point. I believe it is
most important (especially when teaching alternative
techniques to children) that we take care
how we present these techniques. Many of us
have heard teachers or parents say things like
"Now, Mary has some sight so she can read print
but John is totally blind. He has to read Braille."
Some parents have gone so far as to say to
children things like "Now you're with us so you
don't need to use that cane. So put it away." Or
they may say: "My son doesn't need Braille. He
can see some. He isn't blind."
Now children take all of this in. They process it,
and what they come up with (regardless of anything
else said to them) is that being sighted is
okay. Being a little sighted is inferior to being
sighted, but it's better than not having any sight -- that being totally blind is the pits. It also tells the
child with some usable vision that the closer the
alternative techniques he or she uses are to those
used by the sighted, the better they are.
These children (especially by the time they reach
adolescence) would rather do almost anything
than use techniques that totally blind kids use
because they want to look sighted. They'd rather
risk being hit by a car or be considered a snob
when they don't respond to visual greetings from
classmates in the hall or on the street than they
would carry a white cane. They would rather take
poor grades or suffer from headaches and hours
of laborious print reading than open a Braille
book in front of their classmates. It's hard
enough for blind children with some vision to
resist doing this even when they have been taught
alternative techniques and these techniques have
been presented positively to them.
I know because I tried to act sighted for a while
myself, even though my family had always been
very positive in their attitudes toward my blindness
and had insisted I read Braille. Once I got
my reading glasses (in about the seventh grade)
and could read some regular print, I started
neglecting Braille, opting for print every chance
I got. I didn't get a lot of my math problems right
because they were miscopied. It took fifteen
minutes to read a page. I got a lot of headaches,
and teachers passed over me for oral reading
because I read so slowly and disjointedly that
even well-behaved students were bored to the
fidgets. Never mind! I was reading print from the
same books as my friends used.
My mother got the clue about the end of my
eighth grade year what was going on since I never
read Braille any more. She tried explaining how
important it was. I didn't listen, so that summer
(before I could do anything else) every morning
I had to sit down and read out loud to her from a
Braille copy of the Bible which I had been given
a couple of years before. It sounded like the
pioneers but since I wouldn't order Braille books
from the library it was all she had handy. I think
it took about a month (somewhere in the middle
of Leviticus) before the message finally sank in
that I could read much faster in Braille and could
also read orally as well as anyone else.
I hope some of these thoughts about alternative
techniques are of assistance to other blind persons
and to parents of blind children in helping
them work with their children in a positive manner
to learn and use effective and efficient techniques
which can help them successfully compete
in school, on the job, and in daily life.
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