Week Five

This was a short week; only did 1.5 hours of observation at a different school than the ones I've been visiting on Fridays.  Due to scheduling issues, Margaret (the O&M instructor) and I settled on just doing a couple of hours.  Which worked out well, as I just found out yesterday that my student teaching application for the fall is due on Thursday.  Which means I should be writing an autobiographical statement right now as opposed to a blog, but I digress.

I've observed the student (Jim) that I saw today several times in the past year or so, which made it interesting to see how he's progressed.  He used his cane everywhere we went on campus (which was quite a few locations), and he didn't bump into anything.  The last time I observed Jim, he unwillingly used his cane and usually chose to use sighted guide instead.  It was great to see him travelling independently and confidently on his campus.

Jim has achromatopsia, which means that he sees varying shades of gray with a total absence of color.  His TVI and Margaret both already knew that Jim sees better in low lighting (more lighting is not always best for students who have visual impairments!), but Margaret recently discovered something else interesting about Jim's vision.

Jim was having difficulty seeing cones during PE, so Margaret put out several different cones and had Jim tell her which ones he could see best.  He chose the green and purple cones (which were on green grass).  This basically meant that Jim was seeing the objects that had the lowest contrast. So then Margaret put out a variety of folders in different colors on a black background, and Jim chose the purple and black folders.  Finally, she put out a variety of plastic cubes on a dark background, and again Jim chose the black and purple cubes.

Jim's vision seems to be the total opposite of what we assume for students who have visual impairments.  Typically, the more contrast the better. But with Jim, he might be seeing a washed-out world that makes saturated colors (green, black, purple) easier for him to see.

Did I mention how heterogeneous this population is? No assumptions are safe here.

Margaret is also doing a great rewards system with Jim.  If his teachers report that he has been using his cane and having good behavior overall, he gets to choose a sports related bead (football, soccer, baseball, etc), which is then put on a string that is attached to his cane.  When he gets four beads, he can trade it in for a charm.  When he has four charms, he gets to go on a community outing (McDonalds for ice cream!).  Of course he gets to keep the charm bracelet, which adds a little flair to his cane.

Jim has been at his school for about two years so he is very comfortable on campus.  In order to challenge him more, Margaret is planning to change his service hours to include more community outings.  It definitely seems like when a student has been at a school for awhile and has mastered its layout, the number of opportunities for O&M instruction dwindle.  If we want to continue developing the child's O&M skills, going off-campus becomes a necessity.