Lighting the Way to School : Visually Impaired Youngsters Learn to Deal With Darkness

Taking his hand, the teacher gently guided 5-year-old Krishna to the sidewalk. Once there, she walked away.

“Follow my voice, Krishna,” the teacher said firmly as the boy stiffened at the sensation of a passing car. “Tap the cane left and right and walk toward my voice.”

Clutching a red stick that is longer than he is tall, Krishna hesitated only a second before tapping it on the ground and walking toward that voice somewhere in the darkness.

“I’m getting better at this,” Krishna said. “I’m walking slow because the stick is long.”

Walking alone with a cane is a big step for the little boy. Not long ago, Krishna would not go anywhere without someone holding his hand. But four years of classes at the Blind Children’s Learning Center in Santa Ana has taught him self-confidence and made him eager to try new things.

Krishna and 32 other blind or visually impaired preschoolers spend up to seven hours a day, five days a week, learning to overcome their blindness so they can become independent and eventually enter mainstream schools.

“Our mission is to help the blind child or the visually impaired child in every way that we can so they can live to their full potential,” said Gabrielle Haas, executive director of the center.

The school is the only center for blind preschoolers in the county. It is a nonprofit organization where tuition is on a sliding scale, depending on ability to pay.

Incredibly, 90% of the children advance to mainstream public schools.

Shayla Gustafson, 12, is an alumna of the center who is now a fifth-grader at Clara Barton Elementary School in Anaheim, where she is enrolled in mainstream classes.

The most important lesson she learned from the center, Shayla said, is to move in the darkness without fear of obstacles. The center also introduced Shayla to her favorite pastime: bicycling.

“Now, I ride my bike down the (sidewalk) to my neighbor’s house,” she said recently. “I usually don’t run into anything because I go slow.”

The center “gave her so much self-confidence, and she’s not afraid of anything,” said Shayla’s grandmother, Jean Edwardson. “It’s such a happy place for children.”

That is because the children learn while they play at the center. Their games are mostly designed to teach them texture, sounds and coordination.

To show the infants in her class what softness is, Alicia Aguilera, 19, gives them hot fudge and whipped cream and watches as they run their hands and face into the sweet mess. Most blind children do not like to touch or be touched, so an exercise such as this introduces them to pleasant sensations.

“I do this every day,” said Aguilera as she sprayed gobs of whipped cream onto a tray, “but I never get tired of watching them.”

Victor, 2, who is visually impaired, sniffed toward the tray, getting a dab on his nose. Then he poked a finger into the soft stuff and smiled. Soon, both of his hands were squishing the goo. Rubbing his sticky hands against his face, Victor laughed and clapped for more.

Painting is a method used by teachers to improve the children’s coordination.

Alex, 4, who is visually impaired, loves to paint and has developed a ritual. She put on a covering shirt and spent time getting comfortable in her chair. Holding the small easel set before her, she daubed red and blue paint onto the poster, first with her brush, then with her hand. Sometimes, she pressed her nose against her finished work.

And, when it’s really time to play, teachers escorted the children to the playground, where they scampered onto swings and seesaws and dug in the sandbox.

There, the pupils played with 11 sighted children, who are either siblings of the other pupils or children of staff members; they are also enrolled at the center.

“Children do learn from other children,” Haas said, “so here the sighted children act as a modeling for our non-sighted ones. A blind child will readily copy what another child is doing.”

One day, a 4-year-old sighted boy, Ricky, grabbed Krishna’s hand and led him up a grass mound. After they ran down together, Krishna let go of Ricky and ran up the hill again, this time alone and with his arms flapping.

Not all children, however, are receptive to others. When the children first come to the center, most shy away when they feel another’s presence, Haas said. Before the learning can begin, they must be drawn out of their shell.

These “tactually defensive” children “are frustrated because they don’t know what is there, and they draw a wall around themselves and withdraw,” Haas said.

Such was the case with Rehab, 4, who was born blind. Enrolled in the center when she was 18 months old, Rehab at first would only lie on the floor because “it was the only thing she knew would never hurt her,” Haas said. “It was her security.”

With her teachers’ gentle prodding, Rehab eventually learned to sit up during singing time and sometimes even squeezed someone else’s hand in response. Recently she took her first solo steps, a moment of celebration for teachers and playmates alike.

“We try to maintain an extended family atmosphere and a nurturing environment so that they could learn even while playing,” said Kathryn Goodspeed, preschool coordinator.

With that environment established, the children are also taught to be independent. Once a week, they prepare lunch for the school.

“This is one of my favorite” things to do, said Alissa, a visually impaired 4-year-old, as she and her classmates were led into the kitchen by teacher Sharon Mitchael.

“Just have to be careful . . . hot sometimes,” she said while concentrating on sprinkling salt onto hamburger patties. Together, Alissa and Mitchael slowly slid the tray of meat into an oven.