The Support to Foster Independence

If you meet Derek Hitzel, 6, walking down the sidewalk with his mobility cane, don’t even think of pitying him, says his mother, Sandy Hitzel.

“Just think of him the way you would any little boy,” she says. “People think he doesn’t have the same opportunities as they do. But that’s not correct. He can do whatever he wants. And it’s up to his parents or caregivers to promote that.”

A student at the Blind Children’s Learning Center in Santa Ana for more than three years, Derek has mastered about every piece of equipment on its playground, learned to execute a mean macarena at its music sessions and helped prepare and clear food at its weekly “formal lunch” periods.

But don’t get him started. Derek is such a happy little kid that he starts to giggle when he tells you about these things.

He wasn’t always so cheerful, his mom says. Born three month prematurely with retinopathy (detached retinas), his visual disability caused him to be fearful.

“Noises scared him,” says Sandy, of Laguna Hills. “Different textures scared him. So I thought: I’m not going to have a baby like this! The more afraid he was, the more I hugged and kissed him, the more I thought, ‘You’re going to be happy just like me.’ ”

Enter an infant development specialist with the Blind Children’s Learning Center. Referred to the Hitzel family by a state agency, the specialist began to work with Derek and his parents at home, showing them the kind of sensory-motor experiences and environmental adaptations that would help maximize his potential.

“We didn’t know what to do,” says Sandy, 39. “Having a blind child thrusts you into a new world. Parents with healthy children can refer to books that tell them about child development. But we weren’t sure what he was supposed to do at what age.

“The center gave us support. Without forcing anything on him or us, they helped us set goals and objectives for Derek’s behavior.”

When Derek was 2 1/2, the center staff determined he was ready to attend sessions at the school.

That was a difficult time for Sandy and her husband, Jack, 45. The idea of sending their blind toddler out to “face the world” was scary, she says. Because they worked, neither of them would be able to take him to school. He would use the center van for transportation.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my. My little boy is going off to school in a van, and he can’t see. He won’t even have scenery to watch as he goes,’ ” Sandy says.

Looking back, Sandy knows that letting him go was the best thing she could have done. And it will always be. “It had to be done,” she says, evenly. “I can’t hold him back, be selfish. He needs to be independent. And we need to be independent.”

These days, Derek goes to the center five days a week. “He wishes it were seven,” says his mother, smiling. “On Saturdays, he gets a long face. When he first started at the center, he was soft-spoken, and he would sit off by himself. Other children would come up and take away his toys. But now, he has learned to be with other children and be with himself.”

At home, Derek behaves like most 6-year-olds, listening to music, playing with toys, enjoying excursions with his parents.

“He’s always happy,” says Sandy, who has an 8-year-old son, Brandon. “He’s one of the happiest children I’ve ever seen. Oh, he’ll try to manipulate me like any other child. He’ll ask, ‘Mommy, where’s my Peekaboo Zoo?’ and I’ll ask him, ‘Where did you leave it?’ she says. “He’ll tell me to find it, and I’ll tell him, ‘No. You find it.’ ”

Encouraging independence in their blind child is the greatest gift parents can give, says Gabrielle Hass, the center’s president and director. “We want our kids to have equal access to any experience and opportunity that a sighted person has. At the center, we see ourselves as being a partner with a blind child’s parents, and, through giving them techniques, we help them empower their children to feel that things are possible.”

On Saturday, the center celebrated its 35th anniversary with a gala at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach.

Of the center’s history, Linn Morgan, the center’s director of community relations, recalls that it began as a “very small mom-and-pop organization that provided services for children and adults.”

“In 1981, we realized our calling was to be with children, so we began to focus only on them,” she says. “We realized that, in the formative years, many attitudes are formed and that, if you missed those opportunities [for the development of independence], it’s hard to go back.”

The center serves the families of about 60 infants annually. Fifty-one children attend the center’s preschool program.

“[We’re] celebrating the center and Derek,” Sandy says of the anniversary. “He’s come such a long way.”