Students Learn About Disabilities Firsthand

Four-year-old Ryan Costanzo learned what it’s like to be different this week.

Wearing glasses that simulated blindness, Ryan used his hands to try and identify a comb during “ability awareness day” at the Horizon Hills Parenting Center in Thousand Oaks.

The weeklong program is designed to teach children about disabilities that other children face, including autism, blindness and deafness. Dozens of children ages 3 to 5 were led through a series of learning stations, each helping them to understand disabilities by experiencing them.

Ryan was at the vision-learning station, where students put on glasses with lenses smeared with Vaseline or dabbed with paint. The children then tried to perform activities such as playing with blocks or identifying objects.

Ryan said it would be hard to be blind. But if he met another child who was visually impaired, he said he would know what he would like to do with him or her.

“I would make up a new game and that game would be touch-and-tell because they need to be touching to tell what they are touching,” he said.

Other stations focused on other disabilities. Some students learned sign language and wore headphones to block out sound. Others strung cereal loops on a thread while wearing thick gloves. Another station focused on teaching children about autism by having them play with shaving cream, a sensation that could overwhelm an autistic child’s senses.

“We want them to know what it feels like to be different than they are,” said Carol Hanson, an infant specialist with the center’s special-education program. “At the same time, we are trying to emphasize that children who are different still like to do the same things.”