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Safe Toddles Talks Orientation and Mobility
Host Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, President and CEO Safe Toddles non-profit discusses safe mobility for learners who were born blind and visually impaired. In 2023 & 2024, I am sharing the over 100 interviews I conducted with adults born blind or mobility visually impaired. I discussed with them their recollections of growing up. and walking before, during and after obtaining orientation and mobility instruction and mobility tools. In 2021/22, I worked with co-host Kelvin Crosby. Together we interviewed belt cane users and people who grew up blind without belt canes. For more information about this blog contact: 845-244-6600, grace@safetoddles.org
Safe Toddles Talks Orientation and Mobility
For far too long adults have held an unrealistic expectation that blind babies will walk independently without the protection of a white cane.
This is the soundtrack of the video posted on YouTube. It shows footage from 1960s and audio tape interviews of children born blind in the 1950s. Marcia new she was blind when she entered kindergarten. She noticed her peers ran around and she didn’t. Running without a two-step safety buffer is not recommended. A 1966 blind high schooler is shown being shadowed for safety by a sighted peer. This sends the same message- sighted kids are more capable. But that is only true because he uses his vision for safety. Give the blind child a white cane for safety and you even the playing field. A white cane reduces the need to stay close to the wall - to ‘hand trail’ for safety. The job of the white cane is to follow a shoreline, locate objects and drop offs before your feet do. I am Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken. I am an orientation and mobility specialist who has taught white cane travel for 30 years. I invented the belt cane so that blind toddlers could grow up knowing only safe mobility. Join me in making 2024 the year we understand that blind babies really hate running their bodies directly into furniture and walls. They would much rather greet the world with their two-step safety buffer between them and it. Safe Toddles invented a safety buffer that works best for blind babies – more white cane designs are needed.
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