Are they fully blind or can they see some things? There is a new line of thought called Cortical Visual Impairment. Its important to know the difference. Regardless, I find that holding my Childs hand is without a doubt the most reassuring thing I can give her in an unknown place. Your son will find his way, with love. Praying for your family.
Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
121–130 of 168 posts
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#122Normal schools are not appropriately prepared for blind people. They're bullying hells for blind kids (from social exclusion to assault) and the lectures heavily rely on vision, so a blind kid will be left behind even when he makes audio recordings (can't write braille fast enough for useful notes), which some teachers may even take issue with, for extra drama.
And yet, blind kids must learn to integrate into the mainstream world. And schools for the blind are few and far between; at least in the US, they're typically residential (boarding) schools. One option, if it happens to be feasible in the OP's area, might be for the kid to attend a school for the blind early on, then move to a mainstream school later.
Achieving integration & inclusion by putting severely disabled kids in normal schools is a fairy tale. Integrating into the world at large is a separate issue - you're not stuck with the same class throughout, you're not dependent on the same teachers. Arguably, you face some of those issues when you get a job but there's a much larger choice and the people around you are at least adults, in a hopefully professional environment. I just don't see the case for having to go through school as a definitive outsider and endure guaranteed bullying to somehow prepare you for the world better. Trauma doesn't prepare, it disables further. No idea where OP lives, alternatives will obviously depend on that and/or OP's ability move accordingly.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#123I once read that some people who are blind from an early age, as they get older, start to click their tongue, but often those around them (parents, siblings, etc.) will discourage them. Thing is, that clicking can actually be used to develop a type of vision that operates similarly to echo location in cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.) – it comes about because the child realizes that if they make a sharp sound, they…
This episode of the podcast Invisibilia covers a man who teaches blind children the skill of echolocation: https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-be...
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
John Hughes deserves to be a pauper for what his films have done to American society. The way that American children have systemized and perfected bullying culture is disgusting and needs to have been shattered two generations ago. Bullying to anywhere near the same extent as you see in America is so alien to most of the rest of the world. Do you know that nerds have the total opposite reputation in most of the third…
What a ridiculous take. Kids or adults don't bully because they saw it in the movies.
We live in the literal era of life imitating art and you think I'm off base?
You're off base. Sure there is a sort of "natural" instinct to play hierachy games and even for some to bully within all humans, but to imply that this isn't wildly skewed from country to country or culture to culture indicates that you simply haven't been exposed to one of the situations where bullying is cracked down upon.
It's quite rare to see "bullying" in the traditional sense within a lot of south east asia since the teachers are so shitty and strict, often there's an "us vs them" mentality that develops unique amount of camaraderie between students and teachers.
Bullying reasons are also totally different. "Four Eyes" and other stuff against glasses is super duper uncommon, again in Asia since almost literally everyone there now wears glasses. Go to South Korea and you won't be bullied for sitting in front of a computer all the time, but you certainly will for being fat.
But nerds getting shoved in lockers? The entirety of the "Krelboynes" in malcom in the middle? In poor countries, smart kids are seen as a one way ticket out of the hell-hole known as poverty and are often the most popular in their schools.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m comfortable with it but most members of the various disability communities would not like me since, among other things, I strongly advocate for pre natal testing and elective abortion of people with serious issues like blindness. I think that being blind makes life not worth living. I’m extremely supportive of MAID and physician assisted suicidal for these exact reasons. “Coping” by telling those who don’t want t…
> various disability communities would not like me since, among other things, I strongly advocate for pre natal testing and elective abortion of people with serious issues like blindness. I think they're right to not want you around them, you sound odious to them and your ideas are very questionable. Where do you draw the line as there are various degrees of disability. What if you discover that you yourself already…
The idea that people who advocate for harm reduction lack empathy itself lacks empathy.
I would 100% support a mothers right to choose, and if that meant that any one of us did not exist because of it, so much the better. A life not lived is guaranteed harm/suffering that didn't happen. This is consistent with negative utilitarianism, which is a better moral or ethical framework than any other. Also consistent with Jainism, which is the only religion in the world that means it when it preaches non violence (but is down with suicide)
A whole lot of the world believes in reincarnation (~1 billion people), and have advocated for positions similar to this in their extensive bodies of philosophies for millennia. The idea that we are not to help someone on their way to the next, hopefully better life is just as silly sounding to them as it is for me to go to the 1 billion+ abrahamites around the world and tell them that heaven/hell isn't real.
Simply admitting that some conditions make life not really worth living for a lot of people is not worth getting worked up over, especially when it bears out in data that blindness definitely does make people want to choose that option. I can't always blame them: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624868/
Quoting the abstract
"Mortality was significantly increased in the visually impaired (SMR = 1.3; 95% CI 1.07–1.61), but in gender-stratified analyses the increase only affected males (1.34; 95% CI = 1.06–1.70) and not females (1.24; 95% CI 0.82–1.88)"
Most of the lack of increase in Mortality is explained by women trying and failing to commit suicide far more than men. I'm sure they tried more often too, but this was not explored in the paper.
From https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... (2024, systemic review/meta analysis):
"The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support the association between visual impairment and increased risk of suicidal tendencies. The risk differed by age group, with a pronounced risk observed among adolescents."
It is unpalatable to talk in such a direct way about these things, but like a lawyer who has the benefit of distance away from the problem of a client, I, fortunately am not blind, and this is sometimes a good thing. Insular communities can and often do have bad takes and need the rest of the world to hold them accountable.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Learning to understand the world around you via clicking isn't a natural or easy thing to do. I can't do it personally but have looked into it. For me the benefits didn't seem worth the time investment (plus I was older when I looked into it.) Learning to click to understand what is around you is, IMO, a viable thing to look into for your kid and decide if you want to undertake that training. Daniel Kish is the name…
Fellow blind person here, adding my own anecdote. I click and echolocate. I have two different kinds of clicks. A soft click for very immediate surrounding which I can do rapidly if I need to, and a loud click for figuring out large spaces which I don't use very often for relatively obvious reasons. They're quite helpful for me and especially in new unfamiliar spaces it's almost a reflex that happens on its own unles…
What age did you start learning to echolocate and how long did it take?
I alluded to it in my other post, but I fully agree with your sentiment around independence and figuring out your own boundaries. Even if I'm all but guaranteed a bit of pain along the way.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
My daughter had a few disabled children in the same group during her kindergarden/school years. No more than one or two at the same time. It was always started with a proper explanation of the handicap and the problems and how to handle the situations. And after that there was just natural playing with eachother in the group. Children are wonderful at learning, accepting and adapting. It just takes a good teacher to…
I see the necessity good intentions behind it, but also believe this singling out can lead to developing this sense of shame the user mentioned.
The shame was my own issue of going from sighted to blind. A disabled person is singularly different than most other folks (although people with major disabilities are ~16% of the population.) The momentary discomfort of being singled out is just the price of admission and better than the alternative of people not understanding out how interacting with us or choosing not to.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#128I am blind, it was degenerative so it sounds different than what your kid has. I have a few pieces of advice. This is more about my own upbringing, so don't take any of it as an accusation towards you. 1) Don't hide things about their condition or prospects. I grew up in a very loving home. However, my parents found out I was going blind when I was ~8, I didn't find out until I was 13. My mother wanted to protect me…
Without wishing to minimise the very real, very serious consequences of your blindness, your points sound familiar to somebody who suffers from severe anxiety. People being overly protective makes things more confusing. Technology (including many medications), often don't really deal with the root cause, but some things do help (like talking therapy and some meds). Independence can be challenging, going outside can b…
No worries, I get where you're comin from. Nobody can truly understand what anyone else is goin through and we all have to use ourselves as proxies.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#129I am blind, it was degenerative so it sounds different than what your kid has. I have a few pieces of advice. This is more about my own upbringing, so don't take any of it as an accusation towards you. 1) Don't hide things about their condition or prospects. I grew up in a very loving home. However, my parents found out I was going blind when I was ~8, I didn't find out until I was 13. My mother wanted to protect me…
I've also been legally blind since birth, although I have a decent amount of usable vision. I'm not sure I 100% agree with your #2 statement.
That's completely fair. Hopefully you've had technology help you. If so, more power to you.
The main crux of #2, for me, is that there is many technologies people push or suggest to me. They are often short lived, or buggy, or help in a handful of cases but not enough for me to rely on it and make it part of my patterns.
What tech have you found reliable and beneficial? Specifically I'm interested in new tech that has actually panned out in your estimation.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet, blind kids must learn to integrate into the mainstream world. And schools for the blind are few and far between; at least in the US, they're typically residential (boarding) schools. One option, if it happens to be feasible in the OP's area, might be for the kid to attend a school for the blind early on, then move to a mainstream school later.
Achieving integration & inclusion by putting severely disabled kids in normal schools is a fairy tale. Integrating into the world at large is a separate issue - you're not stuck with the same class throughout, you're not dependent on the same teachers. Arguably, you face some of those issues when you get a job but there's a much larger choice and the people around you are at least adults, in a hopefully professional…
Are you a blind person or a parent of a blind person? I'm inclined to give your position more weight if so. I'm legally blind (with some usable vision).
If we want disabled people to not be treated as outsiders, then it seems to me that disabled people need to be integrated into as many aspects of society as possible, including school, so that kids have disabled people as peers from as early an age as is practical. If some of us have to suffer the consequences of bullying or unfair treatment, then hopefully that's a temporary state, and the fact that more people have interacted with us from a young age is a step on the road to equality. Of course, the reason I can say that is that my experiences in mainstream schools were mild, in retrospect.