I worked with a blind programmer one time, and I saw firsthand that there is lots of room for improvement in the technology available for blind people. Since you seem to be a programmer yourself, maybe you could contribute to making these tools better so your son can grow up into a better world?
Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
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Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's impolite to ask a clarification question. Parents with their first child often have unrealistic expectations of development milestones. We want to get that out of the way first. Crucially, the OP has not provided a diagnosis (source of blindness), which one would get after soliciting medical advice and conducting tests.
I have a friend who got his first daughter a hearing test. The audiologist delayed the test twice until he finally gave up. His daughter was able to hear instructions like “go get your socks” but since she was two and not talking, they leapt to the conclusion that it was probably hearing related. Three years later, I still make fun of him for it but at the time I tried to keep a straight face. Ironically, he’s a medi…
In some places babies get a hearing test by default, definitely took one thing off our list of worries.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#23There's a Google Glass reseller + app maker called Envision, which lets you use Google Glass's camera and speaker to have the computer explain what you're looking at. https://shop.letsenvision.com/products/glasses-home features: Instant Text, Scan Text, Batch Scan, Call an Ally, Call Aira, Describe Scene, Detect Light, Recognise Cash, Detect Colors, Find People, Find Objects, Teach a Face, Ask Envision, Explore and m…
Not sure why this is downvoted. I know your son is just a baby but my whole point in posting this is to illustrate that with today's tech, he won't have to grow up being less independent than other people.
One of my friends even came up with a UX that could, if built into smartglasses, someday allow blind people to drive:
https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~brian/projects/rad.html
I feel like it's nice to give people hope
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#24[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#25What does your pediatrician think?
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Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#26Have you had his vision checked? It could be treatable. Don't just let it go.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#27I 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 from 'being the blind kid'. But I was. Not knowing made everything so much harder and more confusing.
2) Don't rely too much on technology. Stick and dog are the best tools blind people have. Everything else, in my opinion, is a flash in the pan and won't have long term support. Not made by blind people and with minimal consulting for them. Like what a sighted person thinks a blind person needs after closing their eyes and walking around their house for a few minutes. (Screen readers are useful, I'm not talking about those.)
For a piece of tech I was excited for and is now dystopian: https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete
3) Foster independence. The world is not made for us. It's also full of high speed metal deathtraps. The easiest thing to do is stay inside where I know where everything is. Even walking to the grocery store is a deeply uncomfortable endeavor. But I need to do it. I need to be able to live with that discomfort and not let it dissuade me from living the most human life I can.
The blind cane is very valuable. It took me too long to accept blindness as an identity, get over the shame, and start using it. I lost a lot of time to that.
Blindness sucks in every conceivable way. It affects every part of ones life. But I had a good childhood and I have a good life. All things considered, I'm extremely lucky for the circumstances of my birth because of the family I was born into. You can't take away the blindness but you can still give them a wonderful life.
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#28I 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 can begin to orient themselves with the reflections of the sound waves. After all, vision is in the brain; the eyes are just the sensors. Point being, if your son starts making clicking sounds with his tongue, you likely won't want to discourage that. And on the flip, teaching him to click may provide a means of developing his vision in an alternative way.
Edit: Here's a Pubmed article on a study where blind and sighted people were trained to echolocate: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8171922/
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#29I 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…
Yeah! Some reference info about this amazing approach:
Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8171922/
Human echolocation lets blind man 'see' (CNN video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHYCs8xtzUI
Human echolocation - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation
Re: Ask HN: My son might be blind – how to best support
#30I 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…
Yeah! Some reference info about this amazing approach: Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8171922/ Human echolocation lets blind man 'see' (CNN video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHYCs8xtzUI Human echolocation - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation
Hah! Looks like we found the same article. Interesting other links too!