Schooling

Mike and I agree that we need to introduce braille into Savannah's schoolwork, not necessarily for now, but for easier transition into braille when the need arises later in life. (Since the docs don't seem to be able to control her eye pressures, it may unfortunately be sooner than later.)

So I asked around and found the Hadley School for the Blind. It is a distance learning school for the blind that provides courses free of charge to the family of blind students during the child's early years and high school and above coursework for the blind. (Though they do recommend supplementing the high school coursework if college is a possibility.) Either way though, it is a beginning on the long journey ahead of us.

I went ahead and submitted an application. I have to start learning braille myself if I am going to start teaching it to Savannah. For this school year, I am only planning on introducing her to the alphabet and so forth, make it fun. We are going through the alphabet and doing activities phonics style, and adding the braille letter codes to the mix isn't going to be that difficult.... I don't foresee anyway. When we start reading words, well we will start adding it with Braille I guess.

I read online (MSNBC Article) though that statistics show only about ten percent of the blind or low vision population utilize any braille skills..... which probably accounts for the high percentage of unemployed vision impaired individuals (77%). When braille skills are factored in, the unemployment statistics drop significantly (44%). Savannah will at least know braille, whether or not she ever needs to use it, is another matter.