A PARENT'S LATE COMING TO BRAILLE
Kevin C. Murphy
Fourteen, blind since infancy, multiply handicapped, Kevin
knew
about letters. Letters excited him in the way angels,
UFOs,
ghosts, and monsters excite many of us -- lots of mystery,
little
practical value. His favorite television programs, SESAME
STREET
and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY mimicked Madison Avenue's technique
of
manipulating human want. Kevin wanted to read. For this
child,
reading had to mean Braille. Yet by 1981 "Braille"
for Kevin, was a
mispronunciation of "fail." Preceded by dread,
overshadowed by fear,
each class was cursed by confusion, each ended in depression.
Ending six years of effort, Kevin's teachers abandoned efforts
to
teach Braille to him. I believed that Braille was beyond
Kevin's
grasp. Yet, a distant part of me raged against that illiterate
life.
Inwardly I hesitated to post full cost and cause to Kevin's
account.
Kevin -- and Heather, my adopted daughter -- were
multiply
handicapped and blind. No fear, nor excessive concern about
blindness gripped me. My children were who they were, I saw
nothing in
need of fixing -- except, perhaps, in the society that shunned
them.
I nursed a parent's terror of Braille, a thing so exotic,
so
beyond my experience, that surely my ignorance of it can only
damage
my child. But what harm could I do now? Kevin's legacy of
Braille's
letters, alphabets, grief, effort, and failure were now discarded
as
junk. I could do no harm.
Kevin could, at least, learn that symbolic languages
exist,
function. He might not read a book, but he might understand
how
others do that. Many who've never piloted aircraft understand
their
workings.
I searched for means such that Kevin might keep what
literacy he
had, perhaps to re-shape that knowledge base a bit to make
life less
confusing to him. The approach: "Hey Kevin, want to
work with Dad?" is
not a proven winner with fourteen-year-olds.
"Hey Kevin, want to work on Braille?" was a
certain loser in
that age.
I mutilated Christmas toys, fashioned my first TACK-TILES®
.
Little building blocks became Braille cells. "Hey Kevin,
guess what I
did to your Lego® blocks!" was as perfect a "come
on"
as any ever devised. I let his very annoyed half-wondering
fingers survey the
damage thoroughly before accounting for myself -or mentioning
B-----.
Then we built words and sentences on toy boards meant
to
serve as front lawns. I was poorly prepared for the success
of early
sessions with Kevin and TACK-TILES® . In that setting,
failure meant
only that I would deny him his great pleasure of confiscating
my
TACK-TILES® , forfeiting opportunity to lodge them onto
his own board.
Here Braille's challenge was a benign contest of human beings,
fun,
much more to his comfort and liking. Braille was lodged in
a world of
his own -- less like the adult's. He allowed me to tease
and fence
with him around his knowledge and ability to use this new
learning
tool. He revealed secrets about his unique learning style,
remained
at task until I wondered if I had an attention disorder. Kevin's
instructor -- his father -- had not the beginning of an idea
how to
proceed. That helped immensely. Kevin and the TACK-TILES®
took
complete charge. Success, followed success in the wake of
success.
His teachers's earlier efforts finally bore fruit. Kevin
was
able to read his grade one Braille papers by the end of that
month.
Nearly nine years would pass before another child would learn
to read
with TACK-TILES®. Five more years beyond that would
pass before we
could afford to make them commercially available in February,
1995.
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reserved.