Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations, Braille Institute

I learned about the Braille Challenge, gosh, 10, 12, 14 years ago, I was aware of it.

I was at the at the time I was the CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle.

And we had a mentor protege relationship with the Lighthouse for the Blind in Port Richey, Florida, which is near Tarpon Springs, the sponge capital of the United States, which is fairly near Tampa.

And the Tampa Lighthouse was having the regional Braille challenge the week that I was there.

So my wife, Roz, and I went and we I got to meet the kids and see the activities they were doing.

It was a Harry Potter theme, so it must have been when Harry Potter was, so the books were so popular.

And I had a chance to talk to the parents while the kids were doing their activities.

And like my parents, most of them had never met a blind person before.

They had a blind child.

So they had a lot of questions about how to raise a child successfully who was blind and Um, so we talked about being developmentally appropriate and talked about, um, creating braille rich environment that your sighted child is surrounded by print all the time.

Um, you know, the cereal box, the magazine on the table, the street signs you drive by.

And, um, you know, you have to be very intentional with the young blind child to have lots of braille around.

And I said, you know, order some Braille magazines from the National Library Service.

You know, let them play with those and tear them up, chew on them and do what little kids do with board books and have put Braille on everything, label everything with Braille.

And then, you know, when you're, if your four-year-old sighted child is out playing in the sandbox and tussling with other kids over the toys you want, you want your blind child out on that playground with their cane doing the same thing.

If you're a 12 or 13 year old sighted child is taking the bus or getting, getting themselves downtown to meet friends, to do things, go to movies.

No, you need to make sure your blind child is learning how to use public transportation as orientation, mobility skills.

So they can do those, those same things.

Um,

and we talked about, um, has the school to work transition.

You have sighted kids doing chores.

You have to, you know, blind kids need to do chores and you need to figure out different, um, approaches to, to do things.

What you want, want blind kids doing the same thing sighted kids do.

Um, using, using the alternative techniques of blindness and literacy is so important.

Uh, Braille is so important for me.