Bay Area Disability
Network
Archived Vision Advice
Blind Etiquette
Unintelligible leading the blind
Combined Braille and print books
Homework
Hoping to be in the Dog House
I need to label my spices, and I don't
use Braille. Does anyone have any good suggestions?
W here can I let my guide dog off harness
in downtown Berkeley?
Is it possible to bring a tandem bike onto BART?
My mother needs a phone with big buttons
so she can see what she's dialing - where can I get one?
I'm making some new signs and want to know the best
color combinations to make them readable by people who are partially sighted.
What should I use?
What do you do about low
hanging branches when you're walking and hit them with your head? Is it
legal to cut them yourself?
I need to label my spices, and I don't
use Braille. Does anyone have any good suggestions?
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I put salt and pepper into distinctive shakers (not matching, so I know
which is which). then I try to get a variety of jars for various spices
that I use. For example, I keep basil in a grey poupon jar, and my cinnamon
is in a tall glass jar. It's amazing how many different jars you can find.
If you have to use some containers that are similar size and shape, make
sure you put spices that smell or feel vastly different in similar jars.
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We have a rule in my house where the spices DO NOT get moved out order
on the spice rack. I combine this with giving them a sniff before I use
them - basil and cinnamon are right next to each other on my spice rack
so you can imagine what would happen if they got switched. This in itself
seems to be what ensures that other people in the house don't mess up the
order. Serves 'em right if they do mess with them.
What do you do about low
hanging branches when you're walking and hit them with your head? Is it legal
to cut them yourself?
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I don't know how "legal" it is, but I carry a small set of pruning shears in my backpack, and when I
hit a low hanging branch, I go ahead and hack it down. Most people don't confront
blind guys wielding pruning shears, so I've never been hassled. I make sure
to throw the branches to the curb so no one trips on them.
Is it possible to bring a tandem bike onto BART?
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As far as I know, there's no rule against it. My riding partner and I bring
the tandem on BART all the time. We try to get two disabled/senior seats together
( the ones that face sideways) and put the bike in front of us (if you put the
bike facing the door, the back end blocks the aisle completely).
Where can I let my guide dog off harness
in downtown Berkeley?
-
The park behind City Hall (between Milvia and MLK, and Center and Allston)
is one place, but I don't think you're supposed to walk dogs there. If you walk
up Center and cross Oxford, there are places just inside the University where
the creek comes through, where you can let the dog roam a bit. But there are
lots of cars on Oxford, lots of people, and other dogs around, so keep the dog
on a long leash.
I'm making some new signs and want to know the best
color combinations to make them readable by people who are partially sighted.
What should I use?
- High contrast is best. Yellow on blue or white on black are probably the
easiest for most people, but there are no right answers. Different eye conditions
work best with different color combinations. Making the print large, with
high contrast, is the best bet.
- Don't get too fancy with the fonts. Everyone's computer comes with about
two million fonts on it and most of them are really hard to read if you have
low vision- just go for boring. Also- don't go crazy with the clip art. It
gets really hard to try and figure out if my vision is getting worse or if
someone has put a weird picture up on the sign that I have to spend five minutes
squinting at.
My mother needs a phone with big buttons
so she can see what she's dialing - where can I get one?
- She can actually get one free from the California Telephone Access program.
Call them at (800) 806-1191, or get info at www.ddtp.org.
I live on a street with no trees, and I'm having problems
identifying a landmark that tells me where my sidewalk begins so I don't walk
past my house. Any great suggestions?
- You can have a person who works with cement implant a texture surface or buy
wind chimes for the front of your house
Hoping to be in the Dog House
I just found out that my house is being sold, so I'm going to have to move. Is there an agency that provides housing referrals for people who use service animals?
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To Hoping to be in the Dog House, A landlord can not discriminate on renting to a person who has an assistance dog. 'No pets allowed' does not apply as the animal is not a pet. I do not know where you live but the Center for Independent Living has a Housing Department that works with residents in Alameda County. For Berkeley the number is 510-841-4776 ext.125 for Ann McLitus, in Oakland 510-763-9999 ask for Chryl Pittman or Janet Brown.
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No special conditions apply to renters with service dogs. You do not need to look for 'special' listings of places that allow service dogs. Service dogs are not pets. Hence, the rules limiting the presence of pets, or requiring additional fees or deposits, do not apply to service dogs. Furthermore, there are legal ramifications if you feel that a landlord denied housing to you on the basis of your service job. That said, many landlords are quite open-minded about service dogs and understand their responsibilities with regard to them. It helps if you can present your dogs certificate of training (i.e. Canine Companions for Independence, Assistants Dog Institute, Paws with a Cause etc.). Happy househunting!
Homework
I would like to hear from other parents who are blind or have vision impairments about how they helped their kids with their homework. I am legally blind, my daughter is now nine and I’d like to work more with her. Math is particularly difficult for us to work together on as I can’t see her calculations and she has quite a bit of trouble explaining concepts that she hasn’t fully internalized yet. Alex
- Hi Alex. I am a blind parent and can provide you with many suggestions.
I would also like to suggest you join the Blind Parents List at Smartgroups.com.
I will include the information below. As soon as you send an email to blind-parents-subscribe@smartgroups.com
You will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Just reply
to that email -- you don't need anything in the body of the message, just
hit reply and then send. At that point, you should begin receiving messages
from the new list. This is an active list of blind parents from all over the
world and they have already provided me with several ideas about homework
and their children. I would suggest you have a talk with your child's teacher
and ask for notes in an accessible format for your use with homework. Also
if they can send you her homework via the computer in a text file that would
be very helpful to you. For math, use manipulative's to have her explain to
you. Pennies, small Legos, toothpicks, blocks, whatever you want that will
help her and you draw a picture of the problem and then figure out how to
solve it. You can also start teaching your child how to be more verbal for
you, it is good practice for her anyway, and the more she does it the better
she will be. Have her read to you when you travel, signs, anything that you
might need, bus numbers. This will help her understand what you do not see
well, and then when homework comes she will be more able to describe her own
needs to you. If you have a CCTV put her homework under it, and if you don't
you should look into getting if your vision will let your use it. Please contact
me and I will be glad to provide you with more ideas. Debbie Bacon Project
Manager National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities Through the
Looking Glass Berkeley , CA
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For the person with visual impairment asking how she can help her daughter
with homework, I recommend joining and posting the same query on a listserv
I belong to of both sighted parents of children with visual impairment and
parents with visual impairment.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BVI-Parents/
Combined Braille and print books
I’m blind, and I want to be able to read books to/with my three year old sighted daughter. I have had very little luck finding books that have both Braille and print and I’ve had zero luck finding anything that’s suitable for a three year old. Does anyone know of a local source for these books? It would be great if she could look at and choose the books that she wanted. She’s become very good at explaining her regular picture books to me but I want to reverse the process. If there are no good books available what have other parents done?
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I asked someone I know who works for American Printing House for the Blind about combined Braille and print books for children and he gave these resources: The first resource is 'Chrissy's Collection Combined Print & Braille Books' Includes titles such as The Gingerbread Man, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (one of my personal favorites!), The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and more for $25 each. ( http://www.aph.org/products/chrissy.html) The second resource is Seedlings Braille Books for Children ( http://www.seedlings.org/). They have a link in their catalog for combined braille and print books or picture books (probably more appropriate for 3-year-olds) for four to nine dollars each. Seedlings phone number is (800) 777-8552. The third resource is National Braille Press ( http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/publications/kid_books.html). They have braille/print books and books for the computer. National Braille Press phone number is (888) 965-8965. I realize this isn't any help for a local resource where your daughter can pick out books she likes, but at least it's something! It seems like the books use a clear plastic film with braille on it that sticks to the book page. You could always make your own if that kind of technology is commercially available! Carolyn
- If you have access to the Internet, try this search in Google 'print/braille books'. It results in many hits. The first hit is the Braille bookstore, at http://www.braillebookstore.com/ Also, at this American Federation of the Blind site, there is a list of resources. http://www.afb.org/section.asp?SectionID=6&DocumentID=1249, lcutler
Unintelligible leading the blind
I'm blind, and I ride BART and the MUNI metro a lot. Though the train operators usually do a good job of announcing the stops, often the loud speakers are screwed up - so you get an announcement that sounds like "PRF NIXPER BLASTOID" Is there a place where I can get a Braille listing of all the BART stations and MUNI Metro stops? If I had that, I could just follow along with the number of stops we made. Thank you. Josh
- I work for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, so I asked your question of my co-workers here. They suggested that you contact the transit agency in question (Muni, BART). They are required to make information available in accessible formats. My co-workers didn't know whether they have a list of stops/stations in Braille, but they would have it in some format for blind/visually impaired people. The contact at Muni would be Annette Williams at (415) 923-6142, and Susan Gallagher at BART at 464-6184.
Blind Etiquette
Question:
I have a question about etiquette, particularly when seeing blind people: When
you see a person who is blind using a cane walking on a busy street and waiting
at the light, is it helpful (or more distracting) to tell them when it's safe
to cross? I'm never sure. I know blind people are using their hearing to tell
when the traffic moves on one street or another, and they listen to hear what
the other pedestrians are doing. If I say "The light's green now"
am I actually helping, or is it being more of a distraction to the person's
concentration on traffic sounds? I want to be helpful, but I don't want to be
a jerk.
Answers:
- I'm not blind, but with regard to the larger question of offering help to
any disabled person, a lot of us find it annoying to be offered assistance
when we thought we were looking good and doing fine. In my wheelchair I'm
grateful if someone offers to reach something on a high shelf that I'm looking
at, but if there's no obvious problem, an offer of assistance suggests that
I look incompetent. If you're in doubt, wait a moment and you'll probably
be able to tell whether help is needed.
- I think it's fine to say 'can I be of any assistance?' to a blind person.
I'd prefer that is how someone offer me assistance, instead of grabbing my
arm or yelling 'the light's still red' when I'm not giving any indication
of moving forward. But you know, we blind folk are an odd lot, and you'll
probably run into some jerk who'll get pissed off, no matter what you do.
Don't let that stop you. The answer here really is a little like Clinton's
solution to gays in the military: Ask, don't tell.
