POLAND — Taylor Downs sees the world in a different way than most of her friends.

The Poland Community School pupil sits on the entrance of her warmly-lit classroom, near the blackboard however away from the home windows. When the phrases in her textbooks or on the blackboard are too small for her to make out, she makes use of a closed-circuit tv magnifier — extra generally generally known as a CCTV — to challenge the phrases on a big monitor sitting on her desk.

Learning in school as a visually impaired particular person could be troublesome at occasions for the 9-year-old. Even day after day. Some days her imaginative and prescient is healthier, and a few days it’s worse.

“(It’s) kind of annoying,” she stated.

Downs was born with albinism, a uncommon genetic situation which gave her pale options and unhealthy eyesight. Albinism impacts the manufacturing of melanin, the pigment that colours hair, pores and skin and eyes; it’s additionally concerned within the improvement of the retina, a skinny layer of cells behind the attention.

Albinism is one among many causes kids could also be born with or develop visible impairments. Nationally, almost 3% of kids beneath 18 are blind or have a imaginative and prescient impairment, outlined as having bother seeing even when sporting glasses or contact lenses, in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Taylor Downs does schoolwork May 9 in her third-grade classroom at Poland Community School. The 9-year-old is visually impaired and makes use of an enlarger to challenge her work onto a monitor that helps her see her progress. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

People with albinism are additionally notably delicate to gentle. Because they lack pigment of their eyes, lights typically seem far brighter to them. They are additionally extra vulnerable to extreme sunburns and pores and skin most cancers.

“It feels like I’m a bit different from other people, because I just might not have the same eye, hair and skin color as them, but I’m also kind of the same,” she stated. “I’ve been teaching my classmates certain things about blind and visually impaired people.”

Downs has the type of confidence that may make most adults envious. She isn’t shy about telling others about herself or advocating for what she must succeed. Many of her buddies know now to save lots of her a spot on the entrance of the group throughout class actions, Downs stated.

But Downs doesn’t must study to navigate faculty on her personal. She additionally has a specialised instructor from Catholic Charities of Maine who meets along with her as soon as every week.

Joyce Kyllonen works with Taylor Downs on her typing abilities May 9 at Poland Community School in Poland. It is vital that Downs learns to kind in case her visible impairment worsens. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Joyce Kyllonen works with Downs and a dozen different kids with imaginative and prescient impairments in central Maine, instructing them abilities particular to their wants. While she meets with a few of her college students a number of occasions every week, others she sees simply a number of occasions a yr.

Catholic Charities of Maine is the only real supplier of lecturers of the visually impaired within the the state, serving about 300 kids from York to Aroostook County.

Nancy Moulton, director of Catholic Charities of Maine’s schooling providers for visually impaired kids, has been a instructor with the nonprofit since 1988. Over the years, she’s seen the variety of visually impaired kids with advanced wants develop. These are kids who produce other disabilities past their imaginative and prescient, she defined.

She estimated that over half of the youngsters they serve have advanced wants, primarily attributing the rise to advances in medical know-how. Today, medical doctors are capable of save the lives of extra kids with developmental disabilities or medical problems than they have been up to now, she stated.

KYLLONEN’S STUDENTS

Every Tuesday morning, Kyllonen helps Downs apply her typing abilities on a laptop computer specifically designed for individuals with unhealthy eyesight. The keys are bigger, vibrant yellow with black textual content, and have braille.

For half-hour, she practices typing phrases like “hot potato” and “on par” with out wanting on the keyboard, utilizing a program created to show blind individuals. She additionally performs on-line typing video games which problem her to search out letters shortly.

“When I get older, my vision might get a bit worse,” Downs stated. “I need to know my keys so it’s easy for me (to use computers).”

Teachers like Kyllonen help and educate kids from start till highschool commencement or 22 years of age, whichever comes first. These lecturers meet college students wherever they’re at, whether or not it’s a public, non-public or homeschool setting.

Many of their college students, even those that are blind, are capable of study in school rooms alongside their friends, with minor changes. Others require specialised packages.

Schools will typically rent an schooling technician to help blind college students, she stated, serving to to make classes extra accessible by studying schooling supplies out loud or translating textual content into braille utilizing a specialised machine.

Owen Bowie makes use of a slant board Thursday to deliver a paper he’s writing on nearer to his eyes. His fifth grade instructor, Mollee Brooks, presents encouragement. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Owen Bowie, a fifth-grader at East Auburn Community School, is one other one among Kyllonen’s college students. He additionally has albinism like Downs, however a unique, much less extreme kind.

Kyllonen has been working with Bowie and his household since he was 4 months previous. His imaginative and prescient is healthier than Downs — simply lacking the mark for the authorized definition of blindness, his mom says — and Kyllonen typically checks in with him and his instructor each few months.

Beyond working with college students one-on-one, one among Kyllonen’s most vital duties is advising classroom lecturers. At the beginning of the college yr, she meets with all of her college students’ lecturers to assist them perceive the wants of visually impaired college students.

“I can always see that nervousness that a teacher has because they’re not sure how is this going to work, especially if they’ve never had a student with a visual impairment,” Kyllonen stated. “Then after a couple of months, you can see that they’re like, ‘Oh, this is so doable.’”

The most blatant change in Bowie and Downs’ school rooms is the material sleeves which cowl the classroom lights. These sleeves scale back glare and dim the lighting, making it extra snug for his or her delicate eyes.

Bowie’s instructor, Mollee Brooks, has made different, extra discrete adjustments to her fifth-grade classroom this yr. She gives additional darkish pencils for Bowie to make use of, at Kyllonen’s suggestion, and has tailored classes to be extra inclusive to his wants.

“(It’s) just little tweaks that make his day so much easier,” Brooks stated. “They’re things that don’t take a lot of time or effort or energy on the teacher’s part, but they’re things that I would never know existed if I didn’t have Joyce.”

Bowie doesn’t have a CCTV like Downs. Instead, he primarily makes use of a handheld magnifier and an iPad, which has been particularly helpful.

He recalled a time not too long ago when he was having issue studying a narrative in one among his textbooks. Even with the assistance of his magnifier, he nonetheless couldn’t learn the textual content. Instead, he and his instructor have been capable of finding the identical story on his iPad, which allows him to zoom in and enlarge the textual content.

Advancements in know-how have performed a vital position in making every little thing from schooling to employment alternatives to leisure alternatives extra accessible to individuals with visible impairments.

Owen Bowie, 10, makes use of a globe magnifier Thursday to enlarge textual content and pictures in books on the East Auburn Community School. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Bowie’s dad, a hunter, purchased a cellphone mount for Bowie’s crossbow to assist him see higher.

“When he puts it on the camera mode, it puts the crosshairs in the phone and makes everything bigger so I can actually see it,” Bowie stated.

Both Downs and Bowie stated they wished individuals might perceive their disabilities with out having to clarify it.

“I wish (people would) understand better that some people can’t see as well as them and that other people might not get things as clear as they can,” Downs stated.

“It really is hard for them, it’s a struggle,” Bowie’s mom, Allison, stated. “A lot of people tend to forget that he has a disability and that he does have a hard time. It’s easy because he does cope so well.”

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES

Steve Hoad of Windsor has personally skilled the evolution of accessible know-how. Growing up in New Jersey as a blind pupil within the Fifties and Sixties, he was capable of attend public faculty with assist from a instructor of the visually impaired.

New Jersey offered ample assets for educating blind college students, he stated. All of his textbooks have been obtainable in braille, and if he wished to learn a guide from the library, the college would order a translated copy. In the third grade, he realized to make use of a typewriter to finish his assignments.

Learning at Bates College in Lewiston was far harder, he stated, as a result of his textbooks have been solely obtainable on tape.

As a toddler, his dad and mom would learn him articles and comics within the newspaper. Then, he couldn’t learn the paper until somebody learn the article aloud.

Now, a display screen studying program allows Hoad to “read” dozens of stories articles every day and make connections on Twitter, amongst many different issues.

Hoad emphasised the significance of instructing visually impaired kids, particularly blind kids, life abilities.

“I know some older blind folks who have really suffered because they weren’t taught some of the skills, not just computer skills, but some of the general skills that are very necessary to operate as an independent blind person,” he stated.

Steve Hoad stands in 2011 on his Windsor farm. “There has to be a mindset within each person that teaches a blind student that that blind student is normal,” he says. “That’s very hard.” Portland Press Herald file

In addition to their faculty providers, lecturers like Kyllonen additionally host discipline journeys designed to assist visually impaired kids and their households construct neighborhood and apply vital life abilities.

On a current discipline journey to a church in Turner, older college students have been tasked with making a finances, procuring at Hannaford, and making ready a meal. Students have been in a position to make use of a tactile or excessive distinction giant print map of the grocery retailer ready by one of many lecturers, if wanted.

In the kitchen, college students practiced reducing meals, opening ovens, figuring out when meals is finished cooking and extra.

“If you can’t see, there’s so many skills to learn and those skills need to be taught directly,” Kyllonen stated. “Sometimes we do those individually with a student, but it’s so much more fun to get students together.”

Another current discipline journey for youthful college students in Westbrook supplied arts and crafts and different actions.

Every yr close to Christmas, older college students are invited to take part within the annual Maine Mall scavenger hunt. Students full quite a lot of duties within the mall, have lunch, then go Christmas procuring within the afternoon. Younger college students are taken to Walmart to buy Christmas presents, an exercise Downs stated she cherished.

“It was strange, because I’ve never really met anyone that’s like me,” she stated. “I also met some blind people, (and) I worked really well with them.”

Hoad, for his half, stated some individuals suppose he is perhaps a bit too impartial for his personal good. With little entry to public transportation in rural Maine, he generally hitchhikes when touring and doesn’t hesitate to make use of a chainsaw, one thing his neighbors have stated makes them nervous.

“There has to be a mindset within each person that teaches a blind student that that blind student is normal,” he stated. “That’s very hard.”

Related Stories