
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991                   TAG: 9104030498
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: VIRGIL A. COOK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

KICKER GOES HERE/ EACH BLIND CHILD HAS INDIVIDUAL NEEDS

THE TWO articles by Neal Thompson March 17 touched too lightly on the central issue: the importance of carefully assessing the needs of the individual blind child.

Public Law 94-142 mandates equal education for the handicapped. School systems have rightly mainstreamed their handicapped children. The stark reality, however, is that many school systems have denied blind students adequate instruction in braille: that basic skill the blind need to compete in the world of the sighted.

Strong braille skills - which I learned and sharpened during 11 years at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind at Staunton - served me well through college and graduate school, helping me to earn a Ph.D. Admittedly, adjusting to a learning environment not designed to accommodate my disability was traumatic. But having been allowed to succeed repeatedly and gain self-confidence as well as the braille and coping skills I acquired at VSDB, I survived.

Would I have done so if I had been nominally mainstreamed - as all too often happens - and shunted into a corner, socially promoted year after year, and awarded a worthless high-school diploma? Would I be where I am now? Would I be on the welfare rolls instead of on the tax rolls?

Teaching English-literature and English-composition courses requires daily, extensive use of my braille. I must consult my lecture notes, read to a class passages of poetry that I wish to explicate, follow textbook exercises as students recite in class. Work outside the classroom requires reading everything from notes to scholarly books in my field.

Yet, I must often do without material in braille. Few such college textbooks are available,so I must use many recorded books. Even so, I prefer braille and use it whenever it is available. Imagine the frustration of someone who does not know braille. A simple task like looking up an address or keeping track of appointments is trying.

The issue is not whether a residential or public-school environment is best for blind children; the issue is which is best for the individual child. Before deciding between mainstreaming and a residential school, parents should assess both their child's needs, strengths and weaknesses, and the particular school system's competence to address those areas.

Only then will the child be able to receive the type of education that he or she needs. It may well be that a combination of mainstreaming and several years at VSDB to learn braille and other skills thoroughly will be the answer.

Virgil A. Cook, blind since birth, is an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech.

by CNB