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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2018 - 10 - 07 - ID#9matu9
17
Advice for Visually Impaired son who is into math (self.Blind)
submitted by stingray_1122
Hi, my son is Visually Impaired with retinitis pigmentosa. He goes to a great school for the Visually Impaired and is learning Braille at an above average pace. He’s also really into math, like so into it he does math facts to pass the time. He’s 7 years old and is in second grade. Over the summer he used our Alexa Dot to teach himself multiplication. We’d like to figure out some ways he could take his love of math to learn more about maybe software coding or another skill. Does anyone have advice on how to continue encouraging him and also helping him apply his love of math? Thanks in advance!
ieee8023 9 points 4y ago
Learn LaTeX! You can write math and read the source with a screen reader. Here is a tutorial: http://www.math.harvard.edu/texman/

laconicflow 3 points 4y ago
And here's me thinking you still really needed braille for math.
stingray_1122 [OP] 2 points 4y ago
Thank you, we'll check it out.
codeofdusk 3 points 4y ago
Reminds me of me and my friend /u/graham87 when we were that age. Playing with calculators to learn how things work, etc.

Blind people into math exist, but there aren't a lot of us – especially as you get into higher levels. Sadly, this means that schools for the blind will limit his potential when he gets to a certain point.

I'd say let him keep exploring and learning. My story is unique, in that I discovered a set of batch file commands online at around age 8 and started exploring from there, writing simple computer programs and such. If he isn't familiar with screen reading (or, in his case, magnification) software, give him access to tutorials. JAWS, for example, includes a set of training tapes. Let him play them, give him access to a machine with a screen reader (even the 40-minute demo, which is what I had, as the school said I was "too young" for the computer) and let him experiment at his own pace. I'm not sure how much (or if) you should guide this process, as most of it was self-exploration in my case.
stingray_1122 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Thank you for the information. We're setting him up with a computer with a screen reader. He uses JAWS at school but it's too pricey for home right now. His teachers have recommended a free screen reader for us to try.

We're totally into letting him explore and learn at his own pace and what interests him most. We just want make sure there are appropriate things for him to continue exploring :)
codeofdusk 1 points 4y ago
To be honest, I haven't used JAWS in years for various reasons, even though that's where I started – I like $1, a free screen reader you can download for home use. The closest analog to the aforementioned JAWS tapes I know of is $1, although I suspect the JAWS tapes are of a little higher quality.
Graham87 2 points 4y ago
I, like /u/codeofdusk, was really into maths as a kid ... I loved playing with numbers and doing mental calculations. Does your son have a Braille notetaker or talking/Braille calculator? If so, encourage him to mess around with it and play with its commands/functions. This sort of experimentation is how we learnt about decimal points and negative numbers long before they were covered at school. I mention Braille notetakers/talking calculators because the Windows calculator only works well with JAWS, and only with versions of Windows below Windows 10, and I don't know of a well-documented alternative for Windows.
stingray_1122 [OP] 2 points 4y ago
He does not have a Braille note taker or talking calculator. I’ll look into getting one for him. Thank you!
narfarnst 2 points 4y ago
Can he see at all? $1 is a graphics-based programming 'language' that was designed by MIT to help teach kids to code. I bet the'd have some fun with that.

You can also get legos to help him with his spatial reasoning skills.

It may also be worth cross-posting to r/teaching or r/matheducation or subs like that to see if any teachers have direct experience or advice for you.

Also, you should be aware that the math education system in the US is utter garbage. A kid at 7 that is into math is kinda rare, please try to encourage him as much as possible and not let the awful machine that is US public education beat it out of him.
stingray_1122 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Thank you for the info and advice! I didn’t even think to post to those subs.

He does still have some central vision that is 20/100 and about 20 percent peripheral. I totally agree with the statements about US public education. We are very lucky with his current school as there have been very good about keeping his lessons up to speed with his learning. We’ll be talking with them about more advanced math as well. Just today he started doing algebra questions in the car based on remembering things I mentioned to him last year.

We have a lot of legos but he’s not interested in them. We’ll check out scratch, I think he’d enjoy that.
anarcap 2 points 4y ago
What is his age?

Did you knew that the greatest mathematician of all time went blind? After he went blind he started the most prolific time of his life.

His name was Euler.
stingray_1122 [OP] 2 points 4y ago
He is 7. Thanks for share Euler! I've begun reading more about him and now I'm fascinated. I'll be sharing this with my son for sure.
bondolo 2 points 4y ago
There are a lot of interesting $1 workbooks on a variety of subjects and their $1 is reportedly quite good.
stingray_1122 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Interesting, I'll check those out. Thank you.
laconicflow 1 points 4y ago
As a totally blind guy who's always hated math with a burning passion, I could be wrong here but I think braille is really important for math in a way it isn't these days for other things. I always felt with math that I had to 'see' not hear a problem, and I could only do that with braille. So I guess my biggest advice is just to make e he learns all the braille related to math. Beyond that the advice is the same it would be for sited people. Find math books and games. You could go buy him a math textbook for where he is so he could keep learning on his own.
stingray_1122 [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Thank you, he's doing really well with Braille and is exclusively Braille at school, including with Math.
laconicflow 1 points 4y ago
I would say at the age of 14 or 15, once he won't ever forget how to read, introduce him to digital ways to read. I never use braille now because having a computer read me things is faster, but learning braille was hugely important because that's learning how to read.
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