Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Blindisms - what they are and why we need our children not to do them!

Blindisms are those characteristic movements that some blind people make that appear unusual  to sighted people.  These movements may be some kind of compensation for the lack of visual input, although no one really seems to know.  Some examples of blindisms that a child might do are: 1) flapping their hands, or shiny objects,  in front of their eyes, 2) rocking  back and forth or side to side, with just their head or with their whole body, 3) jumping  in place for long periods of time, and 4) eyepressing - pressing or poking fingers, palms, and even knees into their eye sockets so that their finger might seem to disappear up to the second knuckle!  Another less frustrating blindisms is not looking at a person speaking to them, preferring to have the person speak to their ear, which makes perfect sense, but doesn't work very well in a world of sighted people who expect someone to look at them if they are paying attention.


Blindisms are habits, and the longer a child does them, the harder it is for them to break that habit. They may provide some kind of stimulation for a brain starved of something to do visually, but as far as I know there is no known useful purpose for them, and some, like eyepressing, can cause even more eye damage.  In fact, with eyepressing done from a young age, a child's face may become deformed and the eyes appear driven backward into their head.


These behaviors may be tolerated in incredibly talented creative persons, like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, where odd behavior is not only permitted but sometimes expected, but not all of our kids are going to be commanding thousands of dollars at every performance or sell millions of recordings.


A blind or visually impaired person has historically had a very difficult time getting gainful, full employment.  Visualize your child going to a job interview and doing whatever blindism is their particular choice.  Imagine him or her, dressed in suit and tie, jumping, or rocking back and forth so hard in their chair they look like they are on an amusement park ride.  Or what if your child flaps their hands constantly in front of their face, or if they drill their fingers into their eyes?  What if your darling child becomes, well, ugly to sighted people, because their eyes are sunken into their eye sockets?  How would a prospective employer feel about this?  Would he or she find this behavior distracting, annoying, or disgusting - even revolting?  Would you hire someone like that?  Be honest with yourself!


A caveat:  it's different if your child has other disabilities that create odd behaviors or appearances that are not physically attractive.  I'm not talking about those kinds of things.  Behaviors that are inherent to your child's disability, such as cerebral palsy, are still difficult for most sighted people to accept, and we need to give our kids all the skills we can to allow them to advocate for themselves in regard to their particular set of characteristics.  We live in a world that is not yet very accepting of those who are different, and children who are blind or visually impaired already have a strike or two against them from the outset because of others' assumptions.  I'm talking about behaviors that ARE controllable, and about not giving the sighted "others" even more reason to discount our children.  


As parents we need to visualize the future and act on that vision to make it happen.  If we visualize a future for our child in which they stand up straight, look people in the eye, and appear to be paying close attention to what is being said to them, then we need to help them learn behaviors that will get them to that goal.  When you first adopt a puppy, it's so cute when they jump up on you and want to lick your face and jump up on the couch with you to snuggle.  It's not so cute when that puppy becomes a 75 pound Labrador capable of knocking out your front teeth.  We need to raise our children with their future always firmly planted in our minds.

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