A Weekend of Learning - Deafblind Children

I'm really proud of Leslie, not just because she's a great, dedicated mom, but because she's willing to do anything for Olivia. She spent the entire weekend at a seminar sponsored by two Texas agencies that advocate for children that are deafblind.

Let me digress here, what is deafblind? I searched for the best description I could find and wouldn't you know that Wikipedia had the one that made the most sense. Here it is.

"Deafblindness is the condition of little or no useful sight and little or no useful hearing.[1][2] Educationally, individuals are considered to be deafblind when the combination of their hearing and vision loss causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they require significant and unique adaptations in their educational programs.[3] Deafblind people have an experience quite distinct from people who are only deaf or only blind."

It's hard to comprehend what that really means, but can you imagine be deaf AND blind? Leslie experienced a little of that world this weekend when she was blindfolded and then things were shoved in her hand and mouth with little or no warning...AWFUL. She learned a lot and gave me a lot to think about too. It was a long weekend but she came away with a lot of good information and taught me a lot about how Olivia interacts with the world.

Try it -- have someone blindfold you and put in ear plugs...how hard is it to interact with your world?

According to all of the statistics I've seen, there are only about 10,000 - 15,000 deafblind people living in the US. Regardless of the actual number it's not very many. What I took away from the weekend was that it's going to be VERY hard to get Olivia any semblance of a good education in public schools without both Leslie and I fighting for every single thing. It's hard enough for the "average" (whatever that means) child to get a good education, can you imagine what that means for a deafblind child?

One thing I know for sure is that Olivia is a fighter and that her will (and our attitudes) are going to go a long way in helping her shape her future.

Chad