The Language of Hands

Deaf-Blind Awareness Week is June 26 through July 2. We can learn so much about dual sensory loss starting with our hands.
 
People with both a vision and a hearing loss learn to communicate with their hands. Not only are hands important tools for accomplishing daily routines, hands become a person’s sense organ like their eyes and ears and a voice for expression.
 
A Shared Vision’s teachers occasionally work with families who have a very young child with dual sensory loss. They teach parents how to “read” their child’s hands, how to interact with their child using cues and strategies such as hand under hand, help them develop important tactile skills, and provide opportunities for their child to access their environment. Parents learn how to “speak the language of the hands to the hands” with their child.
 
Read more about the importance of hands for a person who is deafblind HERE.

Build a Toy Bar

Very young children who are blind or visually impaired learn best by being active participants in their environment. A toy bar is one way to encourage participation because they will use purposeful movement to reach for or grasp an object hanging from the bar.
 
Toy bars are easy to make yourself and customize with your child’s favorite toys. Learn how HERE.

Esmeralda's Day

What are some developmentally appropriate activities a parent or caregiver can do with their child who is blind or visually impaired? How do Early Intervention Teachers of the Visually Impaired model for parents how to engage with their child and provide a variety of multi-sensory experiences for the child to gain access to the visual world?
 
Learn more in A Shared Vision’s exclusive, digital children’s book, Esmeralda’s Day. It's available on our website.
 
This simple book was inspired by one of our teachers’ visits with Esmeralda and her mother Irma. Since one of Esmeralda’s favorite activities is eating, the teacher tried some of A Shared Vision’s Sensory Recipes and Learning Experiences with the family. The book also shows how to use some basic strategies when engaging with a child who is blind or visually impaired.

It's OK to Get Dirty!

Since it began in 2008, International Mud Day celebrations happen all over the world on June 29 to connect children to the earth and discover the messy joy of playing with mud.
 
When you’re outside after a rainy day, try helping your child make handprints or footprints in the mud. If the feeling of wet, grainy dirt is a new, sensory experience for your child, use hand under hand to introduce this natural texture, and have a towel or wipe handy for clean-up.
 
You can even put some mud into a Ziploc bag and let your child squish the bag.
 
Scoop up some mud from outside and with a paintbrush or your fingers paint with mud on a piece of paper or the sidewalk.
 
Read a “dirty” book together like Mud by Mary Lyn Ray or Stuck in the Mud by Jane E. Clarke.
 
Gardening is a way to experience how plants grow in dirt. Try an easy gardening project like growing seeds in a container with some of these ideas HERE.

The Year in Review

A Shared Vision’s teachers empower parents so they can empower their child’s development. Read about these stories of empowerment in our 2023 Annual Impact Report HERE.
 
As one parent from Loveland, CO, commented in our Annual Caregiver Questionnaire,“It can be very isolating having a child with a visual impairment, and our teacher made me feel not so alone. She listened. She not only helped in my child’s development, but in my growth as well.”
 
We are grateful for our partnerships with Colorado’s Community Centered Boards who provide case management services and refer families to our teachers. And for the continued financial support from individual and business donors, as well as the Buell Foundation, the James Hynd Trust for the Blind, LONG Building Technologies, Inc., and the Gerald Erikson Fund of the Pikes Peak Community Foundation, who awarded us grants in 2023. You empower us!

A Shared Vision is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the leading provider of in-home and community early intervention vision services in Colorado. We inspire and empower families to nurture the development of their very young children who are blind or visually impaired so that all children may discover their brightest future.