How Do You Use A Cane?

As a blind person I get asked this question a lot. I try to answer as best I can without confusing the person who just asked me that question. I’m going to try and explain this as best I can and hopefully I won’t confuse anyone.
How you use a cane first depends on your cane instructor (mobility specialist) and the techniques he/she chooses to teach you. Next it depends on the cane tip that is purchased for your cane. These cane tips can range from the rolling ball tip to the metal glide tip and many more in between.
The metal glide tip Is a long lasting cane tip and works better indoors. With this cane tip though you have to pick up your cane and move it from right to left. This causes the tip to go “tap. Tap.” as you move it. This is not good for outside use because you might miss something like a crack in the sidewalk. That is if I’m remembering correctly.
The rolling ball tip is the tip that rolls on the ground. That way you don’t miss that crack in the sidewalk and you don’t have to lift your cane to get it to move from side to side.
Just like there many different kinds of cane tips with each having their own uses they’re many different kinds of canes with different purposes. By purpposes I mean whether they can fold or not., and their size.
The techniques you may use with your Mobility Specialist may depend on the situation. You may be learning how to cross the street safely, you may be going inside a store, or you may be learning how to get around your house.
These are just some of the cane techniques you might use:
1. Move the cane the with of your body from left to right.
When going up a set of stairs hold your cane straight up so that the tip can touch the bottom of the next step.
3. When going down hold the cane as you normally would when you’re walking until your cane falls of the edge of the next step then hold it straight up until you reach your cane and then step down. That way your not taking huge steps when you don’t need to.
I always tell people that my cane is like an extend finger in that it helps to feel the crack in the sidewalk or to know when there is a set of stairs.
This is one of the probably many places where you can get cane tips for your cane as well as a cane:

http://www.braillebookstore.com/view.php?C=Travel+Accessories

How many times in this entry did I say “many”? lol.
I hope I answered your all your questions about cane use.
Happy Reading!

Is it difficult to travel to a place where you’ve never been… alone?

Let’s imagine that you’re entering a school building with a friend and you’re using sighted guide. You’ve never been inside this building before, but you’re not worried about because your friend will be there to help you. As you walk further into the building your fears about getting lost lessen and you start to rely on that friend as you go from class to class.
What if you didn’t have a friend to accompany you inside the building? What if all you had was your cane for guidance and you had no idea where you were going. Would you get lost? Would you be scared? Of course you would. There is one thing that you have available to you that you may not realize. What is it? The ability to ask a question. And sense the example I used earlier is a school building I’m going to continue with it here now. Walk up to someone and asked “Do you know where (incert any name you wish’s) classroom is?” The person who you’re talking to may say “sure take the first hallway to the left, second door on your right.”
Here is a few tips that may help you if you (the blind person) find themselves lost in a building etc. At least one of these tips can also help the sighted person when they’re trying to help the blind person. These are the tips that I’ve learned over the years and I still use them because they’re helpful.
1. If it’s possible try to learn your way around the place where you’ve never been. Try it a few times with a sighted person to help you and then try it on your own. This way the place can become more fimilear to you even if you don’t know where everything is yet.
2. For your first time of fimilearizing yourself with a place, try entering it when there is less people inside. That way you don’t have to be in a huge crowd.
3. When all else fails find some one and ask them if they know where whatever it is you’re looking for is.
4. This one’s mostly for the sighted. When giving directions give clear and specific directions when asked by a blind person. For example don’t say things like “it’s over there.” or “It’s right down that hallway.” you may leave the blind person wandering what you meant by that. You don’t have to personally take us there just tell us where the place we’re looking for is.
So to answer the question for which this blog post is named, the answer is no. As long as you take at least a part of what I said into consideration.
I hope you enjoyed this blog even if you weren’t blind.
Thanks to the person who sent this in.
If you would like to send me ideas for a blog post send an email to:
Stephieonyoutube@gmail.com
Remember to make the subject say something like “ideas for blog post”
Or you can leave a commeant here. Your choice.

Answering more questions

I am back and hope to define and clarify some things that I’ve written in the past as well as answer a question or two.
So let’s get started.
First of all I want to make something verry clear to all the blind or visually impaired people who may stumble on this blog post, You Can clean house. If you believe you can’t aren’t you just proving all of those people in society who believe that these things cannot be accomplished right? Being blind or visually impaired is only a handycap if you let it be one. I’m not sure but I think that there’s programs where you can learn to clean your house. Though I never have been in a program like that before. I just had the will and determination that I was going to learn how to do it. I have heard of so manny blind people say “I can’t clean my house because I’m blind.” One thing to say on that, if I can, You can. Now here’s a question for all of you sighted people: Before you read this or any of my blogs (especially the one about cleaning house) did you think that we couldn’t clean our own house or did you not think about it at all? I’m not implying that all of society thinks this way, I’m just wandering what you thought before you read my blogs. I’m sorry for the ummm… outburst, but I felt like someone should say it and it might as well be me. It’s just that it drives me crazy when I hear someone say that they can’t do something when I know they can.
Okay on to the questions now.
The question will start with the letter “q: and the answer will start with the letter “a:
1. q: How can you tell if someone is smiling if you can’t tell by touch? a: I can usually tell how a person feels by the way they speak. Meaning the tone of their voice. A good example of this is when my cousin is mad she usually doesn’t sound like she does when she’s happy. I also think some of it is being able to sense it.
2. q: What if a sighted person is mad at you and comes and sits down next to you without speaking to you? a: I think a lot of it has to do with sensing it. It’s really hard to explain it to a sighted person because I don’t really understand how I can do that myself.
Now I need to clarify something else. When I said that we may not know who you are because of your voice changing I did not mean that the blind person would forget who his/her sighted friend is. I only meant that the blind person may not recognize the sighted person’s voice. For instance I still remember some of my friends from elementary school, but that doesn’t mean that one day if they walked up to me and said “hi.” that I’d remember who they are based on their voices.
I hope everyone had a good holiday season.
Thanks to the person who sent this in.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year

This post is not about being blind or anything associated with being blind. This is simply me wishing you a Merry Christmas and a happy newyear and a happy hollidays to those of you who cellebrate a holliday other than Christmas. I hope you get lots of presents and that they are what you wanted.
I will start writing blogs again on the 8th of January. Yes, I am taking a break from writing blogs.
Have a happy and safe holliday season.

Sighted Guide; The Right Way.

Whether you’re a student in a school or colledge, a teacher, a professor, working at some type of business such as a store or a restaurant, or you are a person who is helping a blind friend there is one technique you need to know. This technique is useful for both sighted and blind people. Even though you may know it you may not know how to do it correctly. Not knowing how to do it correctly can cause you (the sighted person) or the blind person to trip and fall, or worse.
The technique I am talking about is sighted guide. It is useful in many types of situations as in the ones I listed above. It’s important as blind to teach you if you don’t know the technique. It’s also just as important that you (the sighted person) listen to us. We as blind people have had training by people such as mobility teachers (cane instructors, or cane teachers) etc so most of us are pretty sure about what we’re doing. Down below I’m going to list the things that sighted people do wrong, then I will list the right ways. In these lists the words “wrong and right” will be before the word “list”
Wrong List
1. To lead a blind person around you should take their hand.
2. When entering or exiting through a door you should let the blind person go through first.
3. If you’re the one leading the blind person you should hold the door until they come through or exit.
4. When walking in small isles you should always be behind the blind person.
5. The blind person should always be a few steps ahead of you.
6. When leading a blind person You should take their arm.
Right List. (this goes in order of the wrong list)
1. You should not take their hand, unless they’re a little kid, or your husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend. If you do you might make them feel like a little kid even when they’re not. You may also make them feel embarrased as I often do when people do that to me. What you should do (especially if they aren’t paying attention) is gently nudge them in the side with the side of your arm what this tells a blind person is “Take a hold.” Before you do that you should try Moving your arm slightly bent at the elbo towards the blind person and let it touch their arm, side or hand. This should let the person know that you’re ready to lead them. You can even say when you’re doing either one of these two things “Take a hold.” The blind person will then take a hold of your bent elbo. They will place all fingers except their thum on the inside of your elbo. The thum should be placed on the outside of your elbo. Their grip should Not be so tight that it pinches your arm, but they should have a good grip (not tight) in case they start to fall.
2. You (the sighted person) should go through a door first. Blind people rely on you to tell if the door is a pull door, push door or an electric dor. If you move forwards and then back we know it’s a pull door and if you move forwards we know it’s a push door. If you keep walking without stopping then we know it’s an electric door.
3. When you go through a door whether you are entering or exiting you should Not hold the door until the blind person has entered or exited. You should enter and let go of the door. We can often tell where the door is located by knowing which way you pulled or pushed on the door. We then put our cane in between the thumb that’s on your arm and your arm. Then with the oposite hand we’ll reach for the door palm up if it’s a pull dor or until we find the knob. Once you and the blind person is inside we will switch our cane back to the other hand. (I do not know about guide dogs.)
4. You should never be behind the blind person if it’s a small isle. In fact the blind person should be behind you. To let them know that it is a small isle put the arm behind your back still bent and palm up. You do not have to grab or touch your shirt. The blind person will then slide their hand down your arm until they reach your wrist. They will step behind you and walk behind you. They will keep this position and walk this way until you bring your arm back to your side where they will asume the previous position.
5. A blind person should never be ahead of you. In fact you should always be 3 or 4 steps of them. Just in case there is something in the way like a box or a cart.
6. You should Never, Never take a blind person’s arm when you’re leading them.
If you do these steps right, the blind person will know when and where to turn if you turn first.
Doing it wrong can result on trips and falls by either you or the blind person. If you have a hold of their arm and they fall and you can’t catch them, then what?
I thought that this would be a good post sense most of you are probably going to be traveling somewhere for the Hollidays and sense you either know a blind person or are a blind person, or were probably verry curious about how to do this technique.
Merry Christmas and happy Hollidays!

How do we know… (answering your questions)

On last week’s post someone posted a commeant containing a list of five questions. For this week’s blog post I thought I’d answer them as best I could, with some humor included, of course. lol. These questions are in
order the way they were written in the commeant. First is the question which will come after the letter “q:” which will then be followed by the answer starting with the letter “a:” So let’s get started.
Q: Is it possible that someone may drop food on the floor, not knowing and leave it there? a: No I don’t think so. Isn’t that why you get a dog? just kidding. If “someone” is like me then they will clean the whole floor in some way whether it be through sweeping etc. Some times I am able to hear where the food lands on the floor and am able to pick it up with a napkin or something else.
2. q: How can you check to make sure something has been cleaned well enough? a: by touch. Unless it’s vacumming then, well… hmm. I usually go around my room at least twice (some times more) with the vacume cleaner. I usually clean glass with something thin like a paper towelle so I can feel the glass with out getting finger prints on it. I also clean it until I hear a squeak. If anyone has ideas on the vacume thing could you please let me know. I haven’t really stopped to think about it. Oh, and one more thing I usually have a sighted family member to come and look to make sure I didn’t accidently miss any spots when I vacume.
3. q: Can you touch a person’s face to know what they look like? Does that make sense? A: I hate that question. I don’t think I’m not the only blind person who does am I? Yes it makes sense. I generally don’t feel of there faces, but I do ask what color their eyes are etc. The reason I don’t is because I think it would be weird for that person. Be honest would you want someone whether their your friend or not saying to you one day “can I feel your face?” I would probably think that they were strange. Here’s the answer to the second part of your question which was: How is good looking in your mind? The answer to that is as follows: Good beauty in my mind is a person’s personality how giving they are etc
4. q: How do you define beauty? A: I do not expect perfect skin because to me that is unrealistic. I understand that people may have blimmishes, or scars, etc and that’s not a problem for me.
5. q: If one day a friend changed to a different perfume, or colone would I have trouble recognizing that friend? a: no I also rely on my sense of hearing to pick up whose voice belongs to who. If I’m not sure then I do ask who that particular friend is. I rely on my sense of hearing for this task more then my sense of smell, I think.
Thanks to the person who sent these questions in.
If you have any questions feel free to post a commeant on this post.
You may also send me an email at:
Stephieonyoutube@gmail.com
Please make your subject have something to do with your message. For example “question on blog post” Other wise I will delete the message without opening it, asuming that it’s spam.
Thanks for reading.

As blind people are our senses better than sighted people?

to answer this question let’s start this blog post with some fact or fiction. 1. blind people should never live on their own because they might have trouble doing certain things around the house like cooking etc. This is fiction because most blind people do live by themselves at one time or another. We can clean the house, wash the dishes, and do our own laundry. We can even cook our own food.
2. Blind people’s sense of touch is better than the sighted person. This is fact. One of the reasons that this is a fact is because we rely on our fingers to tell us how something looks and feels. Another reason is due to reading braille. For example my fingers are verry sensitive to touch because I’ve been reading braille for many years now. I don’t mean my whole finger I just mean the tips of my fingers.
3. Blind people have a better sense of hearing than sighted people. This is a fact. In fact my hearing is so good that once my cousin whispered something to me from across the room and I was able to tell her what she said. That particular technique doesn’t work in a room full of people though. All of the voices blend together. Some things also seem louder to me then they would to sighted people. like someone talking into a mic in a gymnasium.
3. As a blind person the sense of smell is better than that of a sighted person. This is once again a fact. I can smell when food is done. Of course it also helps if I’ve smelt it cooking once before. I can also tell what an odor in a room smells like like for example if someone lit a particular ksent of candle etc. This can also help me find a classroom or tell which one of my friends just walked up to me.
If you want to learn more about what it’s like living blind then please visit my youtube page at:

http://www.youtube.com/1990Stephanie2010

If you would like tips for washing the disses etc then please visit:

http://www.livingblind.com/

Note:
I am not associated in any way. I do not own this website etc. The only way I am associated with this website is to provide you with this link and get tips myself.
Thanks for the viewer of my blogs who sent this in.
Read it, watch it, and enjoy it.

Important! Please Read all of this!

First of all I am writing this to wish all of you a verry happy Thanksgiving. If you’ve already celebrated then happy late thanksgiving. If you’ve not celibrated yet happy early thanksgiving.
Having said that Here’s what’s so important.
I know I tell you guys that you can leave a comeant here or email me. Please. Please. Make sure that if you choose to email me that you write in the subject that the email is an idea for a blog post other wise I Will Not open the email. I don’t think that that sort of thing has happened yet. I just wanted to clarify why I tell you to do so.
Sense this blog post is apparently going to be about email, I need blog ideas. My brain can only think of so many and my brain is about out of ideas.
If you have ideas feel free to send me an email with something about an idea for a blog post in the subject line at:
Stephieonyoutube@gmail.com
Or leave a commeant here.
and if you want me to use your name in the blog post please let me know or I will not use your name.
Though I write these blog posts to teach you, I feel like the blogs should include you as well. That’s another reason why I ask for ideas. Trust me without you this blog wouldn’t last as long as it has. To all of the people who’ve sent in ideas for blog posts, I thank you.
To the people who read these posts, I thank you.
Have a safe and happy thanksgiving, or day.

How do I start a conversation with a blind person? Fact or Fiction

Okay to answer this question let’s start with some fact or fiction. 1. Starting a conversation with a blind person is different than starting one with a sighted person. Fiction. In fact it’s is the same. 2. You should offer them help when you think that they need it. Fiction. If we need help we will eventually ask you because we were taught by our mobility teacher (teacher who teaches us how to use a cane; also called a Mobillity specialist) or we are taught by some other source. And a little secret, sometimes I pretend to be lost just to see who will offer to help me before I have to ask. It’s a test for me to see if anyone’ll wait for me to ask. I know it’s mean and aI also know that I’m probably not the only blind person who does this sort of thing. Am I?
3. You should walk up to a blind person and say hi and their name if you happen to know them. Fact. Be honest would you want a blind or visually impaired person to shout out “Hey sighted Person!” No. Then why would you shout out “Hey blind person?” This is my suggestion if I were sighted I’d say “hi.” then wait if the person doesn doesn’t say anything I’d say “how are you?” by that time the blind person should be able to figure out that you are talking to him/her. That’s how I usually do it if I’m not sure if someone is talking to me. Or I may ask, “are you talking to me?” it’s not meant to embarras anyone it’s just meant to make sure that the sighted person is indeed talking to you and not the person near you. I remember feeling verry embarrased when I first started asking that question. Then I looked at it this way, what if I answered a “hi.” and it wasn’t meant for me. For me that would be more embarrasing then asking “are you talking to me?”
I may write this in more than one blog post and I’m going to write it here now.
We as blind people live normal lives, we may hold down the same job as you, we may walk down the same street as you, read the same books, and use a lot of the same computer programs. Of course we may need adaptive equipment to do so like a cane, a braille machine for the braille so we can read the books,a driver to drive us to where ever we need to go, and a computer with a text to speech program on it. Yet despite all of this a lot of us (like me) don’t consider being blind a disability. We consider ourselves “normal” whatever the deffinition of the word is for you. For me the word “normal” means a good job, a car with a driver, a computer with a text to speech program, and less people asking me if I want or need help until I ask for it. It also means treating me like you would someone who’s sighted only minus the vision. Example don’t ask a blind person “how many fingers am I holding up?” Just don’t let that stop you from treating a blind person like you would a sighted person. the only thing wrong with us is that we can’t see. That’s all. Why should we be treated differently because of that? We should not.
Thanks to the viewer who brought this up.
If you have questions leave a response here or send an email to the following email address:
Stephieonyoutube@gmail.com
Please let me know if I missed anything.

Accessible Facebook?

There is a new accessable website in town. Do you know what it is? I know what it is and I’m verry excited about it. No it’s not another site for youtube. It’s for facebook.
That’s right, facebook. Now we don’t have to go to facebook mobile to read statuses etc. Yes I’m aware that I sound like one of those anouncer guys who do comercials on tv. It’s just that I’m so excited.
Do I have you all excited? Do you really not want to know? If you said no and your still reading this it could mean one of two things, 1. you’re verry enterested in what it is and don’t want to admit it or 2 well… do I really have to say? I’m just kidding about both of these possibilities by the way.
Now that I have kept your attention for this long… hopefully. Here is the link:

http://lite.facebook.com/

Go check it out as well as the mobile version. Fill out my pole on here and tell me what you think about it. I think the pole has been posted. And yes this curious mind wants to know.