Seeing with their hands

Susan McCormack

It was a school day out of their dreams. A trip to the beach and a

little kayaking, followed by a picnic on the sand.

Clad in shorts and sunglasses and lathered up with sunblock, 20 or so

blind and partially sighted children who attended a field trip to Newport

Dunes Resort on Thursday got a learning experience out of it, as well.

“Many blind children are tactically defensive,” said Elayne Strong,

vision coordinator at Santa Ana’s Blind Children’s Learning Center, where

the 3- to 6-year-olds attend school. “Our goal is to get them to touch

things with their feet and hands ... They need to learn not to be

afraid.”

The event was coordinated by the learning center, volunteers from

Upper Newport Bay Naturalists and kayak leaders with Newport Dunes

Resort.

Christine Stamper, who has been a volunteer with the naturalist group

for about seven years, said this was the first outreach event she had

participated in involving blind children. The group faced unique

challenges developing the activities.

“We just decided to bring anything that they can feel, smell or hear,”

Stamper said. The group gathered buckets of mud filled with sea shells, a

stuffed egret, a great blue heron’s head, the tail of a red-tailed hawk

and native plants for the children to smell and touch. The children

played with the mud and looked at the objects upon arrival.

The biggest attraction, however, was a stuffed adult coyote.

While at first some children shied away from touching the animal,

which was almost as big as them, Kendall Bradley, 4, forsake lunch to

visit a second time with the coyote. Bradley, who teachers believe may be

totally blind, caressed the coyote and spoke to it like a friend.

“Isn’t he cute?” she asked her teachers. Though Bradley said she had

never touched a coyote before and at home she doesn’t even have a pet

dog, she said she will not be scared of coyotes in the future.

Teacher’s aid Rosario Sanchez said Thursday was the first time many of

the children have ever touched wild animals -- stuffed or not -- and

taken rides in a kayak, where they touched the water and paid close

attention to the movement and speed of the boat.

Sanchez said blind children see the world through their sense of

touch. This is why their hands are so sensitive, and they may become

scared if a person touches them.

“It’s like us with our eyes,” she explained. “So, if somebody comes

and puts their hands on your eyes, it can be very scary.”

Strong said it takes time for blind children to gain the confidence to

touch things, but that these touching experiences prepare them for

eventually learning to read Braille. That’s why the more they touch, the

better.

“If they go home clean, we didn’t do our job,” Strong said.