Safe Toddles Talks Orientation and Mobility Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, COMS

This week is a real treat- I found Don McBride’s interview, he was born in 1936. He is a great storyteller and gives amazing insight into what it was like to be blind child in the 1940s and 50s- he became blind at age 11, he attend residential school and so had certain advantages – but, there wasn’t white cane safety at the time and his older brothers were determined to toughen him up which included knocking his head into trees and poles with a warning he better play outside and well… This is part one of his interview 
In every accomplishment – the O&M instructor in me wishes more value had been placed on his safety.  His life is filled with accomplishments and yet- all I can hear is just how freakin hard it has been to get around safely and he blames himself – not the inferior tools he’s been provided… He taught O&M too – learn more about that in Part II.
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We are entering the 1950s with Frances who was born 1952 seven years after the first white cane was taught to a blinded veteran of WWII. She remembered knowing that she had to wait to learn to use a long cane once she became 15. This is a terrific discussion of her dog guide use and paratransit. If you’re curious about the reality of getting around while blind – Frances is fabulous-
After Interview Thoughts
In every way I asked, it was clear that Frances got around on the arm of someone else until she got her dog guide. There is nothing right or wrong with how someone moves about their world. 
Everything you hear from Frances about long canes and her ability to travel as a child... her narrative, is "everything was fine". She could take or leave the white cane, she got around her neighborhood and school, except to cross streets, and mostly on the arm of a friend. An O&M instructor listening will hear the truth – others may be lulled into false sense that Frances was fine- or that she had a choice. She had none. She was denied all form of independent safety until she was 15. She was raised to go on the arm of another, go in groups, stick together. In 2024, I think children with MVI/B can be trusted to have more safety in their lives, from the beginning - would be best.
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If you want some assurances that growing up blind, waiting until school age to get the first long cane  can result in a well adjusted, fully employed and outgoing adult- then listen to Taletha. She compares working with O&M specialists who were sighted and blind. Overall, she felt she should have had much more time with either one of them – she had a 3 bus a day bus route to school every morning – in Detroit. She described herself as someone who these days preferred para transit, “Because this is a dangerous, cruel, unsafe world we live in.” Her story of being picked up by a stranger after getting off the wrong stop…well, the reality is – we need to care more about safety for blind people in every way.
 The kind of danger she reported, almost becoming the victim of a horrendous crime, is very different from the lack of safety growing up without an effective 2-step safety buffer before her earliest memories took hold.  But, I ask us all, do blind people really have to be so tough to be accepted as independent?
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Please donate to help Safe Toddles Inc. achieve our mission to provide blind toddlers with a solution for walking independently with safety.
If you know anyone who needs a belt cane - go to ObtainCane

Patricia Montgomery is a terrific example of the seeds the world has sown. People with visual impairments are expected to be visually capable and blind people are expected to be treated as if they are sighted. Blindness and visual impairment are the most blatant form of stereotyping and marginalizing of a disability group out in the open. Consider the slur, ‘what are you blind?’
Being Blind is a reality for people, and it means they can’t see. It doesn't mean anything else.
But when you ask Patricia to describe her vision and then ask her about her travel and cane use – it sounds very conflicted. 
listen to her story for consistency. In the case of Patricia Montgomery, she doesn’t know the name of her visual impairment. Her description of her visual functioning. I have good light perception.  I can see how to get around pretty good.  I have good, uh, color.  I can tell color real good.
She got her long cane and her confidence without it only grew stronger. Yet, unfamiliar places (or perhaps lighting) hard to say – there are times she pulls out her long cane. 
Is it the expectations of society, the limits of the white cane options or is it real – without the detail vision and reliance on color makes knowing if what is ahead is a drop off a puddle or simply a different floor color very challenging. A white cane cuts through all of the clutter and very simply and plainly says what it is – smooth surface, change in surface, drop off. 
Why is it so important to walk around with less certainty for blind and visually impaired folks than sighted folks?
Perhaps sighted folks need to examine their expectations of blind folks – not one would expect a person who relies on a wheelchair to move about and ignore their need for a wheelchair in familiar settings.
Let’s listen to Patricia – I only wish I had the vocabulary to have asked more about her being a student at the segregated school for the blind in the 1960s.
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Please donate to help Safe Toddles Inc. achieve our mission to provide blind toddlers with a solution for walking independently with safety.
If you know anyone who needs a belt cane - go to ObtainCane

This is the soundtrack of the video posted on YouTube. It shows footage from 1960s and audio tape interviews of children born blind in the 1950s. Marcia new she was blind when she entered kindergarten. She noticed her peers ran around and she didn’t. Running without a two-step safety buffer is not recommended. A 1966 blind high schooler is shown being shadowed for safety by a sighted peer. This sends the same message- sighted kids are more capable. But that is only true because he uses his vision for safety. Give the blind child a white cane for safety and you even the playing field. A white cane reduces the need to stay close to the wall - to ‘hand trail’ for safety. The job of the white cane is to follow a shoreline, locate objects and drop offs before your feet do. I am Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken. I am an orientation and mobility specialist who has taught white cane travel for 30 years. I invented the belt cane so that blind toddlers could grow up knowing only safe mobility. Join me in making 2024 the year we understand that blind babies really hate running their bodies directly into furniture and walls. They would much rather greet the world with their two-step safety buffer between them and it. Safe Toddles invented a safety buffer that works best for blind babies – more white cane designs are needed.
Visit our website: Email: info@Safetoddles.org TikTok Facebook YouTube
Thanks for listening! Please, leave us a review, ask questions and share with your friends!!
Please donate to help Safe Toddles Inc. achieve our mission to provide blind toddlers with a solution for walking independently with safety.
If you know anyone who needs a belt cane - go to ObtainCane

Maureen Moscato – a really good friend of mine – she is so funny. I found the original tape – It is worth a relisten!! She is much funnier than I am playing her!! Yay!!
Maureen is a real treasure – her stories reveal a woman who grew up in the school of hard knocks and her resiliency go her through – but if you’re interested in the pros and cons of dog guides, long canes, waiting for O&M to get out of the house and be independent and blind politics and ADA- this is a really great listen all the way to the end. 
Maureen gives us a unique look inside the life of a blind woman, blind from birth– taxis don’t pick her up – she’ll see you at the taxi commission –
 Listening to Maureen you realize- for her- there are no obstacles. She demanded equal access Niagara Falls and then gleefully left her husband, who has some vision, behind – in the mist.
Maureen dreamed of giving young children access to long canes – she said age 6, we say age 10 months. She is living proof blind kids can grow up without safe mobility, but why should we continue this barbaric tradition?
Safe Toddles seeks to end the barbaric practice of blind babies walking without a two-step safety buffer between them and danger.
And remember if you can go where you want to – please do so as safely as possible.
 
Help support Safe Toddles – to bring safety to the lives of blind toddlers.
Visit our website: Email: info@Safetoddles.org TikTok Facebook YouTube
Thanks for listening! Please, leave us a review, ask questions and share with your friends!!
Please donate to help Safe Toddles Inc. achieve our mission to provide blind toddlers with a solution for walking independently with safety.
If you know anyone who needs a belt cane - go to ObtainCane