The Three R's Plus P for Children Who Are Blind

Abstract

cated in special classes or in state or private schools, but an ever increasing number are being enrolled in regular classes. With the help of special teachers and the usual school services, many of these children are graduating with their sighted neighbors. In all these schools-state, private, or local public-the three R's are given the emphasis advocated for all children. But children who are blind, unlike their sighted friends, need, in addition to the three R's, training in peripatology, that is, orientation and mobility. Lowenfeld, superintendent of the California School for the Blind, writes that blind children are first of all children. But they encounter difficulties that most other children do not (1). These problems arise from the attitudes of others, particularly parents, toward blindness and from the need for adaptations in equipment and skills in educational programs for the blind. But a third difficulty should be stressed-the need of the blind for special orientation and mobility techniques. In planning school programs, educators take advantage of the fact that today young people have a variety of experiences. To have some of the experiences that are readily available to their sighted classmates, children who are blind must learn to move about freely in their homes, schools, and communities.