Knowing Nothing

My daughter clearly knows more than "nothing".   That's completely inaccurate.   What I mean is, it is better to assume she knows nothing about a thing because we sighted people take a lot of "knowing" for granted.   I'll give you an example.   My daughter has been listening to a lot of audiobooks over the last year.  In them, possibly several of them, dragons have been featured.   They were talked about at length.   She's heard about dragons for years now as these mythical creatures seem to come up in discussions with children almost as much as cats, dogs, and unicorns.   And we all know what cats, dogs, unicorns, and dragons look like, right?

But does she?   I think we may make incorrect assumptions about what my daughter does and doesn't know simply because she was sighted for close to four years of her life.  Today, if you ask her, she doesn't remember seeing anything, and if that's the case, how can she know what a dragon looks like? 

There are stuffed animals and toys and in many cases, these give her a good idea of what the rest of us might pick up from seeing one on a television show, book, web page, billboard, or any other visual source.   But since my daughter's input is limited to her ears and fingers I think it's easy to forget she may not have the same level of knowledge the rest of us have. 

Here's an example:  Today I 3D printed a set of nesting animals.  They were flat profiles of four...wait, let me go take a picture of them, it'll be much easier if I just show you...

And I just made my own point: that a picture can give a huge amount of information in an instant.  I bet, without even thinking about it, you can tell there is a dog with a nested cat, with a further nested rabbit.   You might have thought, "what is that thing inside the rabbit?" but when I tell you it's a gerbil, you're probably thinking, "ah, yes, I see it now."

That profile of a dog with the ears up, tail in the back, and paws in the front just says, "dog" to our visual brains.   The nested cat is much the same, with ears and paws, sitting in an upright position, and yet it clearly is a cat from some nuance of information we've collected over our lives.  Somehow we just know one is a dog and not a cat and the other is a cat and not a dog.  

The rabbit has a nose, just like the cat and the dog.  There are also ears and the back is in similar form to that of the cat.   There are paws in the front and yet again, we somehow just know this is a rabbit.   So, what do you think my daughter thought they were when I gave her the models?

She had no idea—on any of them.   She knew they were animals because I told her they were beforehand.  When I explained to her what each was and why, she accepted my information, similarly to how a much younger child accepts things parents tell them before they get to the "why" phase.   

There are other complexities, such as taking a three-dimensional object, flattening it to two dimensions, turning it into a stylized version of the object, and expecting a blind person to understand what it is.   That is and will always be hard for my daughter.   But we can always try.   And there are things we can do that help and make sense to her. 

Today Blake was here, helping my daughter with school.   He came downstairs to the basement where my husband and I were working to ask a question.   At the time I'd finished 3D printing a dragon for my daughter.   Again, when we showed it to her, she didn't know what anything was on it—couldn't even guess huge wings were wings because she had no idea of scale.  Truthfully, I don't think she was thinking wings at all.  I'm not even sure if she knew dragons typically have wings.   

That gave Blake an idea.   He borrowed the 3D printing pen and went outside with my daughter while she swang during a break and he drew a picture in 3D printing filament.   The pen basically lets you draw in melted plastic.   Blake wanted to show my daughter how a dragon (were it real) might be compared in size to a person.   Blake is going to keep working on the drawing, adding a key in braille for my daughter.   

The 3D printing pen was something I never thought about for creating tactual things for visually impaired people.   It's a very inexpensive thing to purchase and it is easy to use.   Children can use it just as easily as they can a glue gun as the only rule is don't touch the hot end.   

Here's Blake's drawing: 

The Big Boy Update: Today I went to pick up my son and through a miscommunication, my husband had gotten there already and had picked him up.   My son thought I might want my favorite sandwich from Starbucks so he and his father went through the drive-through and got one for me.   I hadn't had lunch.   What a sweet little guy I have. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has some crazy calluses.   She has them all over her hands in places you wouldn't typically expect to find them.   She has built them up from lots and lots and lots of swinging on the swingset in the back yard.