Beach library has a vision for the visually impaired

By Ricardo Lopez

VIRGINIA BEACH

Raising a child who is blind can be a lonely endeavor. Just ask Pattie Adams.

Tommy, one of Adams' four 11-year-old sons, is fully blind. On Tuesday, she had the rare opportunity to meet more parents who face the same daily challenges - teaching basic skills such as feeding, dressing and potty training on top of the disability.

"Thank God," said Adams, of Virginia Beach. "I just wanted to find another parent who had a blind child."

On Tuesday afternoon, about a dozen parents like Adams, along with teachers for visually impaired children, gathered at the Bayside Special Services Library to socialize and learn about available resources, said Lee Ann Armbruster, one of the event organizers.

Armbruster, a Beach teacher for visually impaired students who visits several schools each year, said that out of 70,000 enrolled in Beach schools, only 72 have vision impairments. They're geographically isolated from one another, she said.

"A lot of kids have never met another blind child," she said.

"If we only have one child in a building who is blind, then that means those parents are the only ones around for miles who have a child with vision impairments."

Kim Anderson, from Isle of Wight, brought her two adopted sons, Paul, 7, and Elijah, 9. Anderson, who home-schools her sons, said she takes advantage of every opportunity to pick up parenting tips and for her children to socialize.

"We're feeling our way through in raising them," she said. "They're our learning curve."

Around Hampton Roads, the proportion of visually impaired students is similar to that of Virginia Beach.

Norfolk's enrollment is 35,000, with about 40 students who are visually impaired, said Gail Henrich, a teacher for the vision-impaired.

Henrich, who gave one of four presentations on Tuesday designed to give more resources and social opportunities, coordinates a program called Zoo Snooze, an overnight stay at the Virginia Zoo for students who have visual impairments.

The program gives visually impaired children a behind-the-scenes look, or feel, at animals in the zoo.

Before the presentations, Karen Gaduyon dropped off her curious 5-year-old son, Noah, in the reading room with the other children. He started by reading picture books in Braille, then took to navigating the entire library with his cane and a helper.

"I try to treat him like any other child," she said. "But I have to use a lot of language to describe things."

Dawn Peifer from the Virginia Association of Parents of Vision Impaired in Richmond said she is hoping to help create a chapter in Hampton Roads.

Peifer said that when her daughter was born blind, she had no network of parents to reach out to, so she set about creating one.

Little by little, parents began to connect with one another, and now the Richmond chapter has grown to more than 100 parents, she said.

On Tuesday, the event ended with an ice cream-making activity for the parents and children.

Five-year-old Noah, 11-year-old Tommy and the rest of the children shook and shook a frothy mix of cream and milk on ice in small zippered bags until it reached a yogurt-like consistency before digging in.

"The main reason to have this is to create a community for parents," Armbruster said.

"It's a support group; it's a play group."

Ricardo Lopez, (757) 222-5125, ricardo.lopez@pilotonline.com