Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!wtm
From: mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: BLINDNESS AND THE BLINDFOLD
Message-ID: <15077@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 20 Oct 90 01:58:59 GMT
References: <14919@bunker.UUCP> <15069@bunker.UUCP>
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Reply-To: mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew)
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Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 11206

I write:
>>          I agree that just putting on a blindfold doesn't help a
>>sighted person learn what blindness is like.  However, leaving
>>the blindfold on long enough to learn how to do something does
>>give a sighted person a better idea of what blindness is like.

campbell%hpdmd48@hplabs.HP.COM (Gary Campbell) writes:
>                 As long as the person doesn't begin to feel like they
>have "arrived" there probably isn't any problem, but I would be
>concerned about someone beginning to think he/she can identify
>limitations....

Agreed.  My experience with my blindfolded tour showed me that in
half a day I could develop skills that I didn't understand at all
beforehand, and that showed me that there are other ways for
blind people to do things that I use my sight for.  I would
assume that the longer one was blind, the more skills one would
learn that are appropriate for living without sight, and the more
one would be able to do that a less-experienced blind person
would still be unable to do.  But that's the way life is--the
longer you practice something, the better you get.

Darin McGrew			mcgrew@Eng.Sun.COM
Affiliation stated for identification purposes only.