Check out the story featuring Lighthouse of Collier by WGCU, the local NPR station. It focuses on what it is like for people who are vision-impaired to navigate a pandemic where touch is being limited. We are in the news! Visit WGCU to read and listen to the story.
This story highlights one of the 5 year old’s in our Children’s Program who we will refer to as “Justin”. Justin has been with Lighthouse of Collier for about 4 years. In that time, he has made many gains in areas such as orientation and mobility, social skills, and sensory/cognitive development.
His current goal is learning Braille. Unfortunately, Justin does not find Braille very fun! He would struggle to sit through lessons and focus. So I had to think outside the box to keep Justin engaged and begin learning his Braille. I remembered that Justin’s new favorite thing is Pokémon and decided to create a Braille Pokémon Battle game with homemade large Braille flashcards and homemade “Pokémon cards”, and even brought in some Pokémon plushies to make it even more exciting! The rules made it so that Justin had to find the first letter of each attack, in Braille, in order to battle. He absolutely loved it, and began to even get excited to find the letters! He now anxiously awaits instruction each week.
