In 1987 I adopted my first daughter, Jenny Kate, wit retrolental fiberplasia, retinopathy of prematurity. At birth she had weighed 1 lb, 3 oz; a 26 week gestation baby. She came home at 13 months just having reached 10 pounds, on 11 medications, in an oxygen tent, being tube fed and hooked up to heart monitors. She had cerebral palsy and leg splints and was a beautiful animated child. It never occurred to me to be worried about her blindness...I was worried about her survival. But after one major hospitalization and a stomach tube insertion, she gained strength. And her character began to emerge.

By age three she spun around in space and spoke of herself in the third person. The word autism started floating around. In kindergarten she was more animated and vocal though usually still in the third person. She had excellent retention skills and could recite reams of poetry, commercials from TV and sing her favorite songs. In kindergarten, they introduced the alphabet (which we had sung to her earlier) and they introduced phonetics and large tactile letters. In first grade, her tutor introduced Braille and said she probably would be unable to learn it due to the cerebral palsy but we should try. Within six months she had learned Grade 1 Braille. Suddenly her world opened up like the petals of a rose.

She could hold the words just spoken in her hand. She would walk around with these words like a child holds a toy. She read and re-read them. She stopped talking in the third person. These were "Mommy's words" or they were "Jenny's words" and they had meaning. They could tell what just happened, what was happening now or what was about to happen. They had shape and form and meaning. Words are like snowflakes that fall on your face and melt. They are beautiful, but they do not last. Now they lasted and took shape.

Jenny is now a high school freshman, an honor student in her fifth year of Spanish, a published poet, a singer, pianist and songwriter. She is dedicated to world peace and she reads everything she can get her hands on. She reads and comprehends an astounding 275 words per minute. I am an educator, but I did not educate Jenny...Braille literacy did. The sheer excitement of holding the spoken word in her hands.

I took a course in neurology in graduate school and learned a little about the brain. Synapses...you know, the spaces between brain cells where electrical energy jumps to make a connection with one thought or piece of information to connect is to another. I know that the portion of the brain where sight is processed atrophies over time without stimulation; and that other pathways need to go through these brain centers to make connections of information. I strongly believe we need to keep as many brain cells open as possible to learn and keep a steady stream of energy flowing. I also strongly believe that tactile/kinesthetic learning (Braille does this.) We use much auditory information daily just awakening and going about our daily routines, so this portion of the brain normally gets its share of input. The tactile system, when fine tuned to Braille, expands and opens different pathways of synaptic connections.

I have seen a child grow beyond the darkness of her world to explore and expand her knowledge through reading Braille.

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