HEllo Ardith,

On Wed 2011-Nov-02 23:46, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:

RW>  You'll always hear or read us stressing the term
RW>  "alternative" because utilization of "substitute"
RW>  connotes inferiority, not quite as good as.

AH>           Makes sense to me.  I did the same without thinking about
AH> it....  :-) 

YEp, a lot of what we perceive is through the language we
use to describe it .


RW>  when we teach folks adjusting to blindness these
RW>  techniques we teach them with the student under
RW>  sleepshades, so that he/she learns them as a totally
RW>  blind person, and understands at the gut level that
RW>  the residual vision remaining is not the reason they
RW>  are successful using them.

AH>           Yes... sighted folk often shut their eyes when they are
AH> concentrating on input from other sources, which your students must
AH> also do.  And they may be pleasantly surprised at how much they can
AH> hear after a bit of instruction.  Our young friend & her mother were
AH> so thrilled when they noticed their voices would sound different if
AH> they held a cushion close to their mouths that they couldn't resist
AH> showing us what they'd learned.  To us as musicians it may seem
AH> obvious. But we weren't born knowing these things... we just paid
AH> our dues earlier.  ;-) 

Indeed, musicians do have an advantage there .  YOu know
it's funny, but I've told more than one person that if the
miraculous were to occur tomorrow and I'd find myself with
full 20/20 vision I probably would be so confused and
disoriented I couldn't cope for quite a time, as my brain
wouldn't know what to do with the input it was now
receiving.  I'd either have to learn to ignore it and go on
doing many things as I was accustomed to, or just go crazy
until I learned to adapt, very slowly.  Adding sensory input could
potentially be as debilitating as taking it away.


Regards,
           Richard
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