DEVELOPING SELF WITHOUT SIGHT
The Psychology of a Blind Child
by
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Cavitt is a happy well adjusted three and a half years old who easily adjusts to his environment and bonds to his caregivers. He was born
Cavitt has been evaluated and followed by a number of specialists since his birth. He has the following diagnoses: Bilateral Micropthalmia (absent right eye and a scant remnant of the left eye resulting in no vision at all), Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy (diminished muscle tone), Under-developed corpus callosum, and developmental delays. He was most recently seen by Dr. Charles A. Williams of Shands Children’s Hospital at the
It became evident during the first six months of physical therapy treatment that Cavitt required more professional help than physical therapy was providing. Paula Nelson conducted a complete evaluation of his range of movement, transition abilities, cognitive awareness, upper body strength and motion, along with his verbal ability. Her findings were substantiated by an independent Early Intervention Specialist from the Florida Health Department and a professional team was developed to address the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social issues addressed in Paula’s findings.
The members of this team consisted of Paula providing one to two sessions a week of physical therapy working on gross motor skills, body transition from lying to sitting, and much later in the program sitting to standing and eventually standing to assisted walking. Each transitional act took hours of repetitive therapeutic intervention that was very difficult for the family members to master. It is important to note that physical therapy for a totally blind child is much different than that provided for a child who is sighted. The sighted child sees others performing desired movements and merely copies them. For a child who is blind, it takes much effort to first develop a confidence level, place your hands in just the right location on the child’s body, with just the right amount of pressure, and then rotate the limb or body in the desired direction. Unlike a sighted child, a blind child can more easily be taught the wrong movement and therefore will become apprehensive to certain movements and require the therapist to start all over. Even with weekly instruction, Cavitt’s highly educated parents and grandparents found it difficult to duplicate the required exercises needed for his physical development and ability to transition.
Cavitt’s weak upper body strength and his inadequate use of the hands indicated a need to bring in an occupational therapist. Stacy Thomas was authorized
During his physical and occupational therapy, three more basic needs were discovered: speech, social opportunity with other children, and orientation and mobility. He was not progressing through the normal speech pattern of babbling, single word sentences, and asking for what he wanted, so the need for speech therapy was indicated. Once a week Cavitt was brought to Pediatrics Plus Clinic to play with other children and receive thirty minu
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About the Book
A child sighted or blind is born into this world with all the building blocks for what they can become. This physical material is impacted by the child’s environment over a life time while the “self” evolves. The self is the same in blind children as it is in the sighted, only the developmental process is different. Both children have the same starting materials: mind, body, and spirit. With these parts the child develops a process of thinking, feeling, and behaving toward other people, objects and situations, and they recognize that others also think, feel and behave in their environment. It is with their thoughts, emotions, and actions that children relate to their world using physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and moralistic attributes and through this interrelationship the self evolves. The self is everything that exists in a person’s unique world and it exists because of their self-concept and self-esteem. Aspects of self-concept are the elements of well-being that assists our survival in our environment. They consist of all the physical things, our personality, feelings toward life, our knowledge and problem solving techniques, how we successfully interface with others; and our social and spiritual values in life. If our self-concept contains the important things, and issues in life, and there is a high regard for them, then our self will evolve in a manner conducive to peace and harmony. If not, the opposite will occur. The blind child must build a self with a missing part. Granted self will evolve for a blind child, but it must be augmented by all other senses of the body in order to enhance the mind and spirit. A blind child’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors serve the same purpose as they do for a sighted child, but will evolve differently. The physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and moral concepts are necessary, but are obtained without the benefit of the automatic process of seeing. The self evolves but the conduit for inputting their environment is different for a blind child. This is the story of a four year blind boy named Cavitt and how his self is evolving. His adventures can be used to assist other blind children develop their self. The book vividly illustrates psychology of a blind child as he lives this psychology. It is the development of a “self” that is Cavitt.
About the Author
William F. Cavitt was born
While serving on a small patrol boat in
While serving in
Bill retired from the navy at the age of 35 and shortly thereafter he started his doctoral program. He was awarded his doctors degree in Education, concentrating on Educational Psychology (primarily in Instructional Systems Design and Development using computer technology).
As an Education Specialist and Education Psychologist with the Federal Government, Bill was responsible for the design and development of various highly technological instructional programs. He served as the Deputy Director of Navy Technical Training at the Chief of Naval Education and Training,
After retiring from the Department of Defense, Bill taught Psychology at
After leaving Darton, Bill went into private practice as a psychotherapist at the Center for Holistic Rational Living and became the director. He gave up his practice to help care for his grandson (Cavitt Izon Breeze) who was born blind. He has been married forty-two years to Patricia Anne (Izon) Cavitt and they have three children: Jennifer, Kimberly, Ernest, and four grandchildren: Rachel, Jacob, Cavitt, and Hannah. Bill is presently an adjunct psychology teacher at