JULY 2004
VIEWPOINT
A publication of the Florida Council of Citizens with Low Vision
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
BUILDING BRIDGES AND CROSSING THEM - by Paul Edwards
DEBBIE DRYLIE, FCCLV VICE-PRESIDENT - IN HER OWN WORDS
RESEARCHER SAYS DOGS UNDERSTAND WHAT WE SAY - by Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
NOTE FROM EDITOR
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Hi and thanks one and all for being part of the Florida Council of Citizens with Low Vision.
We had our Annual Convention in Tampa on June 4th to June 6th. It was held in conjunction with the Florida Council of the Blind and we
did some re-organizing and I feel we accomplished much in our short allotted time.
Our meeting was a discussion of what FCCLV could do to help our membership. We are committed to putting on a Mini-Convention
next May in Ft. Lauderdale. We also will get to our membership issues of the Viewpoint. Part of the discussion centered on the fact that
we as visually-impaired individuals best know what we need.
We are asking you as members to send into Sharon Youngs, our Editor, anything you feel might benefit our group. Even if you find
something that does not work for you, there is a possibility that it may work for someone else. Please let us know if there is anything
we can do to help you, our members.
I would like to thank Debbie Drylie who is the 1st Vice-President, Morry LaTour, our Treasurer, Diane Bobrowski, our Recording
Secretary, Lesa Kretschemer, our Membership Secretary, Rosanne Lippen, Immediate Past-President and, of course, our directors,
Dr. Marc Jay Gannon and Pat Roberts.
Sincerely, Jim Warth
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BUILDING BRIDGES AND CROSSING THEM - by Paul Edwards
I have been totally blind all my life. I think there were a few years where I had light perception but that is a distant memory and I truly did
not miss it when it went away. I think there are times, especially in organizations of the blind, when we speak about "blind" as if it means
total blindness and ignore or undervalue the specific needs of those who still have a good deal of usable vision. I think there are also a
number of people who have lost enough vision that they ought to call themselves "blind" who do not face up to the reality of their situation
and deny where they are and, to a large extent, who they are as well. Both groups have a lot to teach each other.
Those of us who are comfortable with blindness and all it represents must reach out to those who are still new to what it means. We
must begin to show those who are not yet comfortable with the culture of blindness that being blind is okay.
Those with a good deal of vision can help those of us who are totally blind by sharing their reality with us. We need to know more about
your specific needs and must include them in our advocacy. Large print must be as important to us as Braille. High contrast must be as
much a concern as tactile street warnings. We must be just as committed to making the world accessible to folks with low vision as we
are to making it open and available to those who cannot see anything.
As the new President of the Florida Council of the Blind, I need the help of every one of you. I want our organization to make a difference
in the way people who are blind live in Florida. Only 10 percent of the people with severe vision loss are totally blind and 50 percent
of them are over the age of 60. If I am to represent people who are blind properly, your needs must be at the heart of what we do.
The Florida Council of Citizens with Low Vision exists to carry your issues forward to the Florida Council of the Blind. Your President is
Second Vice-President of the state affiliate. Other officers and Board members of FCB are also FCCLV members. While you have
adequate representation in the leadership of FCB, that is not enough. You must also work to develop specific initiatives through
FCCLV, which can be sent forward for the larger organization to embrace. How much your needs are met will depend on how much you
are prepared to express them!
I hope to set up a series of Task Forces that will focus on specific issues. While some of these have yet to be determined, I expect that
transportation, employment, aging, and, perhaps, education will be among them. These groups will gather evidence on the current state
of things in their fields. Then they will recommend specific actions that need to be taken to make things better. I expect these
recommendations to be adopted by the Board and membership of FCB as what will amount to our plan of action for the next several
years.
These Task Forces are a major undertaking. Blind consumers, regardless of how much vision we have, must accept that it is our
responsibility to shape the services we receive and to demand the place we deserve in a world that would just as soon we stay where
our society believes we belong. Please help me forge a new notion of who we are and where we are going. I need your participation,
your commitment, your financial support, and your passion.
Together, we can make a difference! Divided, others will rule us! Help me build a bridge between the world of the sighted and the world
of the blind. Let us all make that bridge wide enough to hold all of us and let us be sure that we all recognize that it is our right and duty
to demand that we can get all the way across that bridge. If we do that, then the community of people whose eyes work well will "see" us
as we really are, citizens who expect to be able to fully included in Florida and in all that it does! Help me share our vision with those who
can see with their eyes but are blind to our needs!
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DEBBIE DRYLIE, FCCLV VICE-PRESIDENT - IN HER OWN WORDS
My name is Debbie Drylie. I am the vice president of FCCLV. My eye condition is known as Stargardt's Disease, a juvenile onset form of
macular degeneration. I do not know when the disease began to manifest itself. My mother tells me that my eyesight has always been
poor. I was not diagnosed with Stargardt's Disease until 1978. By this time, I was married and had a child.
After I was diagnosed as being legally blind, I had the desire to meet other visually-impaired people. I had no idea if I was dealing well
with my disability since I had no one with whom to compare myself. Despite this desire and my efforts to find other members of the
visually-impaired community, up until I joined the Clay Council of the Blind about three years ago, I had only met one other
visually-impaired person.
I met this person at the library of Ohio State University where I was finishing up my Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. I went to
school without any special help. I know now from my peers in the blind community that help was available at that time, but I did not know
about it. I found my own ways of compensating for my disability.
In the 1990's, my eyesight took a turn for the worse. By the time I moved to Florida in 1996, I was in a pretty deep state of self-pity.
Through a Bible study, the Holy Spirit convicted me that my self-pity was a symptom of not trusting God. I had a time of prayer with the
Lord and cast the burden of my disability upon Him. I knew that if He allowed me to be visually-impaired that He had a reason for it and
would give me the ability to deal with it.
As soon as I gave my disability over to the Lord, miracles began to happen in my life. No, my eyes were not healed. God began to
bring people and events into my life to help me compensate for my disability and do the things that I love to do.
One day, my husband brought home a flyer from the library about a Clay Council of the Blind Open House. I got involved with the Clay
Council of the Blind where I met and became friends with other visually-impaired people. I am now the First Vice-President of Clay
Council of the Blind and their board representative to the Florida Council of the Blind. I met more visually-impaired friends at the Florida
Council of the Blind Convention, including members of the FCCLV.
I can now say with the apostle Paul that I glory in my infirmity, because God's strength is made perfect in my weakness.
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RESEARCHER SAYS DOGS UNDERSTAND WHAT WE SAY - by Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2004 - As many a dog owner will attest, our furry friends are listening. Now, for the doubters, there is scientific
proof they understand much of what they hear. German researchers have found a border collie named Rico who understands more than
200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children.
Patti Strand, an American Kennel Club Board member, called the report "good news for those of us who talk to our dogs."
"Like parents of toddlers, we learned long ago the importance of spelling key words like bath, pill or vet when speaking in front of our
dogs," Strand said. "Thanks to the researchers who've proven that people who talk to their dogs are cutting-edge communicators, not
just a bunch of eccentrics."
The researchers found that Rico knows the names of dozens of play toys and can find the one called for by his owner. That is a
vocabulary size about the same as apes, dolphins and parrots trained to understand words, the researchers say. Rico can even take the
next step, figuring out what a new word means. The researchers put several known toys in a room along with one that Rico had not
seen before.
From a different room, Rico's owner asked him to fetch a toy, using a name for the toy the dog had never heard. The border collie, a
breed known primarily for its herding ability, was able to go to the room with the toys and, seven times out of 10, bring back the one he
had not seen before. The dog seemingly understood that because he knew the names of all the other toys, the new one must be the
one with the unfamiliar name.
"Apparently he was able to link the novel word to the novel item based on exclusion learning, either because he knew that the familiar
items already had names or because they were not novel," said the researchers, led by Julia Fischer of the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
A month later, he still remembered the name of that new toy three out of six times, even without having seen it since that first test. That is
a rate the scientists said was equivalent to that of a 3-year-old.
"Rico's learning ability may indicate that some parts of speech comprehension developed separately from human speech," the scientists
said. "You don't have to be able to talk to understand a lot," Fischer said.
The team noted that dogs have evolved with humans and have been selected for their ability to respond to the communications of
people.
Katrina Kelner, Science's Deputy Editor for Life Sciences, said, "such fast, one-trial learning in dogs is remarkable. This ability suggests
that the brain structures that support this kind of learning are not unique to humans and may have formed the evolutionary basis of
some of the advanced language abilities of humans."
Perhaps, although Paul Bloom of Yale University urges caution. "Children can understand words used in a range of contexts. Rico's
understanding is manifested in his fetching behavior." Bloom writes in a commentary, also in Science.
Bloom calls for further experiments to answer several questions: "Can Rico learn a word for something other than a small object to be
fetched? Can he display knowledge of a word in some way other than fetching? Can he follow an instruction not to fetch something?"
Fischer and her colleagues are still working with Rico to see if he can understand requests to put toys in boxes or to bring them to
certain people. Rico was born in December 1994 and lives with his owners. He was tested at home.
Funding for this research was provided in part by the German Research Foundation.
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NOTE FROM EDITOR
Do you have something you would to see in the Viewpoint? I can't include anything unless someone sends it to me. Please send all
information or articles you would like to share to sky11@tampabay.rr.com. I would love to
hear from you.
Sharon K. Youngs, Editor
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