By Stephen Larson

(Editor’s Note: Stephen Larson is the new director of administrative services at State Services for the Blind.  Most new employees are required to take six weeks of training in blindness skills to give them knowledge and confidence in the capabilities of blind people, followed by one week of low-vision training.  As part of his training, he chose to go for his six-week emersion training at Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND) Inc.  Here is what he has to say about his experiences.)

In the fall of 2011, I participated in seven weeks of Adjustment to Blindness Training at Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND) Inc. and Vision Loss Resources in Minneapolis.  It was a tremendous learning experience and a difficult one at that, given the fact I was born without arms and use my feet to perform most activities of daily living.

I'd be lying if I were to say this training was easy for me because honestly, it was a lot of work requiring trust in the instructors and no small dose of courage.  However, transformative life experiences typically require effort of this sort.  Being without arms and using my feet to navigate the physical realm is challenging in and of itself; but using sleep shades adds an entirely new dimension.  Not having hands to sense tactilely the environment around me, my poor fine motor skills and the limited tactile information I received from my cane through my prostheses all contributed to the challenge, not to mention the strenuousness of using my legs and feet more than usual in communications, home management and industrial arts classes.

I am a product of Minnesota's vocational rehabilitation program, and I have worked as both a counselor and manager.  However, since there is a separate agency for the blind in Minnesota, I have never had the privilege of working with persons with blindness or other visual impairments.  The training revealed to me the unique path that persons with blindness and low vision must take to achieve greater independence and employment: a path in some ways different from my own or that taken by persons with other types of disabilities.

One of the differences is the critical role that mobility plays for the blind to be engaged and active in their communities.  Mass transit and well-developed orientation and mobility skills are essential as well as access to new technologies, the opportunity to integrate their functionality into their activities of daily living, the mental mapping of spaces and acute attention to auditory stimuli are key in the development of alternative strategies.

Similarities include the importance of emotional support, strong interpersonal skills, the capacity to problem-solve, occupational certification or licensure as well as multiple and varied educational or vocational experiences.  This learning experience reinforced my opinion that for those with a severe disability, personal traits other than sheer intelligence or academic proficiency determine largely if one is to live a full and meaningful life.

I believe that student success often equates to employment success.  When I was a student, I always considered my schooling a full-time job, as did several of my fellow students at BLIND, Inc. and Vision Loss Resources.  An article from the New York Times by Paul Tough (September 14, 2011) entitled “What If the Secret to Success Is Failure,” examines characteristics which appear to be highly correlated with student success: “Students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence.  They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class.”

These skills alone do not guarantee success, but I would argue that especially for persons with severe disabilities and those without the benefit of significant family resources, a “safety net” so to speak, they lie at the very foundation of success.  Consider the role that optimism, self-control, persistence, the ability to recover quickly from negative experiences and social intelligence play in your life.

We all carry our own “cross”: adversity or traumatic life experiences.  Some are able to carry the load while others unfortunately succumb to it.  Few of the students I attended training with will succumb for they are no less than warriors in my estimation.  They anticipate and accommodate adversity every day, forging a “battle-hardened” confidence.  Accustomed to what many persons without disabilities and some persons with disabilities would consider insurmountable hardship, they "roll with the punches" and most emit a positive, optimistic aura that ripples throughout their physical and emotional environment.  This charisma or positive energy often has a profound effect on his or her emotions and those of others.

Paul Tough's article also mentions the work of Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania who has researched the concept of self-control (the ability to regulate emotions, thoughts, and feelings in the service of valued goals) and she coined the term “grit” to describe perseverance and sustained interest in long-term goals.  Duckworth and her collaborators developed a grit test that they administered to more than 1,200 freshman cadets as they entered West Point.  The military has its own assessments, but the more accurate predictor of which cadets persisted and which ones dropped out turned out to be Duckworth's 12-item grit questionnaire.

Dr. Martin Seligman, also of the University of Pennsylvania, and other researchers have identified a set of strengths that were especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement.  They settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity.

Some schools are actually beginning to attempt to teach these character strengths and are finding significant success in doing so.  The importance of these characteristics permeates these schools with T-shirts that bear the slogan “Infinite Character” and Seligman's 24 character strengths.  The walls are covered with signs that read, “Got self-control?” and “I actively participate!”

These types of conversations are not academic instruction or discipline, but rather a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that involves using the conscious mind to understand and overcome unconscious fears and self-destructive habits, using techniques like “self-talk” putting an immediate crisis in perspective, the struggle to pull yourself through a crisis, to come to terms on a deep level with your own shortcomings and to labor to overcome them.

The essential conclusion is that what kids or adults need more than anything is a little hardship or challenges in life that they can overcome and ultimately demonstrate to themselves that they are capable of doing so.  Considering the adversity and hardship that many persons with severe disabilities experience, many possess a competitive advantage already by having developed these same types of personal characteristics.

Our vocational rehabilitation programs often do their best to achieve modest outcomes with the modest resources they are provided, but after all of my years in advocacy what I mourn the most is the comparative absence of persons with severe visible disabilities in leadership positions in our society.  There are some, of course, but how many do you know or have you met outside of organizations that serve the disabled?  We must collectively (among advocacy groups and service organizations alike) make a concerted effort to tie education and training opportunities to industry recognized credentials, start early in heightening the expectations that parents have of their children with disabilities and provide opportunities for youth to explore careers and develop technical competencies before high school graduation.

In closing, I would like to thank my employer, Minnesota State Services for the Blind for this opportunity to learn.  I wish to acknowledge and commend the high degree of professionalism demonstrated by BLIND, Inc.'s and Vision Loss Resources' instructors and administrative staff who are clearly committed to the education of their students.  Mostly, I appreciated what I learned from my fellow students.  This learning will significantly influence my opinions and practice in the arenas of vocational rehabilitation and disability policy for years to come.