Blind people are the same people. The world of blind people in the world of sighted people
A person receives 90% of information about the world around him through vision. Only the remaining ten are reserved for other senses. But how do blind people perceive the world?
Plunge into darkness
When we close our eyes, we usually see black, sometimes mixed with luminous spots. By this picture we mean “see nothing.” But how do those whose eyes are always “closed” see the world? What is darkness for a blind person and how does he see it?
In general, a blind person’s picture of the world largely depends on how old he was when he lost his sight. If this happened already at a conscious age, then the person thinks in the same images as sighted people. He simply receives information about them using other senses. So, hearing the rustling of leaves, he imagines trees, warm sunny weather will be associated with a blue sky, and so on.
If a person lost his sight in childhood, after the age of five, he can remember colors and understand their meaning. In other words, he will know what the standard seven colors of the rainbow look like and their shades. But visual memory will still be poorly developed. For such people, perception is based largely on hearing and touch.
People who have never seen the sun's vision imagine the world completely differently. Being blind from birth or from infancy, they do not know either the images of the world or its colors. For them, vision, like visual perception, means nothing, since the area of the brain responsible for converting visual information into an image simply does not work for them. When asked what they see before their eyes, they will most likely answer that nothing. Or rather, they simply will not understand the question, since they do not have a developed association of the object with the image. They know the names of colors and objects, but they don't know what they should look like. This once again proves the inability of the blind, who managed to regain their sight, to recognize objects familiar to them by touch after seeing them with their own eyes. Therefore, a blind person will never be able to explain what color real darkness is, because he cannot see it.
Tactile dreams
The situation is similar with dreams. People who have lost their sight at a conscious age, according to their own stories, continue to see dreams “with pictures” for some time. But as time passes, they are replaced by sounds, smells, and tactile sensations.
A person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in his dreams. But he will feel it. Suppose we have a dream in which we are on a sandy beach. A sighted person will most likely see the beach itself, the ocean, sand, and an incoming wave. A blind person will hear the sound of a wave, feel the sand pouring through his fingers, and feel a light breeze. Video blogger Tomi Edison, blind since birth, describes his dreams in the following way: “I dream the same thing as you. For example, I can be sitting at a football game and a moment later find myself at my seven-year-old birthday party.” Of course, he doesn't see all this. But he hears sounds that evoke corresponding associations in him.
Echolocation
Sighted people receive 90% of information through their eyes. Vision is the main sense organ for humans. For a blind person, this 90% or, according to some versions, 80% comes from hearing. That's why
Most blind people have very sensitive hearing, which a sighted person can only envy - in their midst there are often excellent musicians, for example, jazz performer Charles Ray or virtuoso pianist Art Tatum. Not only can blind people truly hear and closely follow sounds, but in some cases they can also use echolocation. True, for this you need to learn to recognize sound waves, reflected by surrounding objects, determine the position, distance and size of objects located nearby.
Modern researchers no longer classify this method as a fantastic ability. The method of using echolocation for the blind was developed by the American Daniel Kish, who was also blind from early childhood. At 13 months, he had both eyes removed. A blind child’s natural desire to understand the world resulted in his use of the method of reflecting sound from different surfaces. They use it the bats, living in complete darkness, and dolphins, using echolocation to navigate the ocean.
Thanks to his unique way of “seeing,” Daniel managed to live the life of an ordinary child, in no way inferior to his more fortunate peers. The essence of his method is simple: he constantly clicks his tongue, sending a sound in front of him, which is reflected from different surfaces and gives him an idea of the objects around him. In fact, the same thing happens when blind people tap a stick - the sound of the stick on the road, bounces off surrounding surfaces and conveys some information to the person.
However, Daniel's method has not yet become widespread. In particular, in America, where it originated, according to the American National Federation of Blind People, it was considered “too complex.” But today technology has come to the aid of a good idea. Two years ago, Israeli scientists developed a special Sonar Vision system that is capable of converting images into sound signals. It works in the same way as the echolocation system of bats, but instead of chirping, a video camera built into glasses is used. A laptop or smartphone converts the image into sound, which in turn is transmitted to the headset. According to experiments, after special training, blind people using the device were able to identify faces, buildings, the position of objects in space, and even identify individual letters.
The world is touchable
Unfortunately, all of the above methods of perceiving the world around us are not suitable for all blind people. Some are deprived from birth not only of eyes, but also of ears, or rather hearing. The world of the deaf-blind is limited to memory, if they have lost sight and hearing not since birth, and touch. In other words, for them there is only that which they can touch. Touch and smell are the only threads that connect them with the world around them.
But even for them there is hope for a fulfilling life. You can talk to them using so-called dactylology, when each letter corresponds to a specific sign reproduced with the fingers. A huge contribution to the lives of such people was made by the Braille code - a relief-dot tactile way of writing. Today, raised letters, incomprehensible to a sighted person, are ubiquitous. There are even special computer displays that can convert electronic text into raised text. However, this method is applicable only to those who have lost their sight and hearing after they have learned the language. Those who are blind and deaf from birth have to rely only on touch or vibration!
Reading vibrations
Completely unique in history is the case of American Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing as a result of a fever in infancy. It would seem that she is destined for the life of a closed person who, due to her disability, simply will not be able to learn the language, and therefore will not be able to communicate with people. But her desire to explore the world on an equal basis with the sighted and hearing people was rewarded. When Helen grew up, she was assigned to the Perkins School, which specialized in teaching blind people. There she was assigned a teacher, Anne Sullivan, who was able to find the right approach to Helen. She taught the language to a girl who had never heard human speech and did not even know the approximate sound of letters and the meaning of words. They resorted to the Tadoma method: touching their lips talking man, Helen felt their vibration while Sullivan marked the letters on her palm.
After mastering the language, Helen had the opportunity to use the Braille code. With his help, she achieved such success that would be the envy of a common person. By the end of her studies, she had fully mastered English, German, Greek and Latin. At the age of 24, she graduated with honors from the prestigious Radcliffe Institute, becoming the first deaf-blind person to receive a higher education. Subsequently, she devoted her life to politics and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and also wrote 12 books about her life and the world through the eyes of the blind.
When we close our eyes, we usually see black, sometimes mixed with luminous spots. By this picture we mean “see nothing.” But how do those whose eyes are always “closed” see the world?
Plunge into darkness
What is darkness for a blind person and how does he see it? In general, a blind person’s picture of the world largely depends on how old he was when he lost his sight. If this happened already at a conscious age, then the person thinks in the same images as sighted people. He simply receives information about them using other senses. So, hearing the rustling of leaves, he imagines trees, warm sunny weather will be associated with a blue sky, and so on. If a person lost his sight in childhood, after the age of five, he can remember colors and understand their meaning. In other words, he will know what the standard seven colors of the rainbow look like and their shades. But visual memory will still be poorly developed. For such people, perception is based largely on hearing and touch.
People who have never seen the sun's vision imagine the world completely differently. Being blind from birth or from infancy, they do not know either the images of the world or its colors. For them, vision, like visual perception, means nothing, since the area of the brain responsible for converting visual information into an image simply does not work for them.
When asked what they see before their eyes, they will most likely answer that nothing. Or rather, they simply will not understand the question, since they do not have a developed association of the object with the image. They know the names of colors and objects, but they don't know what they should look like. This once again proves the inability of the blind, who managed to regain their sight, to recognize objects familiar to them by touch after seeing them with their own eyes. Therefore, a blind person will never be able to explain what color real darkness is, because he cannot see it.
Tactile dreams
The situation is similar with dreams. People who have lost their sight at a conscious age, according to their own stories, continue to see dreams “with pictures” for some time. But as time passes, they are replaced by sounds, smells, and tactile sensations. A person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in his dreams. But he will feel it. Suppose we have a dream in which we are on a sandy beach. A sighted person will most likely see the beach itself, the ocean, sand, and an incoming wave. A blind person will hear the sound of a wave, feel the sand pouring through his fingers, and feel a light breeze. Video blogger Tomi Edison, who has been blind since birth, describes his dreams as follows: “I dream the same thing as you. For example, I can be sitting at a football game and a moment later find myself at my seven-year-old birthday party.” Of course, he doesn't see all this. But he hears sounds that evoke corresponding associations in him.
Echolocation
Sighted people receive 90% of information through their eyes. Vision is the main sense organ for humans. For a blind person, this 90% or, according to some versions, 80% comes from hearing. Therefore, most blind people have very sensitive hearing, which a sighted person can only envy - in their midst there are often excellent musicians, for example, jazz performer Charles Ray or virtuoso pianist Art Tatum. Not only can blind people truly hear and closely follow sounds, but in some cases they can also use echolocation. True, for this you need to learn to recognize sound waves reflected by surrounding objects, determine the position, distance and size of objects located nearby.
Modern researchers no longer classify this method as a fantastic ability. The method of using echolocation for the blind was developed by the American Daniel Kish, who was also blind from early childhood. At 13 months, he had both eyes removed. A blind child’s natural desire to understand the world resulted in his using the method of reflecting sound from different surfaces. It is also used by bats that live in complete darkness, and by dolphins that use echolocation to navigate the ocean.
Thanks to his unique way of “seeing,” Daniel managed to live the life of an ordinary child, in no way inferior to his more fortunate peers. The essence of his method is simple: he constantly clicks his tongue, sending a sound in front of him, which is reflected from different surfaces and gives him an idea of the objects around him. In fact, the same thing happens when blind people tap a stick - the sound of the stick on the road, bounces off surrounding surfaces and conveys some information to the person.
However, Daniel's method has not yet become widespread. In particular, in America, where it originated, according to the American National Federation of Blind People, it was considered “too complex.” But today technology has come to the aid of a good idea.
Two years ago, Israeli scientists developed a special Sonar Vision system that is capable of converting images into sound signals. It works in the same way as the echolocation system of bats, but instead of chirping, a video camera built into glasses is used. A laptop or smartphone converts the image into sound, which in turn is transmitted to the headset.
According to experiments, after special training, blind people using the device were able to identify faces, buildings, the position of objects in space, and even identify individual letters.
The world is touchable
Unfortunately, all of the above methods of perceiving the world around us are not suitable for all blind people. Some are deprived from birth not only of eyes, but also of ears, or rather hearing. The world of the deaf-blind is limited to memory, if they have lost sight and hearing not since birth, and touch. In other words, for them there is only that which they can touch. Touch and smell are the only threads that connect them with the world around them. But even for them there is hope for a fulfilling life. You can talk to them using so-called dactylology, when each letter corresponds to a specific sign reproduced with the fingers. A huge contribution to the lives of such people was made by the Braille code - a relief-dot tactile way of writing.
Today, raised letters, incomprehensible to a sighted person, are ubiquitous. There are even special computer displays that can convert electronic text into raised text. However, this method is applicable only to those who have lost their sight and hearing after they have learned the language. Those who are blind and deaf from birth have to rely only on touch or vibration.
Reading vibrations
Completely unique in history is the case of American Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing as a result of a fever in infancy. It would seem that she is destined for the life of a closed person who, due to her disability, simply will not be able to learn the language, and therefore will not be able to communicate with people. But her desire to explore the world on an equal basis with the sighted and hearing people was rewarded. When Helen grew up, she was assigned to the Perkins School, which specialized in teaching blind people. There she was assigned a teacher, Anne Sullivan, who was able to find the right approach to Helen. She taught the language to a girl who had never heard human speech and did not even know the approximate sound of letters and the meaning of words. They resorted to the Tadoma method: by touching the lips of the speaking person, Helen felt their vibration, while Sullivan marked the letters on her palm. After mastering the language, Helen had the opportunity to use the Braille code. With his help, she achieved such success that an ordinary person would envy. By the end of her studies, she had fully mastered English, German, Greek and Latin.
At the age of 24, she graduated with honors from the prestigious Radcliffe Institute, becoming the first deaf-blind person to receive a higher education. Subsequently, she devoted her life to politics and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and also wrote 12 books about her life and the world through the eyes of the blind.
A month ago, at a stormy Moscow intersection, without sound signal traffic light, I helped a blind girl cross the road. We got to talking, and she said that she had been going to work for a week, this was her first job in 25 years, and she was grateful to fate that now she did not have to hang on her parents’ necks. The girl was trained as a massage therapist, received a certificate, and was hired at some massage parlor. After three years of looking for a job. I decided to find out what the situation is like with the employment of blind people.
It must be said right away, although this is obvious: in terms of employment, there is a huge difference between a blind and a visually impaired person (both are visually impaired).
“It’s much easier for a visually impaired person to find a job than for a completely blind person,” I’m sure Oleg Nikolaevich Smolin, State Duma deputy, blind from birth. Even if a person has only 10% vision left, he can be employed in the same job as a sighted person, it will just take him longer to perform functions related to vision. “The visually impaired can at least spy on something,” says Pavel Malyshev, blind from Nizhny Novgorod. – They can see colors or some information, they can walk without a cane, I, for example, have no idea what color and light are, I even only have “auditory” dreams. A visually impaired person can safely work where a blind person will not be hired at all. And if a visually impaired person has a special education, then there should be no problems with employment at all.”
Visually impaired people can get almost any job: from a teacher and psychologist to a massage therapist and translator. Therefore, we will talk about “totals” - completely blind people who, looking ahead, have a very difficult time.
The job search stage is already a whole job. You can't look for vacancies in the newspaper. There are two ways - a computer (all information on the screen is read out using special programs) and employment services. Let's start with the latter. I compiled a list of all district employment centers in Moscow and started calling with one single question: “Do you have vacancies for blind people?” They answered me: “no.” I asked if there were any vacancies for blind people with higher education, and they answered: “no.” For blind people with higher education and perfect knowledge computer technologies: "No". For blind people with higher education, computer technology and extensive work experience: “no”.
Not a single Moscow employment service answered me: “come, we’ll look” or “you need to check with the employer”; they didn’t ask what the person had already worked for or what education they had, although I was persistent. But there were all the variations of “no”: “well, no”, “probably not”, “no, of course”, etc.
Then I switched to the Moscow region and called the Balashikha employment service. They directly said that they are not and never have been looking for work for the blind, a blind person can find a job only through the All-Russian Society of the Blind, a blind person can only be employed in certain types of work that are not contraindicated for him. For everyone else, “it’s simply impossible,” the operator told me.
I tried to explain that modern technology has long moved forward; today a blind person can perfectly control a computer and any electronic device in general. “Can you imagine this yourself?!” – the operator exclaimed and said goodbye.
One of the phones advised me to contact the government service for promoting the employment of people with disabilities and gave me a phone number and address. For a week no one answered the phone, and I didn’t go to the address, just as no blind person would go.
“The main job search tool is a computer and a phone,” he told me Nikolay Stepkov, - a 25-year-old blind person from the Moscow region. – You look for a vacancy on the Internet, and then either call the specified phone number or write to email. If there is no mail, and no one answers the phone, of course, I won’t go anywhere. No, I know how to move around the city and quite quickly, but everyone still understands that every time it’s not so much stress, but inconvenience.”
Nikolai put an end to employment services three years ago (“They don’t know how to work at all, I don’t know real person who would benefit from this”) and took computer courses for the blind. Now works as a programmer.
I was looking for regular vacancies, not “for the blind.” He wrote by email, called on the phone, explained that although he was blind, he could work well. “There were refusals, usually everyone refused at once,” says Stepkov. “But in the end I found an employer who agreed to watch me work and hired me the next day.” Naturally, I came to this job with my “software”, mainly related to voice acting. I sit with headphones on, work, and don’t bother anyone.” And the girl from the Balashikha employment service still cannot imagine how this is possible.
"You see, all these public services labor, they are not only incompetent, they transmit this incompetence to the population, they have a distorted idea of the state, they simply discredit the state,” says Konstantin Aleksandrovich Lapshin, head of the sector for the study of social and labor relations and determination of employment opportunities for blind people under the VOS management apparatus.
“For several decades now, blind people have been not only assembling sockets in specialized factories, but also working in the open labor market: as lawyers, programmers, school teachers, and help desk specialists. We have blind State Duma deputies in Russia, I personally know three blind history teachers, there are dozens of them across Russia.”
Lapshin, being a candidate of economic sciences with full time in VOS, independently searches on the Internet for vacancies for blind and visually impaired people and posts them daily on a special VOS page. “Of course, we have VOS enterprises, these are specialized enterprises where blind people can work,” says Lapshin. – But over the past 20 years, the number of such enterprises has decreased 10 times and salaries there... Well, in Moscow it is 12,000 rubles. This is a huge topic, but in a nutshell, even these enterprises have become unprofitable in hiring visually impaired people, because the state has canceled all tax benefits for them.” Therefore, Lapshin searches the Internet every day for advertisements, contacts employers and asks if they are ready to hire a visually impaired person for the specified vacancy.”
“No employers call us or offer us anything, understand, no one needs us, we are looking for ourselves,” explains Lapshin. “We are mainly looking for vacancies related to IT, teaching, massage. Often companies are ready to hire blind musicians, singers, and translators.” Therefore, Lapshin is sure, in order for a blind person to find an interesting job, he needs to have an education. The easiest and most trouble-free way is free computer courses at the VOS; any visually impaired person can enroll in them, being a member of the VOS.
But, unfortunately, even with excellent computer skills, it is almost impossible to find these vacancies on the Internet. Just enter “vacancies for the blind” in any search or try to find such a vacancy on any employment site. I’m sure that all you managed to find was a list of vacancies from BOS. That’s why Lapshin likes to say: “Employment of the blind is the work of the blind themselves.”
According to the VOS, the employment situation for blind people has deteriorated significantly over the past year or two. “The range of qualifications for employing blind people is constantly decreasing, partly due to the introduction modern technologies, partly due to the abolition of benefits for enterprises,” says deputy Smolin. “Besides, no one wants to bother with the blind, why bother if you can hire a sighted person.” In the USSR, the totally blind always had special government support, for example, they did not pay taxes at all. I don’t know what will happen next.”
Meanwhile, the younger generation of blind people is actively mastering computers and receiving higher education in the most different areas. In the process of preparing this article, I corresponded with dozens of blind young people who often type faster than me, write without errors, and every single one of them works or studies.
“I’m a freelancer, I take on programming projects,” says Vadim Lukyanchuk from Ruza, - I say right away that I am blind, because some projects related to video processing or games are beyond my capabilities. There is always work." Vadim's main activity is his own project to adapt programs for the needs of blind musicians. Pavel Malyshev from Nizhny Novgorod teaches computer literacy to other blind people. Dmitry Vasin from Orenburg, who was blind as a child, works as a massage therapist, and on weekends he sings in a restaurant to his own accompaniment on the guitar. Vyacheslav Tsaregorodtsev from Orlov - a lawyer in technical support, works part-time as a massage therapist. Olga Maslova from Vladivostok - violinist. Elena Velikanova from St. Petersburg – tutor in English and courier. Dozens of totally blind people are looking for work and finding it.
“Of course, it’s much more difficult for us,” says Elena Velikanova, who lost her sight in early childhood. I can say for sure that the state is not helping us. VOS and some ordinary people help a lot with their participation. We have our own community on the Internet, there is a lot of support there, they won’t let us give up. But it is impossible to sit and wait until they find a job for you, not to engage in your education, not to develop professionally, neither sighted nor blind. I can say for sure that a focused person, no matter what his vision, will find a job.”
Vasily Drozhzhin dreams every night, but does not remember what color they are. He doesn't find the term "blind" offensive. He says that visually impaired people have problems that are much more important than arguments about the correct terminology.
Vasily’s vision began to disappear in the second grade of school. The path from optical glasses to almost complete loss of vision led young man into a world of dark blurry silhouettes, among which you can only navigate with a cane.
Today, a blind lawyer and massage therapist works in the All-Russian Society of the Blind (VOS), in the Cultural and Sports Rehabilitation Complex that exists on its basis. There, the Reedus correspondent met with him to discuss the problems of people with white canes living in Moscow.
Is Moscow not for the blind?
“Employment is a problem that is relevant for all people, regardless of their physical health. There are very few jobs for disabled people, or none at all,” said Vasily.
Blind specialists are sometimes discriminated against, he believes. A lawyer knows from personal experience how difficult it is to prove your professionalism to an employer when he points out your inability to read a document.
“They asked how you would work with papers and the computer. People don’t understand that the level of technical support today allows a blind person to work with printed text and a computer completely calmly.”
There are a huge number of products in the world for visually impaired and blind people. Navigations, gadgets for everyday life, braille lines and sound markers for objects, with the help of which you can write the name of things on special stickers with your voice. Confirming his words about the role of technological progress in the life of a blind person, Vasily takes out his iPhone. Firmly tapping your fingers on the black screen adjusts the camera.
“Now the most important thing is that the text fits completely into the photo,” explains the interlocutor. “This is the hardest thing for me to control”...
A second later, the contents of the photographed paper are voiced by a woman’s rapid speech. While I am checking the sound with the text, Vasily turns on his laptop and, following the same example of voice acting, begins to type, correctly alternating keystrokes on the keyboard layout.
Of course, not every blind person can work like this, nor can they read Braille. It's a matter of personality. If a person is interested in being competitive and proving to society that he is worth something, then he must learn and develop himself. There are many offers in a big city. It all depends on whether a person is ready to declare himself.
The life of a blind man in a big city brings him many surprises. If you don't take them for granted, you can go crazy. Vasily spoke about how difficult it is to buy groceries on your own in a supermarket, in a self-service place, where directions to goods and information about it are available only to people who can see them. When entering into dialogue with a manager or with customers, Vasily often heard the answer “seek the help of a social worker.”
“They help too, of course. Our whole life is built on " human factor“. I want to believe that today’s attitude towards people with disabilities is a stage in the development of society and someday the situation will change in better side. When someone tries to help, even if it’s inept and bad, it’s always nice. However, out of a hundred people in the stream, only a few come up.”
The capital's blind people are also lucky in terms of urban amenities: tactile tiles, voiced traffic lights (which, however, do not always work), yellow stripes on the stairs and circles on glass doors, make life easier for blind people in Moscow.
But in order to go out onto the streets of a metropolis, or indeed any city or even village, a blind person does not need a cane or developed infrastructure, says Vasily Drozhzhin.
"Wish. It is much more important than this or that device. Not everyone has the strength, will and courage to accept themselves, to overcome the complex that you are not like everyone else, that they will look at you and point fingers. I also spent a long time breaking this barrier within myself.”
During a conversation, Vasily’s hands lie confidently and submissively with their fingers intertwined. While we were talking, the young man’s phone repeatedly demanded an answer from him. They also called Vasily on his work phone. Despite the presence of other employees in the office, it seems that only Drozhzhin can solve the problems of those calling KSRK VOS.
Cinema for the blind
The main merit of the KSRK department and its workers like Vasily is cinema with television commentaries. For five years now, the most popular films in the world have been narrated to blind Russians: in addition to dialogues and musical backgrounds, rooms, the appearance of characters and city landscapes are given voices for the blind. Films with behind-the-scenes descriptions of the footage give new impressions not only to the capital, but also to the regional blind.
“By selecting the shortest possible phrases to describe the visual image of the film, we make it accessible. That is, a person can imagine the scene on which the action unfolds.”
About fifteen famous films have already been announced. Vasily said that he considers the domestic film “Legend No. 17” to be his favorite.
“Of all that was produced in our country in the post-perestroika years, this is the best work. We tried very hard to make the audio commentary as high quality as possible.”
Blind people have many creative options. Mostly it's music. For a long time it was believed that the blind were gifted with special hearing and were destined to become outstanding musicians.
“This is another myth. Just like the fact that we supposedly have hypersensitivity in our hands. The proportions of talented people among the blind are the same as among the conditionally healthy. For example, I don’t consider myself a gifted person.”
Blindness is not a reason to be sad. Vasily admitted that he enjoys life and is not yet ready to talk about who he sees himself in 10 years.
“Life changes depending on our actions,” concludes Vasily.
Photo courtesy of the Foundation for Supporting the Deaf-Blind “Connection” Alexander Silyanov
Sculptor
The artist Alexander Silyanov knew about his diagnosis, felt that he was losing his sight, but did not fully believe that one day he would become completely blind. Usher syndrome, a genetic disease that first takes away hearing and then vision, manifests itself in patients with varying intensity. Silyanov lost his hearing as a child and became blind at the age of 48. He graduated from the Moscow Art and Industrial School and was the only deaf student in the group; the words of teachers and classmates had to be read by lips. Now Alexander Silyanov heads a charity non-profit organization"Usher-forum" and creates sculptures. on his last picture, painted before he went completely blind, depicts a self-portrait with a guide dog.
At the school, Alexander Silyanov studied sculpture and, having gone blind, changed his colors to bronze. Over eight years, he created 14 sculptures, and in the spring of this year Silyanov became a laureate of the international Philanthropist award. He has never seen his grandson Gleb, but his portrait resemblance to the bust made by his grandfather is impressive. The artist says that practicing sculpture gives him a feeling of independence from those around him, although even here he cannot do without the help of friends and acquaintances: they purchase materials and accompany the sculptor to the studio, where his works are cast in bronze.
Alexander learns all the news through his wife. The artist was unable to master a special computer: he had known dactylology since childhood, but Braille was difficult to learn. He used to have a guide dog, Irzhik, but he died several years ago - the artist always puts his sculptures in a place of honor at his exhibitions. Assistance dogs for deaf-blind people are as rare as deaf-blind people themselves. Having learned during a business trip to England that dogs there help the deaf-blind, Alexander asked the All-Russian Society of the Blind to give him a dog, which puzzled the management - animals trained to help blind people responded to words, not gestures. Silyanov convinced the dog handlers that he would teach the dog to recognize tactile commands, and his experience formed the basis of a new training methodology at the Balashikha Guide Dog Training Center.
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Sculpture of the guide dog Irzhik According to the census conducted in 2014 charitable foundation“Connection”, there are now about 3,000 deaf-blind people living in Russia. Of these, a little more than a third have not seen or heard since birth, and those who do not see or hear anything at all are 5-7%. According to unofficial data, there are about 15 thousand people in Russia with two sensory impairments. Of the 85 regions, deaf-blind people were found in 76. This does not mean that they are not present in the rest: many parents of children with complex disabilities refuse to hang the terrible label of deaf-blindness on children with residual vision or hearing, so they ignore both the questionnaire and the help. And it is unknown how many deaf-blind people who have not yet been registered live in remote villages.
Of the 3,000 registered deaf-blind people, about 10% work. Of course, both minors and elderly people took part in the census, but 17% want to find a job. For many years, such disabled people were involved in mass serial production at the enterprises of the Society of the Blind. The blind have especially sensitive fingers and dexterous hands; they cope well with any kind of mechanical work. But automation and robotization of production have replaced people in production. Wood carving, embroidery, bookbinding, shoe repair, creativity and computer work - texts, tables and translations - remain blind.
Writer
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Natalya Demyanenko “My name is Arno. I'm a poodle. Secretly, he’s very handsome: black, with a chic lion hairstyle. You would appreciate it, but, alas, we can’t expect this from our students. Vitalik and Tanya are people. I don't know what breed. But, in all likelihood, something quite rare. They don't hear or see. Vitalik - nothing at all. He almost never makes any noise with his voice. But he doesn’t swear so terribly. He wags his finger a little and that’s it. Tanya doesn’t see either, but she hears something. In any case, if you bark loudly, she will definitely understand. Relatives address her with a voice, albeit a very loud one. And if they need to tell Vitalik something, they draw it on his palm...”
With her almost autobiographical story “Communication Experience,” St. Petersburg resident Natalya Demyanenko took first place in the competition for deaf-blind writers. Authors, deprived of sight and hearing, from all over the country sent materials about how they perceive the world. Inspired by the victory, Natalya wrote an autobiographical story.
— I dream of going into big literature. Quite insolent, huh? But there’s no harm in dreaming. True, publishing houses have not yet fought for the honor of publishing me,” Natalya jokes.
Natalya’s deep vision and hearing damage were superimposed on problems with musculoskeletal system. At two years old, Natalya stopped seeing, at 16 she had to sit in a wheelchair, and at 20 her hearing deteriorated sharply. The Internet saved us from a real information vacuum and complete isolation from the world. Blind people can now read news and communicate online using special displays that display text information in the form of dotted Braille symbols. Having mastered the computer, Natalya entered a distance learning university, and although she studied there for only two years, the editing skills she acquired were very useful - now Natalya is part of the Editorial Council magazine for the deaf-blind “Your Interlocutor”.
Natalya has no children, but she has a beloved and loving husband, Vlad. In Natalya's literary story, he is written under the name Vitalik. The name is the only discrepancy: Vlad is a totally deaf-blind person.
— I wrote to Vlad after stumbling upon his dating ad in a magazine for the blind. I was losing my hearing at the time and didn’t understand how to live further, so I decided to ask for advice. After two years of correspondence, we got married. When I was getting ready to get married, everyone dissuaded me, including my closest friends: she herself had a “bouquet of impossibilities,” and so did Vlad. She was as brave as she could, although in her heart she was afraid, of course. But I never regretted that I married him. He and I somehow complement each other. I have some remaining hearing and normal speech - I can convey something to my spouse from others or translate it. He is physically strong man, but I don't go. But my husband takes her in his arms more often. Any woman would be jealous,” Natalya smiles.
Vladislav and Natalya have been living together for ten years in Leningrad region. Natasha’s mother regularly visits them, but mostly the couple manage the household independently, taking care not only of each other, but also of two dogs and a cat. Natalya contacts her husband using a vibration call received via individual program rehabilitation. Typically, such a bell is attached to the door, and a plastic box, which vibrates to inform a deaf-blind person about the arrival of guests, remains with the owner of the apartment, but the Demyanenkos use it differently: when Natasha needs help, she presses the button, and her husband receives a vibration signal.
“One spring, a cat climbed into the greenhouse, and Vlad didn’t notice that he had locked it there,” recalls Natalya. “We were looking for her, going crazy with excitement.” I had to write to my parents. A day later they arrived and released the cat. Surely our dogs ran up to the greenhouse, but we didn’t see or hear the cat’s meow. That’s when we both realized that it was not always safe to live next to us.
For a long time, deaf-blindness was not recognized as a special type of disability, offering deaf-blind people only the benefits afforded to the blind. However, even a hearing-impaired blind person perceives the world differently than someone deprived of only sight, and accordingly needs special help.
There is almost no infrastructure for deaf-blind people in Russia. In the 23 regions where deaf-blind people were found during the census, there are a total of 34 leisure centers. These are clubs for communication, created, as a rule, on the basis of libraries for the blind. Another problem is the record-breaking low number of hours of sign language interpretation: in Russia, by law, a deaf-blind person has the right to only 40 hours of sign language interpretation per month, despite the fact that one trip to the clinic often takes at least four hours. Professional standard sign language interpreters were approved only in June of this year, but in many regions there are no such services yet. "My biggest headache V Lately“This is the lack of support and sign language translation services in our city,” says Natalya Demyanenko. - Nowadays it’s not so difficult to go somewhere - there are social taxis, low-panel buses. But the fact that there is no one to translate the necessary information, no one to accompany, makes life much more limited than it could be.”
Professor
Photo: Sergey Melnikov Alexander Suvorov “There are no special problems for the deaf-blind. We have the same problems as all other people,” says professor, doctor of psychological sciences Alexander Suvorov, joking: “But we may not have some other problems that you have.” For example, thank God, we don’t have soldiers. And healthy people There is. And none of us, unfortunately, will fly into space.”
Suvorov is confident that deaf-blindness only determines the specifics of ways to solve universal human problems. Many people know about Braille, which blind people use to read. How can you “hear” with your fingers? The main ways of communicating with deaf-blind people are dactylology (manual alphabet) and palm writing. Dactylology can be mastered in a couple of hours; writing on the palm of your hand is accessible to everyone without special training. But strangers are often afraid to touch deaf-blind people, and therefore the problem of lack of communication becomes especially acute.
The first deaf-blind person in the world to receive a bachelor's degree was the American writer and prominent public figure of the last century, Helen Keller, who became a symbol of the struggle for many people with disabilities. Helen Keller's birthday, June 27, has been celebrated as International Day of the Deaf-Blind since 1980. The “Soviet Helen Keller” was called the defectologist Olga Ivanovna Skorokhodova, who for a long time was the only deaf-blind researcher in the world.
Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov lost his sight at the age of three, and his hearing at the age of nine, when speech had already formed and became the main means of communication. In 1977, after graduating from the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, he was hired as a junior research fellow at the Research Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (now the Psychological Institute Russian Academy education). Higher education At the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, Suvorov, along with three other deaf-blind young people, received it as part of the unique “Zagorsk experiment”. Zagorsky (Sergiev Posad) Orphanage Deaf-Blind is the only boarding school in the country where children deprived of sight, hearing and speech are educated.
Photo courtesy of the So-edinenie foundation for the support of the deaf-blind. Alena Kapustyan and Alexander Suvorov communicate at a visiting school for the community of families of deaf-blind children In 1994, Suvorov defended his Ph.D. thesis on autobiographical material on the topic “Self-development of the individual in extreme situation deaf-blindness”, and two years later - a doctoral dissertation dedicated to humanity as a factor in personal self-development. Now Alexander Suvorov is the only deaf-blind professor of psychology in the world.
— When we were abroad a quarter of a century ago, in the 90s, they asked us whether there were many deaf-blind people in the Soviet Union, and I answered that even if there was only one, that was already a lot. It would be better if such disabled people did not exist at all; this deaf-blindness is a very unpleasant thing. But since it exists, we must take into account that these people are in a very difficult situation. And they need versatile help,” says Suvorov.
Alexander Vasilyevich tells how at the American school for the blind, Perkins School, he met a deaf boy who had a severe form of cerebral palsy. The teenager had neither arms nor legs, but he worked on the computer with the help special device on the head in the shape of a beak, which can be used to press keyboard buttons. “He may be the only one in the world who has such a device. And no one asked how many people were like that child,” says the professor. “It’s enough that there is one and he needs to master the computer.” And in Russia they are constantly asking: how much? And when they find out, they think: is one person worth the expense, wouldn’t it be easier to hand him over to some social institution? Why then were children taught and instilled with self-service skills so that staff in nursing homes would serve them? I am categorically against the statistical approach. Many, few - each unique. All over the world they say that society is only as big as its attitude towards people with disabilities. Everyone has the right to remain, to be human.”