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BY PRISCILLA GREEAR
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--On the clear morning of July 15 Bonnie Fehrenbach guides a blind
student to the sidewalk’s edge.
Her client, Jerrie Shallenberger, listens for the quiet roar of traffic as
she waits to cross an unfamiliar Midtown intersection. Fehrenbach stands close
to Shallenberger as she carefully feels the pavement with her white cane before
each step while making her way to the other side of the street using the
crosswalk.
Traveling a few blocks, Fehrenbach coaches her client on body position,
which affects her direction, how she walks and how she hears the traffic.
Fehrenbach also helps her identify street crossings, uneven places in the
sidewalk, curbs, poles and wheelchair ramps. They then pass a yellow sign
reading “blind persons,” and return from Shallenberger’s
mobility lesson to the Center for the Visually Impaired, a welcoming, red brick
building at 763 Peachtree St.
Fehrenbach is one of 54 staff members and approximately 200 volunteers at
the Center for the Visually Impaired, Georgia’s largest comprehensive,
fully accredited, private facility providing rehabilitation services for
individuals of all ages who are blind or visually impaired.
“Crossing streets is something we all take for granted, but it’s a
very scary situation for people who have lost their vision--they may have to
rely on their hearing,” explained Fehrenbach, CVI’s orientation and
mobility specialist, following the lesson.
“The main thing you’re doing (at intersections) is listening to
the traffic, the parallel traffic. When they hear the parallel traffic they
know it’s safe to start up,” she said, noting that people with vision
loss also have to be able to determine many other factors such as whether a
traffic signal includes a left-turn arrow.
Street crossing is Shallenberger’s biggest mobility challenge. “I
listen for my traffic. I line myself up. I never cross the street unless I let
the traffic go three times to know how it’s working,” she said.
“That is what I have to correct most often … lining myself up with
traffic so I can make a straight crossing … so that you don’t veer
left or veer right.”
The Center for the Visually Impaired, which takes approximately 250,000
information and referral calls annually, assists over 1,400 visually impaired
individuals every year who pay a sliding scale fee or no fee. It is 60 percent
state funded, with remaining funding coming through donations and other
sources.
According to “A Practical Guide to the Americans with Disabilities Act
and Visual Impairment,” 10 million Americans are visually impaired and 1.6
million are severely visually impaired, with two thirds of the severely
impaired being 65 or older.
Fehrenbach, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Atlanta, teaches
orientation and mobility through the Rehabilitation Services Program, which
helps clients develop the skills and attitudes necessary to increase
independence in the home and on the job.
“Orientation is knowing where you are within the environment and the
mobility part is getting from point A to point B. I teach people how to travel
to different environments safely, efficiently and gracefully,” she said.
“Sometimes the safest route may not be the straight shot so it may not
seem like the most efficient way. They learn how to make this judgment.”
The rehabilitation program also includes Braille instruction, personal
computers, adaptive technology, daily living activities and other services. In
addition, the center features a low-vision clinic, the STARS recreational and
social skills program for students ages 6-21 and the BEGIN program, which
serves newborn to early school-age children with severe visual impairments.
BEGIN provides early education activities for visually impaired children and
information, emotional support and guidance to their parents.
As the fastest growing population of visually impaired persons is 55 and
older, the center’s Community Adult Services Program provides counseling
and rehabilitation services to many adults who, without intervention, would
have to leave their homes. Georgia Nunnally, a Forest Park resident whose
stroke nine years ago left her blind, had a year of mobility and rehabilitation
training through the Community Adult Services Program. She learned to live more
independently at home alone and when traveling with a sighted guide.
Executive Director Scott McCall, who is blind, said that the mission of the
center is to increase the independence and sense of dignity and self-worth of
the blind and visually impaired, which they and all others deserve.
Historically, blind people have had fewer educational and other opportunities,
he said, and have been portrayed in literature as grotesque figures or geniuses
and not as normal people. This has led them to be less accepted and have lower
self-esteem.
He said the instructors should “believe in people who are blind and
visually impaired--have the kind of expectation you would have in working with
anyone--and promote self-worth and independence .... People who are blind are,
first and foremost, people.”
“For most (of the newly blind), they’ve told me that their world
is turning upside down,” the director said. “With good training that
people are receiving here they can get their world aright. They can put it back
in order. They can regain control of their life. When you learn to travel then
you start to regain some control and independence. When you learn how to cook,
when you learn how to go to your closet and decide what to wear without having
to ask, when you can take care of yourself, then you can regain much of that
independence and that’s what our work is about.”
After observing clients, Fehrenbach, who holds a master’s degree in
orientation and mobility, recommends objectives for them, depending on their
abilities, health and goals, such as traveling with a sighted person or alone
or using MARTA. Programs take an average of about seven months. “They may
not all need the same things. It’s just very individualized training that
we offer,” she said.
Shallenberger, who is 45 and developed blindness in 1983 from an eye
disease, began a three-month training program in June with classes three to
five days a week. In addition to mobility instruction, she is given a two-week
class on personal safety, taught by Fehrenbach and other instructors, and a
computer class that teaches screen reading and other programs for the blind. A
student at Gwinnett Technical Institute who moved to Atlanta about a year ago
and lives with her daughter and other family, Shallenberger began the program
to learn to travel more independently about the city and her campus without a
sighted guide.
Fehrenbach may help new students plan a route to the center or visit those
with new jobs at their workplace and help orient them there. She may meet
college students on campus, as she helped orient Shallenberger for two days in
January to her school. She takes students to the Avondale MARTA station where
she familiarizes them with rail cars, handrails, call buttons, platforms and
how to identify where they end, and a crawl space persons could escape to if
they fell on a track. Students run their fingers through a model of the Five
Points MARTA station in an office filled with transit maps, as “it’s
really easy to get disoriented in places like that so they really have to pay
attention to every turn they’re making.”
“We kind of gradually let them have a little more independence and they
start feeling more comfortable and we start feeling more comfortable, and we
have to let them make mistakes and see that they can handle it,” she said.
Fehrenbach also teaches a class on sensory development, helping persons to
tune into their sense of hearing, smell and touch, and to become more sensitive
to things like how to identify the ground surface through cane vibrations. She
teaches classes on Atlanta geography and personal safety, addressing things
like using intuition to avoid danger, physical defense and becoming aware of
the environment.
“Learning to become aware of your environment is a big thing because if
you’re aware of your environment you can manage it,” she said.
“A lot of visually impaired people feel more vulnerable when they’re
out traveling and we try to get them to dispel that myth. They may appear more
vulnerable, but they can fight back if they need to.”
Fehrenbach added that persons assisting the blind should speak directly to
them and always ask before assisting them in traveling. “Ask if they need
assistance before assuming. Never grab them. Never push them. A lot of people
grab their arm and start pushing them across the street. That’s very
scary.”
Fehrenbach accompanied Shallenberger as she rode a MARTA train and bus for
the first time. Shallenberger said she can now use MARTA independently.
“If you don’t do it you tend to have a fear of it. Once you do it,
it’s not nearly as scary as it was. I had never traveled the MARTA system
before. It was something that I needed to experience, to know how to do.”
She has also learned a way to plan traveling routes that has been very
valuable. She now calls the manager at the place she’s going to and gets
directions. She then records them and the number on a tape machine in case she
gets lost.
Shallenberger said she feels vulnerable at times like when someone gets
close behind her or too near her face. When facing danger she is now ready to
fight back, hitting with her fist, elbows and cane, and kicking for protection.
“It’s making me more aware (of the environment) and it’s
giving me more self-confidence to at least know that in certain (dangerous)
circumstances you do have something to fall back on.”
Fehrenbach said that clients often struggle with depression from having
waited a long time to get training or from isolating themselves. “They
don’t want to have to do anything with their friends because they have to
depend on them. That gets them down in the dumps.”
“One thing that they start learning is that they can do things that
they have to do. They just have to do it in a different way. It’s nice to
see them come to that realization that they can do the things they used to
do,” she said.
Shallenberger through the years has struggled with self-confidence and
self-esteem and was leery of crossing streets without a sighted guide, as she
became frustrated when making mistakes. While she still fears crossing roads
with islands in the middle, her confidence has grown through instruction.
“I’ve gotten better at my mobility and I’m not as
apprehensive about traveling. You have more confidence and you’re a lot
more secure in your traveling,” she said. “They did a lot for my
self-confidence because I actually will be independent. It does a lot for your
self-esteem and your self-confidence. It builds you up and lets you know that
you can live independently and you get to meet a lot of nice people that are
there to help and you meet a lot of nice clients.”
Shallenberger likes the hands-on instruction. “They have an excellent
teaching curriculum. It’s been very enlightening. The hands-on with the
tutorial, the mobility, the planning the routes, the way they teach you is
excellent … It’s easier to learn that way and so to me the program is
really wonderful. I have no complaints. I’ve learned a lot.”
As only a few colleges and universities train people in rehabilitation of
the visually impaired, McCall said the center’s biggest need is for more
qualified instructors, particularly to serve the growing elderly population.
“The most pressing thing is to do more of what we’re already doing
so that we can serve more people. Most of our programs have waiting
lists.”
As CVI works to expand its services, the director said the opportunities for
the blind are increasing. “Living 100 years ago there were many more
barriers and challenges and much of it related to social attitudes and
challenges. We haven’t reached the Promised Land, but we’re well on
our way.”
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