OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : Those Who Cannot See Find Ways to Adapt : Activities: Through the use of Braille, computers and audio tape, visually impaired teens can pursue a range of interests.

By LISA OKIKAWA

Feb. 17, 1994 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES, <i> Lisa Okikawa is a senior at Cypress High School in Cypress. </i>

Scott Blanks, 17, is a chess player, music fan and honors student at Anaheim High School. From promoting the chess club he and another student founded to pursuing an interest in guitar, Blanks is by any standard an extremely active teen-ager.

He is also blind.

Though visual impairment can drastically alter life, adaptive techniques allow for Blanks and other teens to participate in a wide range of activities.

At the Orange County Braille Institute in Anaheim, classes range from adaptive cooking to country line dancing to gardening. Blanks is a member of the Braille Institute Youth Group, which offers activities that include rock-climbing and surfing and classes to promote self-esteem as well as personal skills.

Blanks is one of seven visually impaired students at Anaheim High, which has had a visually handicapped program for about 30 years.

“Anaheim (high school) has a class where (texts) can be put into Braille. There is a lot of equipment and technology . . . so it’s not as hard as people think,” Blanks said. A computer class is held for the visually impaired so students can learn on a special type of computer.

Blanks, who has honors classes in U.S. history and English, studies with the help of textbooks in Braille and materials on tape. “Tape takes up less space. Braille is a lot bulkier, but when reading Braille, you can just go to the page and find (what you’re looking for).

“When you first learn (Braille), you learn each letter and each number. Braille is a lot bigger than print, and they have contractions to write more in less space,” said Blanks, who began learning to read Braille at age 3.

He was born with glaucoma, which can damage the optic nerve. “They said I could see for a few months, and then it went away totally,” he said.

“I do things people might not think I’m able to do, like shooting baskets, and I like a lot of TV shows,” Blanks said. “When you’re born blind . . . that’s the way you’re used to having things. . . . It’s much harder for people who weren’t born blind,” Blanks said.

Those who lose their sight after having had vision usually find it a difficult transition. The modification of life varies with each person.

“It depends a lot on their background,” said Marajean Davis, a counselor at the Orange County Braille Institute in Anaheim. “Sometimes it’s trust . . . because they no longer have vision to confirm things. Giving up and letting go of who you are and how you did things . . . learning the new you. Some people think they’re going to get their sight back. Denial is a thing they have to overcome.”

One Anaheim student who lost her eyesight described her experience this way: “I was such a visual person, so it’s harder to make that adaptation to sound,” she said.

“I like to know about colors and the setting around me or on TV. I miss seeing people’s expressions. I miss not being able to read and write. It was a hard adjustment,” she said.

Losing one’s sight is often similar to the grieving process after losing a person to death, according to Davis.

Usually the first emotion is plain shock, followed by denial, depression or anger. “Then it comes time when they start to learn or accept their loss,” Davis said. “Accepting doesn’t mean liking it . . . they have to accept its reality, which means coping.”

Small things they once took for granted, such as nonverbal cues between people, are lost, making communication more strenuous.

Davis has seen “very few people who haven’t really lost a lot of self-esteem when they lost their sight.”

If dealing with vision loss, Davis says, “Give yourself permission to grieve your loss. You’re not crazy because you want to cry or be depressed or angry. Find positive ways to get rid of your anger. If you don’t go through that grieving process, you postpone it, and it can build up.”

Because there are so many misconceptions, those unfamiliar with blindness are sometimes uncomfortable or afraid around a visually impaired person.

“To overcome a fear, you need to experience it. The visually impaired person isn’t contagious,” Davis says.

One common assumption is that the person lives in darkness. However, only 10% of the visually impaired are totally blind. “Ninety percent of those classified as blind have light perception of some kind and have some kind of vision,” Davis says.

Even if the first thing a seeing person notices about them is their use of a guide dog or white cane, the visually impaired want to be known as people first, not as being blind.

“Blind people are people, like everyone else,” Blanks said.

“They have all the problems of other people, all the feelings and capabilities. We’re not a different race; we’re just like everyone else!”

Davis adds: “When we say ‘a blind person,’ we take away from their person-hood. It points out their disability before the person.”

The Anaheim student who is dealing with the loss of her sight said she wishes that there could be more training in how to treat the visually impaired.

“In my experiences, places like hospitals don’t know what to do because they don’t come across visually impaired people very often. Therefore, we aren’t helped the way we should be. We are either ignored or spoken to loudly,” she said.

“People should remember that we could do just about anything anyone else would do. It may just take us a little longer . . . it’s all in (our) attitude.”