[nabs] atending a rehab program

[bookwormahb at earthlink.net]

Hi all,

Has anyone gone to a adult rehab training program?  If so, where and what did you learn?  A few years ago some of you said you went to youth programs.  

Many blind and visually impaired youth are more sheltered and may not learn the same daily tasks as others their age.  I was like this.  Often kids just pick up things by observation but for us we have to be shown and learn explicitly.  I think rehab can serve a good role for those blind from birth and newly blind.  

For me I need to learn most about clothing care such as ironing and matching clothes.  I also need to learn cooking.  

I started a program in my state of VA.  I have mixed feelings about it.  Here are some of the classes at the Va Rehab center and what I learned.  

In handwriting, I learned about writing guides, ways to improve my signature, and still learning some cursive.  I have tunnel vision so i know print but not much cursive.

Consumer Education is a lecture based class and has young students like me.  Its about managing money.  My parents take care of this so this has been helpful.  It discussed topics like credit cards, bank accounts, identity theft, debt, and apartment expenses.  In January the instructor says we'll go over budgetting more and possibly taxes.

In ADL, activities of daily living, my most important class we went over cleaning so far and sewing.  We plan to cover ironing, labeling, and more.  ADL and consumer ed are taught by the same instructor and he is real good.

Job readiness is lecture based with another student so taught 1:2 usually.  We discussed things to prep for a job such as resume writing, interview dress, interview questions, and where job ads are.

I think I got the most out of handwriting, job readiness ADL and consumer ed.  I am a bit disappointed with the cooking and hope it improves.  I asked to learn about cooking meats for meals.  Linda the instructor said we'd do more healthy things in january. I don't know how you'd know meat is done.  So far we did mainly baking.  This was fun and good practice measuring but not too practical.  I need to learn how to cook entrees for dinner.  There does not seem to be much of a curriculum for this class which surprised me.  The instructor plans week to week what we'll do.

Mobility is not working well.  They have instructors using NFB methodology teaching O and M and this way is not working for me well.

I will stay and take the bad with the good.  It may not be all I want, but something is better than nothing.

Well I hope those of you in school, have an excellent semester ahead.

Ashley
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.acb.org/pipermail/nabs/attachments/20100101/9626d77b/attachment.htm>